[awm]

The point is that there is value in varying your minor suit openings. When you hold 18-19 balanced, by far the majority of contracts will be played in 3NT or 4M. On those hands where you have slam in one minor or the other, there is plenty of space to find that.

The inference that if a particular minor is opened, you will not have four cards in the other minor (because (23)44 hands invariably open one minor or other) tends to be very useful to the defense, and not very useful to partner when you're just going to play 3NT anyways.

There are advantages to treatments where 1♦ guarantees four (or is 99% four) but most of these come in competitive sequences where neither side has game values and it becomes easier for partner to raise diamonds right away, or easier for you to rebid clubs after a negative double and have partner correct to diamonds. These advantages are minimized when opener has the 18-19 balanced hand, since you will usually have game values and you will usually be rebidding notrump anyway and not the other minor.

So my suggestion is to use one of hrothgar's favorites here: a mixed strategy, and randomize the choice of minor to open.

[hrothgar]

awm, on Dec 6 2005, 10:10 PM, said:

So my suggestion is to use one of hrothgar's favorites here: a mixed strategy, and randomize the choice of minor to open.

This strikes me as a perfectly reasonable strategy...

As I recall, the Hog (Mollo's Hog that is) was very fond of this ploy

[Kalvan14]

As I remember, the Hog played WEAKER MINOR, to steer opponents' lead toward his stronger suits. Which is not a bad policy in itself.

I am not really a fundamentalist in minor suits openings: I usually open 1♦ with 4-4, but also with 5-4 either way, if the hand is not worth a reverse.
With 3-3, I usually open 1♣. I don't like at all 1♣ on 2 cards, btw.

However, the key word here is "usually": tactically, it is worth to randomise a bit these openings. So I might open 1♦ with 3-3 in the minors too.

In the posted hand, the main point in opening 1♣ was the possibility of hearing 1♦ from partner.