[Winstonm]

RSClyde, on 2013-November-25, 16:41, said:

Unbalanced hands care about shortness too and you will not figure it out if you do not ask.
You have 10 hearts and silent opponents, there are lots and lots of hands with stiff spades, a very high percentage of which will produce slam since they still have all of their HCP everywhere else. This hand is not some anomaly. Once you find out that partner has a stiff spade RKC tells you everything else you need to know and you can set the final contract with absolute certainty.

Yes it is possible to reach slam without a stiff spade, they are less frequent, easier to bid anyway because they require more HCPs, and you still have chances if you start with 2nt.
It is the rare hand indeed where partner takes off to the races over 4♣ but does nothing helpful over 2nt, and when partner signs off over a splinter, the spade suit is still a mystery and you'll have no idea what the hand can make.

There is some benefit to a 2NT bid because repsonder knows the fit is 10-card and opener does not; however, 2NT is not a perfect bid as it will miss a simple slam when opener holds KQx, Axxxx, Kx, xxx.

One must pick his poison and live with the results.

[RSClyde]

1eyedjack, on 2013-November-26, 07:51, said:

One of the reasons that I was apprehensive about the 4♣ splinter is that most partners opposite a splinter would I think expect a reasonably even distribution of length, values and controls between the other two unbid suits. That may not be a justified expectation or an agreement, but I think that it is close to a practical expectation even so. That is probably what makes a splinter so bad in the second example hand that I posted in this thread, if perhaps not the first.

You say that a 1♠ initial response is "beyond bad". But has a couple of things going for it.
Just as 2N consumes less bidding space than 4♣, so, any by about the same extent, 1♠ consumes less space than 2N.
There is a possibility that North might raise Spades, for which he may only require three trumps, and in which case you can RCKB in Spades, where the KQ of trumps is of more value than RCKB in Hearts. You may still be able to sign out in Hearts (at least if committing to 6).
You are of course left with a problem of how to handle this hand, but just because I do not know the answer to that question does not mean that there is no answer.

The problem with bidding spades is that you can lose the ability to put hearts in focus. Let partner rebid 2♥. Now what? Or 2♦, now 3nt over 4thSF. Plus if you aren't committed to slam it can be tough to return to hearts if spades gets raised.

[RSClyde]

Winstonm, on 2013-November-26, 08:18, said:

There is some benefit to a 2NT bid because repsonder knows the fit is 10-card and opener does not; however, 2NT is not a perfect bid as it will miss a simple slam when opener holds KQx, Axxxx, Kx, xxx.

One must pick his poison and live with the results.

Why didn't you give responder the K of clubs instead of the K of diamonds? Now bid slam (slightly worse I know). He wouldn't dream of moving with xx Axxxx xxx AKx, and certainly not with Kx Jxxxx, xxx, AKx. There are lots of slams missed starting with a splinter, even excluding stiff spades. Then of course, since you want partner to go nuts with the hand above (a hefty assumption), why not Kxx, Axxxx, KQ, xxx? It kind of looks like the same hand to opener.
Just pointing out that no bid is perfect doesn't make any bid equally good.

[Winstonm]

RSClyde, on 2013-November-27, 06:29, said:

Just pointing out that no bid is perfect doesn't make any bid equally good.

Quite right - likewise, pointing out a bid works best in a specific case does not mean it is the best bid in all cases.