[jogs]

1) T98xxx, Axx, Axx, x
2) Q98xxx, QJx, QJx, x

I rather bid 2♠ with hand 1 and pass with hand 2.

[mycroft]

Absolutely. But I'd rather bid 2♠ with Q98xxx xxx xxx x than either of those two hands (provided it's legal in my area)...

[CSGibson]

I've stated this previously, but I was tracking my preempts for effectiveness, playing against only expert competition. What I found is that a traditional preempt (decent suit, no first round controls outside of the suit, expected suit length, no 4 card major) had very little variance with the average - to be expected, I suppose, since everyone preempted those hands. Hands with 1 flaw from the above criteria were huge winners in the long run. Hands with 2 or more flaws, however, were huge losers in the long run.

My conclusion was that in that partnership and against good opponents, it was good to expand preempts to be slightly more wide-ranging than traditional constructive preempts without giving up all semblance of constructiveness.