JLOL

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This is a trivial pass imo. No aces is really death.

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Win the queen and lead a spade to the 7. Guess the endgame.

Just a preempt to me. He could cuebid something if he wanted to try for game. Pass seems clearcut.

Winston don't you play preempts? That is an obstructive bid that makes constructive bidding harder when your partner has a great hand. Some great players preempt very aggressively, some don't, but nobody is requiring 2 of the top 3 and rule of 2/3 anymore. It has been proven over time that it's better to make the bid more often than that, at the cost of constructive bidding. Opening with balanced 11s or unbalanced 10s can be justified as a constructive bidding tool, and it happens to steal sometimes. Responding light can be justified as a constructive bidding tool (might find a game if you have like QJxxx xx xx xxxx, might find a better partscore with xxxxxx xxxx xxx void), and it happens to steal a lot. Good bridge involves sometimes making obstructive bids at the cost of constructive bidding. Again that is why weak 2s are more popular than strong 2s now. In my opinion, the hands you get most stolen on are when you and your partner are both balanced weak NT hand types and can't get in, or when the weak hand has the 5 card suit and the strong hand is balanced and the strong hand doesn't act. Unlike Gnasher I think it's probably now or never for the weak NT hand type.

Cheers to a great friend and poster!

RHO is not often balancing. If LHO bids it's forcing. It is easily possible that the remaining points are split between LHO and partner, and partner is the one with short clubs and 2C gets passed out. Also if partner is the one with spades you could still belong in 4H but bidding 2C then 3H over 2S is really overbidding without safety. Our hand just isn't that good.

Learn whichever system is most common in your area. If you are american its probably SAYC.

3c sucks, it is not just a little aggressive. You don't have a hand that will just have good play for 3N opp a club stopper and max of 11. It is also commonly played as natural in USA at least (in BWS it is natural for instance).

1H for sure. Too much chance of hearts getting shut out if we bid 2C, and there is also clear danger of 2C being passed out when we have a good heart fit.

I play even like 1D 1H 2D as forcing. Basically it's just like you're bidding a new suit. You just need good agreements to handle all handtypes imo, sometimes it can get awkward. But yeah basically you are right.

Also regarding hand 2, I don't believe that Adam's partners bid clubs that often. If they have a 4 card major they will bid it, if they have a diamond stopper and values they will bid it in preference to clubs, and if they have no values LHO will probably let partner off the hook. Usually when partner bids clubs they have 5, this is especially true in competition. Although maybe Adam's partners are happier bidding 4 card club suits in competition than I am since he averages more clubs ;)

How do people who pass hand 1 avoid getting stolen from? Would you english people be more likely to double against someone who rarely passes the 1 bid, and/or opens light? It's not even just missing game opposite another balanced 11 to 13 count even though that is a factor to me, it's missing partscores when partner has like a 5 card suit and a 7 count and the opps get a free run also. Doubling 1C just makes it easy to compete effectively in those cases. I'm sure you do great when you're dealt a real 4441 hand but have fun waiting for it. Also Clee even though doubling with all 3 hands can work against you when they're declaring it can really work for you. You are doubling a lot more with a larger range of hands so when you do double it can be tough for them. Like on this hand 1 if they probably won't guess the club queen if they have to, and on hand 3 they may misguess an honor partner has etc.

Guess it depends how you play it then but to me 3H denies 4+ spades so I would bid 4S now.

Do you use leb?

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Auto splinter is expert standard, and probably barely (just because many don't know the sequence). I would expect maybe 1 % of the tournament bridge population to play it that way though. Lets call it forum poster standard? Also as an aside if you play strong club then this is like 66.

I think south has a routine 4H bid over a splinter. He has bad trumps and an 11 count with a stiff opposite stiff so the spades won't even go away on the clubs unless partner is 55. In fact I doubt south realized how much less desirable his shape was than 1426.

FWIW you should always play takeout doubles in NF pass situations, and some would argue you should even play them in low level FP situations (probably right but not how I have played them). I would play pass here as NF and would X for takeout. If I had no agreements I would go low with 2S since nothing else is sensible and hope to catch a raise.

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Downgrading for xx in partners suit in this auction should be normal. A lot of 15s with xx should pass I think. Also downgrading for a poor spade holding because partner has at most 3 spades and they are likely to lead the suit effectively should happen more often than it does. That said KQJ9x is a very nice source of tricks and should clearly be upgraded for, and as gnasher implies it's not like 2N always makes when 3N is going down so we should really be looking for reasons to bid 3N not for reasons not to.

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As a pro I would not want to join one of these organizations

Stop second guessing yourselves