ArtK78, on 2013-February-12, 21:05, said:
11 points? You can't seriously be counting the ♥Q?
If I replaced the ♥Q with the ♥2, would you still open the hand 1♠?
At the risk of asking an obvious question, you do realise that assets increase in value as well as decrease?
The HQ isn't worthless.
A priori maybe it's half its nominal value - maybe a bit less but probably not more. However, if you're counting the spades as 5 points you're underestimating their worth by at least a point, probably more like 1.5 points. Similarly, the KJ87 is worth rather more than 4 points - the 87 alone rate to be half a point on the average hand and the J is probably 1.5 points. If you're counting points, that adds up to about 12 plus whatever distributional values you want to throw in.
And yes, I think that opening this hand without the HQ is normal. Opening 2S stretches the range of that enough to make it very hard for partner to judge what to do, and passing that hand is just losing bridge. With the HQ it's a clear opener, and worth further action on many sequences.