Posted 2012-January-11, 18:05
First, a suggestion. Rather than trying to describe a hand in a roundabout way like "KJxxxx and a relatively balanced hand with 5 more HCP scattered throughout", could you just include the hand (or as close an approximation as possible if you can't remember it, but that shouldn't be the case if the hand was played on BBO)? It's much more concise and provides a helpful visual reference for those of us who might want to respond to your questions, and we don't have to wade through different variations for which our answers might be very different. Also I believe it serves a useful function for you as it encourages more precise pattern recall.
Re. your first hand: your question about whether your LHO was right depends on what exactly he meant. If he meant that you would find very little support in the bridge community for opening 3C with a six card suit under any circumstances, of course he is wrong. On the contrary, given a hand like Fluffy suggests (say, xx xx xxx KQJ9xx) you would more likely be hard-pressed to find someone would wouldn't open 3C, at least at favorable or equal vulnerability. Especially if you play a system where 2C is your strong artificial bid, 3C becomes almost by necessity your "weak 2 bid" in clubs. If, on the other hand, he meant that you would find little support for your personal criteria for opening on a six card suit--"first seat and relatively decent clubs"--then he might well be right, especially if this is an example of "relatively decent". The club suit you give is NOT relatively decent, it's quite poor. Preemptive bids should have a very high offense:defense ratio, as Fluffy suggests; your partner is never going to be able to make intelligent decisions over your preemptive bids if they have virtually no definition aside from moderate length in the suit opened. Again, it's hard to answer your other questions without seeing your specific hand, but in third seat, I might very well open 3C on a hand that I wouldn't open 3C in first seat for various reasons, so the hand might well have been appropriate for a third seat opener.
Re. your second hand, you didn't include anything about the system you and your partner were playing, which is often useful if not crucial information. If you play 2/1, then 3NT was almost certainly not the right call, as you were in a game-forcing auction already with no need to go jumping around. 2NT would have left more room for exploration and still left open the possibility of playing 3NT if slam looked unlikely. If you are instead playing something "Standard American" based, then you have to establish a game force by other means. However, your partner's suggestion that 4C was the correct bid is completely bizarre (especially if you were playing matchpoints) as it blows by your most-likely game contract, 3NT. And it certainly isn't Gerber.
Revised Bridge Personality: 44 43 33 44
Dianne, I'm holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies... --Agent Dale Cooper