Responding with two five card suits

Here's a hand that came up a previous game. Partner opens the bidding 1♣. RHO Passes. Your turn to bid and you hold this hand:

You hold this hand:
♠Q9843
♥QJ862
♦T75
♣

Do you bid? You don't have 6 HCP.

True but bridge players these days are pretty aggressive. Nothing wrong with responding on this hand. The question is WHAT do you respond?

Most players responded 1♥ on this hand. Which is incorrect. If you are going to respond on this hand you need to respond 1♠. With two five card suits you always bid your HIGHER ranking suit first. ♠ are ranked higher than ♥. Respond 1♠. That way when Partner makes the inevitable NT response you can rebid some number of ♥. If Partner puts you back to your first bid suit you are still at the SAME level.

So on this hand you respond 1♠. Partner bids 1NT. You can now rebid 2♥. Partner can either Pass 2♥ OR bid 2♠. Either way you are playing at the 2 level. Which is fine by you. You don't want to get any higher!

What would YOU bid?

Hand
♠8
♥A85
♦KT872
♣AJT5

So this hand was Dealer and opened the bidding 1♦. Not quite the full 13 HCP but not a bad opening bid. Partner responded 1♠. Now what should this hand bid?

The correct response to this bid is 2♣. That should show a hand with 5♦ and 4♣. It does not show any more values than the original opening bid did. However it also does not limit their hand that much either. This hand could still have as much as 18 points in it.

However at the table this hand responded 1NT. This DOES limit the hand to about 12 to 14 HCP (which the hand has) but also shows a BALANCED hand. This hand is not balanced. This hand has a singleton in their Partner's suit. Some people don't mind responding 1NT with a singleton as long as Partner has bid the suit but if I have a choice, I don't. Partner is counting on you for at least 2 in their suit when you choose to rebid NT. On some hands I could be stuck but with this one I don't think the player is. They have a fine 2♣ bid.

In any case now their Partner rebids 2♣ on their hand. This should show 5♠ and 4♣. It is not a forcing bid.

Here this hand has a perfect Pass! Partner has saved the day by bidding 2♣. No trump is NOT the place to be.

However this hand rebid 2NT. Not so good. 2NT ended the auction and they were down FOUR. A well deserved bad board for that bidding. Partner had a singleton ♥ and the Opponents got into those. It was ugly. Of course the Opponents felt badly about it and kept apologizing for taking all the tricks (Anne is too nice) but Opener got what they deserved on that one.