2C opening - Try not to bid it

2♣ opening

2♣ is a bid that shows a very strong hand that is good enough on its own to get to game. Opening 2♣ should be a bid that you want to avoid whenever possible. A lot of people want to open 2♣ because it means they have a great hand and its exciting to use.

The rule for using 2♣  is as follows - Only bid 2♣ when there is a good possibility that any other opening bid (on the 1 level) would be followed by 3 passes or it is a single suited hand that can't be described well enough with a 1 level opening (typically 19/20 + points very good single suiter hand, where opening 1 then rebidding anything doesn't do it justice).

The sort of hands that face a real risk of being passed out typically contain 22+ points. Lower point count hands can still be very powerful, but don't need to open 2♣ as they won't be passed out. Take the following hand. 

This hand is a clear cut 1♠ opening. It is too good to open 4♠ (which is typically a more pre-emptive, 6-10 points and long spades, usually 8). There are hundreds of variations of how the bidding can go, but starting naturally at the 1 level is much more productive than starting unnaturally at 2♣. 

The full hand is as follows - 

With a misfit (that is discoverable once you open 1♠), 4♠ is the best contract, whereas if you open 2♣ partner will surely drive to slam with two Aces. 

Strength versus High Card Point Strength (HCP)

Low high card point hands can be very strong, you can make slam or even grandslam without many points. However, when it comes to bidding, it is important to differentiate between high card point strength and other strength. The difference typically is - when you have "strong" hands that lack High Card Points, you typically need a fit. Not only a trump fit, but also you need your partner's cards to be in the correct spot.

However, when you open 2♣ showing say 22+ HCP, partner can know to bid slam with say 10+ points even if you are misfitting.

On this bidding, partner communicated a very good distributional hand, that only needs a couple well placed cards to make slam. But partner, was able to easily judge that their hand was not very good in context.

However, imagine if you opened 2♣ - would west be able to stop out of slam? And then when you end up having 24 points, gets blamed for not bidding slam. How would west differentiate and have any clue what to do.