As for the two hands which actually seem to have something to do with bridge, I don’t see what is horrible about either of them.

In the first hand, Snarky’s plan was apparently to double and then bid diamonds. Nothing wrong with that. The Blue Team would have bid the same way on a far weaker hand and anyone from that period would have considered double to be automatic. In modern American bidding, it might be tad weak but only marginally so. The real mistake on this board is following through on the original plan and bidding 5D even though the auction didn’t go the way you wanted. Passing 4S is clear cut. First it is the only possible likely game. Give partner six spades to the Jack-deuce and it’s a decent trump suit. If, on top of that, he has anything ressembling a bid, it should be a good contract. There is no reason to think that 5D would be any better. What’s more, 4S is not doubled. As we see, that’s a real concern. Still, this seems to be more about a lack of experience or judgement in a difficult situation than about falling apart.

On the 1C hand, I told Snark in a private email that I saw little wrong with her bidding at all and especially that I didn’t see how it could be responsible for this disaster. Yes the opening is a bit light, but again only marginally so. When you have both majors in third seat you need to get in there and fight for the partial. Add a queen and the bid is impeccable. Once you’ve opened, you have to bid 2H. You made your bed. Lie in it. I will say that don’t like the pass to 5D. The contract rates to go down and you certainly don’t want to encourage pard to bid 5H. Still, the hand is offensive in nature, so that’s not horrible either.

I was quite sure that pard had to share some of the blame so I asked her what kind of passed hand could justify this bidding. She responded that he had something like: Jxx KJxxx xx AQx. And there you have it. While clearly right, this is an aggressive 4H. Once that call has been made, he expressed all his values. All of them. Not only is the hand not worth 5H, the Law says it’s wrong and the Death Holding in diamonds confirms it. The aggressive partnership bidding to 4H should have won this board (after all, it pushed the opponents into a phantom save!) but all the good work was undone by this terrible 5H card. Blame: 90% to pard for that awful call. 10% to Snark, mostly for the failure to double 5D. After all the opening bid should have led to a good result, like the psych did.

I did mean my LHO; I should fire my editor.

I don’t consider opening that third hand a psych (especially in the 3rd seat). I agree that the stiff A was not as good as having it with one of my four card suits. The only thing I would do differently with that hand is that next time, brace yourself, I’ll open it 1H. Opening it one of a minor and then supporting a major does imply more HCP strength than is actually present.

Our partnership comity was really and truly dead at that point, but we revived it some the next day when we took first in “X” and second overall in the A/X Swiss. Miraculously our coming in second instead of first was not my fault.

I have noticed less of the usual fighting at the table between partners in this area. It does happen, but rarely at volumes that disturb other tables.