Thomas Jefferson, the second richest president in US history and a slave owner, declared that all men are born equal and have an unalienable right to pursue happiness. What happens next is less certain. We know now that what his pen proclaimed publicly his penis applied privately through many an undiscriminating congress. The Jeffersonian paradox pretty well summarizes the current conflicted state of the union where the super rich can chase after pleasure in private jets while most citizens are stuck in the slow lane of a happiness highway that is greatly standin’ in the need of repair. Before the South Carolina primary I hadn’t realized that for powerful fat cats there are loopholes even in the Ten Commandments. Not being a great believer in elections I recall that Pontius Pilate called a snap election and Barabbas won it hands down. Let’s face it, even today slogans like ‘drive out the moneylenders’, ‘turn the other cheek’, and ‘render unto Caesar’ are not likely to garner many votes.

Call me a Socialist, but, as an individualist, I believe bridge partners were put on this earth to lend a helping hand in times of greatest need. To paraphrase Barack Obama, who is sounding more and more like a late entry into the GOP race, a partner is there only to do what a player cannot do for himself. They fulfill their responsibilities by providing trustworthy information through their bids and defensive signals. Exchanges of information may at times prove costly, but, as with the maintenance of a middle class through the education of its Youth, the short term costs are outweighed by the long term benefits. Good habits learned early pay off, whereas undisciplined behavior never produces lasting progress. So it is not a matter of humanistic principle, it is a matter of self-interest that principally drives such expenditures.

Let’s illustrate the current state of partnerships with some hands recently played at my local club. As North in fourth seat, both vulnerable, you hold this hand: ♠ AKT42 ♥ 8 ♦ Q74 ♣ K632. What would you bid after the sequence in front of you of 1♥ – Dbl – 1♠ ? What is your aim? Here was the full bidding sequence as it occurred and what North saw when the dummy appeared. It was obvious that something had gone horribly wrong.

NS had missed bidding a grand slam in any of 3 strains. The director was soon called and it transpired that my partner had bid 1♠ (and later bid 3♥!) on the following collection:  ♠ Q8 ♥ JT7542 ♦ 932  ♣ 84. This constituted what I would classify as an Obligatory Psych. If a famous sponsor bid that way, it might be termed ‘fanciful’ and if a great player did so, based on the final result it might be termed ‘brilliant’.

The interesting point about the hand is that North, an experienced player, never caught on and felt aggrieved. In my view, the reason this fake bid succeeded is that North could not trust her partner’s takeout double. In the old days a double of 1♠ was devoted to revealing the classical psych of this kind, but today one cannot rely on the nature of partner’s initial takeout double. Indeed, South’s double doesn’t appeal to me with all the points in the minors. Nonetheless an advance of 3♣ doesn’t get the job done with 2 cue bids available to show immediately the strength of the hand. Aren’t 12 HCP enough?

On different day I became the innocent victim of my own naivety with regard to takeout doubles. I opened 1♦ on ♠ KT5  ♥ KQ3 ♦ KQJT52 ♣ 8, overcalled with 1♥ on my left. Partner doubled, RHO passed and I was called upon to find a second bid. Your choice?

On the assumption that partner had shown the black suits by his double, I thought 1NT would play well, but I was wrong. The LHO led a club and the opponents ran off 5 club tricks, holding me to +90, when +130 was available in a diamond contract. Partner felt his double promised 4 spades and nothing else. It was a case of diminished responsibility – I was the one who was promising a club stopper along with a heart stopper. I myself with his hand would have bid 2♦ over 1NT. Why? Because if the opening bidder has a minimal flat hand with a club stopper and a heart stopper, where are the tricks to come from? Generally, holding aces I tend to opt for suit contracts – here anticipating spade ruffs in declarer’s hand and club ruffs in mine. Also note the ♥A with a heart stopper opposite should give rise to suspicions concerning the quality of the overcaller’s suit.

As with politicians, when my partners tell me something I want to believe them, even though I may have serious doubts. Here is a case where my partner didn’t follow that rule.

When the LHO opened 1♦ in 3rd seat it was obvious to me that her points lay elsewhere. A double followed by a NT bid shows my type of hand. The opponents kept bidding going, but that didn’t deter me in my quest for perfection. The remedy to overly active bidding on worthless suits is to place the contract in NT. Partner had other ideas. 2♣ was fair warning and would have made, but not 3♣. My feeling is that once you have warned partner and he persists, you should accept his decision, especially when you hold 3 HCP and he holds 19 HCP –  yet another example of where it is best to let the strong hand decide. Chances are partner heard you the first time. Another point: those 3 HCP are not in clubs, they are in spades where they are bound to be useful in a NT contract.

Similarly if one has adequately described one’s holding and asked partner to make a choice, stand by that choice. In other words, don’t second guess without just cause.

Partner made a nice balancing double, and should have passed 3♥, the optimum contract, as he had not promised any better hearts than what he had. 4♥ going down was a bottom.

So far we have shown examples that point to the fact that the trusting one’s partner should be, but isn’t, the cornerstone of today’s game of unleashed competition. To accept fully the opponents’ bidding is akin to buying poisoned assets. Not to say we are not in the market with our own flimsy offerings (as shown above). Call it the spirit of the times, but if we are to trust anyone, we should trust our partners. Next we see where inferences can be drawn from a partner’s defensive signals.

	North ♠   Q954 ♥   K32 ♦   K82 ♣   AT2
West ♠   AT83 ♥   Q6 ♦   T97653 ♣   J

Against a contract of 3♠ West leads the ♥Q which holds the trick, East playing the ♥8 and South the ♥7. EW are employing upside-down attitude, so the ♥8 discourages a continuation of hearts. What should West lead next? East is probably void in spades, so he holds a 2-suited hand and around 10 HCP. On the evidence of one’s own length in diamonds it is more than reasonable to assume he holds clubs and hearts. He can’t want a ruff in diamonds, so he must be encouraging a club switch. That appears a good choice as West’s ♠A controls the trumps. So the ♣J it is, won by the ♣A in dummy. A spade is led to West’s ace, as, sure enough, East discards a discouraging ♣2. A heart is led to partner’s ten, and he gives a club ruff, leading ♣3 his lowest remaining club. This is a superfluous suit preference signal indicating the ♦A to make up his 10 HCP. A diamond to the ace leads to a further club ruff. That defence would yield a decent score of +200 in a field where a contract of 4 hearts was rarely reached.

Unfortunately in practice West did not pause to draw inferences from the ♥8; he continued with a heart to the ♥T and on the ♥A discarded his ♣J as South ruffed in. The ♦A provided an entry to East’s hand and 1 club ruff was obtained, but not 2. Down 1 was an average result for a mediocre play. Although one may state that defensive signals are ‘suggestions, not commands’, they are suggestions that must be taken seriously. It is worthwhile to try to fit them into the context of the action so far and judge accordingly. A Republican might say that West should have got it right without a signal, while a Democrat could argue East should have signaled extravagantly with the ♥J. It is possible they are both right.

Now we come to my most recent harrowing experience at the bridge table. It had to do with a lead out of turn. Across North America there are self-proclaimed capitals of the world – the Fruitcake Capital of the World (Claxton), the Underwear Capital of the World (Knoxville), the Bird Dog Capital of the World (Waynesboro), the Safe Capital of the World (Hamilton), and the Cherry Capital of the World (Linden) are but a few of the undisputed ones. I propose my hometown be dubbed the Lead-Out-Of-Turn Capital of the World. I have contributed my fair share, but this time I was on the receiving end.

In the third round of a Victory Points Swiss, we needed a big score to get back into contention. On the last hand of the set the opponents bid to 7NT on the following auction: 2♣ – 2♠ (3 controls); 3♥ – 3♠; 4♦ – 4NT; 5♥ – 6NT; 7NT – Pass, and it was my bid holding the following hand: ♠ J87 ♥ 6 ♦ J632 ♣ AT872. I rechecked the bidding cards. Yes, it was certain my lead of the ♣A would defeat the contract and there was no way they could escape, so I doubled with a rare smile on my lips.  Imagine my horror when I looked up from the bidding cards to see my partner reaching into his hand for an opening lead. ‘No!’ I exclaimed firmly, but this was misinterpreted as meaning, ‘No questions, go ahead and make your lead’. Here is yet another example of making your intentions as clear as possible to a sleepy partner. It seemed as if in slow motion partner’s card turned in its transition from hand to tabletop. I could see it was the ♣9. One could admire the choice but not the manner in which it was exercised.

‘Stop it!’ I screamed too late, turning heads at neighboring tables. This was clearly an infraction of the Zero Tolerance Protocol, where one is supposed to say something like, ‘thank you, partner’, even when one is appalled, however, I feel that, just as with homicides, there are justifiable exceptions. No jury would find me guilty, if I could afford a good lawyer. The director was called, and she said, ‘you all know the options, so what will it be?’ Declarer forbade the lead of a club, and I was left to choose an alternate killing lead. Could there be more than one? I chose the ♥6 and this dummy appeared.

	Dummy ♠   KQT ♥   AKQT7 ♦   AKQT4 ♣   —
Me ♠   J87 ♥   6 ♦   J632 ♣   AT872

My hopes rose when declarer took a long time before playing the ♥T, losing to partner’s ♥J. Clearly declarer had chosen the wrong option. ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘thanks to partner’s gaffe, we are now going to put this down 2.’ Unfortunately my partner must have felt the restriction against no club lead still applied, as he returned a spade into dummy’s tenace. Declarer quickly claimed 12 tricks as he held 5 spades and the ♥9. No problem, as our teammates were in 5♥ making 11 tricks, so we gained the much needed 20 VP. What happened next is another story.

With a result like that one can see why some experienced club players advise never to bid a grand slam no matter what. So why bid 7NT? It appears to me to be mainly a problem of psychology, as a counting of controls would have revealed that a black ace was missing. Perhaps he slipped a clog with 7♦ on his mind. With such an imbalance of power, this problem would have been avoided if the strong hand had methods by which he could maintain control of the auction, determine the lie of the cards, and make the final decision. The control response was a good beginning, but the clash of wills in the cooperative setting that followed led to an avoidable conflict over which player would make the final decision.

PS  I awoke this morning to hear that one of the GOP candidates has suggested putting an American colony on the moon within the next 12 years. This is not as crazy as it seems on first hearing. It is a Utopian proposal for the fulfillment of American Dream, a high-tech version of Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, as it were, only this time there are no indigenous populations standing in the way of progress and immigration can be more tightly controlled. Wall Street reacted favorably. The moon colony provides an answer to the difficult question of where to move to after Florida runs out of real estate. As with the Internet the US government would cover the development costs, so it would be a great investment opportunity for those who get in early and buy before the Chinese get their hands on it. Besides that, therein may lie the source of a breakthrough towards a Two-State Solution. All that needs be done is to persuade the Palestinians to trade peace for land on the dark side of the moon, which, I am told, closely resembles large tracts of the Gaza Strip during a blackout. Of course, water and mineral rights and right of access thereto would be retained by the USA and its allies, as reasonably one can’t be expected to give up something so valuable and get absolutely nothing in return.