Wednesday 4 September 2024

By George by Foxymoron

1790 was a momentous year in US politics as it featured the first State of the Union address by George Washington in January and they were busy passing the Patent Act and the Copyright Act by the end of that year. The original hand-written speech is in the George Washington Presidential Library:


1790 is a rare score in bridge and I have never achieved or conceded it. It can only arise from a non-vulnerable 7NT doubled, making. The expression By George is what is known as a minced oath, an expression of surprise at an occurrence. It appeared in Henry V by Shakespeare and in other famous works, so predates George Washington by a couple of centuries..

Harvey Fox had the pleasure of notching up this unusual score of +1790 and the fact that it was on a squeeze was icing on the cake:


Harvey and Ed Sanders bid, uncontested until the double, 1D  - 2S - 3D  - 4D - 4NT - 5H - 5NT - 6D - 7N - (X) - All Pass. 2S was strong and 4NT was key-card Blackwood for diamonds and East showed two key cards without the queen of diamonds. Seven Diamonds is a better contract as you can ruff out the queen of spades. North's double was "speculative" and reminds me of Reese's comment. "You were right not to double 7NT, ma'am, as you did not intend to lead your ace!" Here there was no ace to cash and North tried a club. Harvey rose with the ace and ran all the diamonds, retaining the queen of clubs in hand and squeezing North in the black suits.

If South has the king of clubs and the queen of spades, then North needs to lead a spade to break up the squeeze on his partner. The keen student of compound squeezes will have, by now, worked out the only defence if the queen and ten of spades are exchanged in the above diagram. Solution next week.

And I was surprised that "icing on the cake" as an idiom is relatively modern. The earliest known use is:
There are sins and there are sins, but the sins I speak of are the chocolate icing on the cake of life - The Sin of Pat Muldoon” - John McLiamin, 1957

+1100 has been "christened" a Henry after the seizure of the throne in that year by Henry I and I am told +1400 is known as an Owain after the rebellion of the Welsh martyr Owain Glyndwr in that year. +1660 for 6 of a major doubled is known as a Restoration after the return to the throne of Charles II in that year. I guess +1790 will henceforth have to be known as a Washington. All good clean fun.

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