Gordon Robinson | Don’t count trees; save the forest

In dominoes, as in any other sport, defense is all important.

Don’t. Start. With. Me! Domino is as much a sport (albeit labelled a ‘mindsport’) and requires as much physical and mental fitness as cricket, football, chess and bridge. As many modern West Indian cricketers should know, unfit or mentally weak persons don’t succeed at tournament-level dominoes for more than a session.

But I digress. Let’s return to domino defense. Again, like any other sport, defensive requirements and technique depend on field position. Slip catchers must have excellent reflexes and be aggressive, while boundaries are defended by more conservative, less pro-active types.

In dominoes, if you sit in second seat, ‘below’ the poser, your task is conservative – to defend your own hand. If you sit in fourth seat, ‘above’ the poser, you must be aggressive, regardless of detriment to your hand. Your primary job is to pass the poser.

Of course, like in any other sport, strategies are fluid, because things change when the gates open (horseracing) or the pose is known (dominoes). For example, if the poser passes partner, immediately your situation becomes more conservative, although you still must pass the poser. But partner, as an early passed hand, must pass poser’s partner. Defense just became more complicated and nuanced.

A hypothetical example: in second seat, your hand is six-four; six-deuce; double four; five-four; four-blank; trey-deuce; five-ace. Double-six is posed. The last card you want to play is six-four, however compelling the urge may be to signal to partner your strongest card. That play would put double-four in jeopardy, which is contrary to your responsibility in the protect-my-own-hand seat. You badly need some other dummy to introduce four. The good news is, you don’t hold four-deuce, so six-deuce (hoping for deuce-four to drop) is your correct first play.

Holding that same hand in fourth seat against the same pose, partner plays, say, six-five. You know four isn’t coming but, if five-trey comes from poser’s partner, you can protect and attack simultaneously with trey-deuce because poser won’t be able to go two-sixes on partner and, who knows, deuce-four might magically appear. If this doesn’t happen (maybe third-seat plays double-five), you must attack the poser with six-four immediately (you don’t want to cut partner’s card unnecessarily), with the intent to ‘four him’ at least twice more, regardless of detriment to double-four.

So, in all sports, a defense-attack combo is the best defense, hence, NFL defenses include pass-rushers and defensive backs. Unfortunately, in politics, no strategy is based on logic or common sense. Mind control is always the goal. Instead of parry or thrust, obfuscation and confusion are favoured defensive tools.

DON’T GIVE IN

So, faced with mounting corruption allegations and a fourth COVID, wave encouraged by unnecessarily relaxed pandemic restrictions, seemingly driven by fear of further macro-economic fallout, government defends by announcing an impending Cabinet reshuffle.

Really? Seriously?

It seems to have worked as, everywhere you turn, discussions as to who should go; who should stay; who should be transferred dominate airwaves and fills newspaper letters and opinion pages. The speed and enthusiasm with which we’ve leapt into government’s distraction trap has been, like Michael Jordan, unbelievaBULL.

A Cabinet reshuffle is just another version of Gene Autry’s and my bridge strategy used when we knew we’d made an error. We quickly shuffled up the cards (thus erasing the evidence) and moved on to the next hand silently.

Government is trying to obscure evidence of recent governance mis-steps and pandemic mismanagement by shuffling ministerial cards and moving on. But what difference is this likely to make? PM’s options haven’t widened. He still must pick his ‘shuffled’ Cabinet from the usual suspects (less than 60 candidates). Titles may change, but faces, policy-making and organisational management capabilities won’t.

Don’t give in to obvious distraction. Stay focused on big-picture issues. Leave tree counting to tribal sycophants. The forest is still on fire.

Peace and Love!

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.