The "Bridge Battle of the Century" was the name given to a celebrated 1931–1932

contract bridge Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions o ...

challenge match between

Ely Culbertson Elie Almon Culbertson (July 22, 1891 – December 27, 1955), known as Ely Culbertson, was an American contract bridge entrepreneur and personality dominant during the 1930s. He played a major role in the popularization of the new game and was wide ...

and

Sidney Lenz Sidney Samuel Lenz (1873 – 1960) was an American contract bridge player and writer. He is a member of the American Contract Bridge League Hall of Fame, being inducted in the second (1965) class. Career Lenz was born July 12, 1873 in a suburb of ...

and their partners. The match pitted Culberson's bidding system, which had been laid out in his widely selling ''Contract Bridge Blue Book'' of 1930 and was sweeping the bridge world, against the Official System which had been developed by a group calling itself the Bridge Headquarters, of which Lenz was a member along with

Milton Work Milton Cooper Work (September 15, 1864 – June 27, 1934) was an American authority on whist, bridge whist, auction and contract bridge. At least during the 19th century he was a cricket player, writer, and official. Work, Sidney Lenz, and Oswald ...

Wilbur Whitehead Wilbur Cherrier Whitehead (1866-1931) was an American auction bridge and contract bridge player and writer. Whitehead was president of the Simplex Automobile Company but retired in 1910 to devote himself to bridge. He invented several convention ...

, Edward Valentine Shepard, George Reith, and others. The two camps, Culbertson and the Bridge Headquarters, engaged in a war of words regarding which system was superior (Culbertson, on arriving from Europe on the ''

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...

'', was quoted as describing the Official System as "Eighty percent Culbertson, twelve percent Work and Lenz, and eight percent rubbish") and Culbertson offered a challenge to Lenz's group, which was accepted. The format was to be pair-against-pair. Culbertson laid down a bet of $5,000 and Lenz $1,000 (but the winnings to go to charity in any case). The match attracted a mass audience, being front-page news across the world and widely reported on the radio; the term "Bridge Battle of the Century" was used in contemporary reporting. NBC aired a fifteen-minute radio broadcast on the match each night. The first part of the match was played at the Chatham Hotel, in the Culbertson's apartment. The second part was played in the newly opened

Waldorf-Astoria The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultz ...

. Chief referee was

Alfred Gruenther General Alfred Maximilian Gruenther (March 3, 1899 – May 30, 1983) was a senior United States Army officer, Red Cross president, and bridge player. After being commissioned towards the end of World War I, he served in the army throughout t ...

, a lieutenant instructor at West Point. Ely Culbertson's primary partner was his wife

Josephine Culbertson Josephine M. "Jo" Culbertson (''née'' Murphy; 2 February 1898 – March 23, 1956) was an American bridge player, teacher, theorist and writer. Josephine Murphy was born in Bayside, New York (now in Queens), to parents John Edward Murphy and Sara ...

(nowadays considered by some to have been a stronger player than her husband); she played 88 of the 150 rubbers. Ely Culbertson's other partners were

Theodore Lightner Theodore Alexander "Teddy" Lightner (14 September 1893 – November 1981) was an American bridge player. He developed the Lightner double, a bridge bidding convention. Lightner was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and moved to Chicago and later ...

Waldemar von Zedtwitz Waldemar Konrad von Zedtwitz (May 8, 1896 – October 5, 1984) was a German-born American bridge player and administrator. Life Von Zedtwitz was born in Berlin, Germany. His mother was Mary Elizabeth Breckinridge Caldwell, daughter of American b ...

Howard Schenken Howard Schenken (September 28, 1903 – February 20, 1979) was an American bridge player, writer, and long-time syndicated bridge columnist. He was from New York City. He won three Bermuda Bowl titles, and set several North American records. Most r ...

, and Michael Gottlieb. Lenz chose as his partner emerging great

Oswald Jacoby Oswald "Ozzie", "Jake" Jacoby (December 8, 1902 – June 27, 1984) was an American contract bridge player and author, considered one of the greatest bridge players of all time and a key innovator in the game, having helped popularize widely used bi ...

, but Jacoby quit about two-thirds of the way through the match, being dissatisfied with Lenz's play. Winfield Liggett was Lenz's partner for the remainder of the match. According to Gruenther, what chiefly upset Jacoby was that Lenz often criticised his play when (in his opinion) it was Lenz who had made the mistake. An example occurred in the 97th rubber, when after one hand Lenz criticised Jacoby's defence. Jacoby retorted that he had made a play that "only twelve experts in the country would understand, and unfortunately Mr Lenz did not appear, at that particular moment, to be one of them". The match was for 150 rubbers and ran from December 1931 into January 1932. Lenz and Jacoby led through 43 rubbers, but then fell behind. Jacoby quit after the 103rd rubber. Culbertson built up a lead that grew to 20,535; Lenz made up some of that gap but still finished 8,980 behind.

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Further reading