Bridge

Rubin Carter, who was a boxer, said, “The strategies of offense and defense are very similar between chess and football. Chess really brought closeness to the team back in those days.”

Some chess players love to play offense; one example was Mikhail Tal. Others prefer defense; Anatoly Karpov springs to mind. In bridge, a hand is usually more suitable for either offense or defense. Knowing in which camp your hand sits should be a strong influence during the auction.

Look at today’s East hand. Does it initially suggest offense or defense? North passes, East opens one heart, South overcalls two clubs, and West cuebids three clubs, showing three or more hearts and at least game-invitational values. After North leaps to five clubs, what should East do?

This predicament faced three robots at Bridge Base Online. Amazingly, they all passed. Five clubs was passed out and went down three ( losing three spades, one heart and one diamond). Minus 150 gave North-South 93.3% of the matchpoints.

That East hand screams offense, not defense. So why did the Easts pass? I have no idea! I must admit, I would have been tempted to jump straight to six hearts, hoping partner had, say, the spade ace and diamond king. Here, the slam would have depended on South’s lead. If he chose the club ace, I would have ruffed, drawn trumps and taken all 13 tricks. But if South had led the diamond ace and worked out that North’s four was high, he would have played a second diamond to defeat the contract. ( No pair bid six hearts in the BBO duplicate.)