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[1] along with Milton Work, Wilbur Whitehead, Edward Valentine Shepard, George Reith, and others.
Chief referee was Alfred Gruenther, a lieutenant instructor at West Point[2] and bridge expert (and later Supreme Allied Commander Europe).
Ely Culbertson's other partners were Theodore Lightner, Waldemar von Zedtwitz, Howard Schenken, and Michael Gottlieb.
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".
Culbertson built up a lead that grew to 20,535; Lenz made up some of that gap but still finished 8,980 behind.