Padma had been attending a seminar titled “From Good to Great”. She wanted to share her key learning with her bridge friends. She was panting as she wanted to get it off her chest, “It is one thing to become the best in your field of competence. Bu the more important is remaining there takes a lot of effort. Companies which have remained at the top for over 10 years require special accolades.”
Kaushik liked to compare anything and everything to Bridge. “Getting to the top is like doing well on declarer play and staying there is having a steady partner and fine-tuning defence. If you want to remain at the top, you have to keep improving on Defence”. Kingo wanted to make a rushed comment, “Kaushik, do you believe in attack is the best form of defence or defence is the best form of attack. These slogans are contradictory, and one needs to state the thought you are following.”
Kaushik intervened, “All I am saying is that if you want to become a champion Bridge player and stay there, your focus on defence has to be more important as your declarer play will continuously improve with time”. Prabha had been listening silently agreed with Kaushik. She added, “After all you end up defending 50 per cent of the time and hence focus on defence is important. Somehow, in the world of Bridge Declarer play is given more importance – Look at the number of books on bridge and you will see large number on declarer play books and very few focussed on Defence.”
Padma supported the discussion saying “It is probably because Defence is more difficult than declarer play. When you are the declarer, you are all by yourself. In defence, communication with partner and working together is the key complexity which makes it difficult”. Kaushik wanted to make a key point, “My point is that if it is more difficult, we should have more books on this area. The reason why there aren’t so many books on defence could be because there is not enough talent in the marketplace to write on this subject or not enough readers to read this subject. There is a sense of romance about declarer play – it is like hitting fours and sixes are more popular and defensive strokes on cricket are an also-ran.”
It was time to leave, and everyone left thinking how does one focus on something which is extremely important but not so palatable but determined to focus on defence in the team.
Tailpiece:
Goofy thought to himself. This is nothing new for us. Defence is our forte and we start barking the moment we smell a stranger in the neighbourhood.
