Grand slam force Grand slam force The Grand Slam Force is a bidding convention in contract bridge that was developed by Ely Culbertson in 1936. It is intended to be used in cases where the combined hands of a partnership are so strong that a slam (winning at least 12 tricks) is a near-certainty and a grand slam (winning all 13 tricks) is a possibility. It allows one partner to gain information on the quality of trumps in the other partner's hand. When this convention is in force, a bid of 5NT (five notrump), when it does not conflict with other conventions used
History of contract bridge History of contract bridge The history of contract bridge, one of the world's most popular partnership card games, may be dated from the early 16th-century invention of trick-taking games such as whist. Bridge departed from whist with the creation of in the 19th century, and evolved through the late 19th and early 20th centuries to form the present game. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "bridge" is the English pronunciation of the game called ""biritch"". It followed on from whist, which initially was the dominant trick-playing game and enjoyed a loyal following for centuries. The oldest known reference