Slam-seeking conventions Slam-seeking conventions Slam-seeking conventions are codified artificial bids used in the card game contract bridge. Bidding and making a small slam (12 tricks) or grand slam (13 tricks) yields high bonuses ranging from 500 to 1500 points. However, the risk is also high as failure to fulfill the slam contract also means failure to score the bonus points for a game (300-500). Conventions have been devised to maximise the opportunity for success whilst minimising the risk of failure. Contract bridge bidding systems are mainly "natural" (most bids have an obvious meaning) or "artificial" (many bids have a meaning unrelated to
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