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
Bridge Battle of the Century Bridge Battle of the Century The "Bridge Battle of the Century" was the name given to a celebrated 1931–1932 contract bridge challenge match between Ely Culbertson and Sidney Lenz and their partners. 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 along with Milton Work, Wilbur Whitehead, Edward Valentine Shepard, George Reith, and others. The two camps, Culbertson and the