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
Hand evaluation excess of 3 in the suit; for short suits only clear winner combinations are counted: An Acol strong 2 of a suit opening bid is made on 8 playing tricks (Landy 1998) This statistically derived method for evaluating Contract Bridge hands was developed by Zar Petkov. It attempts to account for many of the factors outlined above in a numerical way. A key differentiator between the bidding effectiveness of experts versus laymen is the use of hand visualisation during all stages of bidding. In his book "The Secrets of Winning Bridge", Jeff Rubens advises to focus on just a few