[shevek]

A guy told me that he'd read somewhere that someone (get the picture) did a study of Blue Team slams over some extended period (?) in World Championships (?) and worked out that that they'd have scored more IMPs if they'd bid no slams, even after taking a hit on the flat frigid ones.
Anyone know?

[nigel_k]

I read somewhere the Blue Team did better in slam bidding than the US teams they played against. Of course, both could be true.

[PrecisionL]

From the Bridge World: February 1971 Editorial:

Commenting on the Omar Sharif Bridge Circus vs Aces Slam bidding of 840 boards (April 1970 BW Twenty-Six Slams):

"After 840 boards, the Americans' overall [slam] bidding average was higher than that of their Blue Team Club opponents.

"Hamman-Lawrence (Western style with 4-cd majors) consistently out-bid their counterparts, while Eisenberg-Goldman (Eastern style with 5-cd majors) had the best slam record we have ever seen over the last half of the match. So, practiced partnerships can be accurate in their slam bidding, even using Standard methods.

"Still, we must point out this: today, four of the six Aces use the Blue Team Club."

The Circus had seven different partnerships all playing BTC: Belladonna, Delmouly, Garozzo, Sharif, & Yallouze representing the Circus in various partnerships.

Only Jacoby-Wolf of the Aces used BTC.

In the April 1970 article, Blue Team Club was refered to as "the second-best slam bidding system in the world." What is the best? And the truth is that we have no pat answer.

I remember that Edgar Kaplan had an article in the Bridge World where he said for an unknown Bermuda Bowl, the Italian Slam bidding was poor.

In the 1961 Bermuda Bowl, the victors, the Italians gave their 1st place trophies to the USA team (including Howard Schenken) because the Italians had bid three grand slams that made (one on a finesse for a King) and had only one of them gone down, the USA would have won.

This post has been edited by PrecisionL: 2011-February-07, 14:48