Correct contract bridge / by E.V. Shepard ; including the official Laws of contract bridge adopted by the Whist Club, New York, and by all the leading clubs in America.

VII
OPENING TWO-BIDS
yEARS before Contract Bridge had become So.
ciety's Game, many Auction Bridge players had,
without official sanction, adopted the custom of allowing 500 points premium for a little slam and
IOOO points for a grand slam —just to liven up the
game-when a slam was both bid and made. The
great difficulty encountered in safely bidding slams
by any method known to Auction's greatest experts
finally resulted in a unique and more enlightening
form of contracting; this system of bidding very
powerful hands has been adopted by Contract
players of long experience, under the title of "slam
bidding." In its proper place there will be given
all the fascinating details of the art of bidding for
slams, also some of the less pleasing systems of bidding big hands. Do not be surprised if your Auction teacher raises hands of horror at the supposed
sacrilege of being asked to scrap Auction procedure
and to adopt new card values and more efficient
methods of partnership bidding. From my own
experience and what I have noted in the case of
others I think that Auction players require from two
to four years' constant Contract experience before
they are ready to admit the superiority of "slam
bidding."
The first step taken towards a slam contract is an
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