Bridge

[springers]

<PRE>In which country did the card game bridge originate</PRE>

[X111]

A number of card games similar to whist can be traced all the way back to the early 16th century. They were all trick-taking games with a variety of minor variations. Whist became the dominant form, and enjoyed a loyal following for centuries. In the 1890s, the innovation of allowing the dealer to choose a trump suit became popular in the United States and the UK, and the resultant game was called "bridge whist". In 1904, the concept of using an auction phase to determine which player got to designate the trump suit caught hold, and this variation was known as "auction bridge". The modern game was the result of innovations to auction bridge made by Harold Vanderbilt. He wrote down his rules for contract bridge in 1925 and it became the dominant form of the game within a few years. It has supplanted all other forms of the game, including "auction bridge", so that "bridge" is now synonymous with "contract bridge". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word bridge is the English pronunciation of biritch, an older name of the game of unknown Middle Eastern origin. The OED speculates that it may come from a Turkish term, bir-�� which translates as "one-three" and is said to refer to the fact that one hand is exposed and three are concealed

[Peter Pedant]

 

 contract bridge - weren't the rules made up on a cruise? - And as the longer answer shows there were a lot of bridge games just at the turn of the century. My grandfather used to make his three children partner him in a game of bridge before bed time in the South African bush, before the First World War, which was kinda funny as contract bridge hadnt been invented (he liked auction bridge)