Grand Slam (BBC TV)

Last updated

Grand Slam was the title of three series of duplicate bridge tournaments broadcast on BBC2 television between 1981 and 1983. The first two series were international matches between teams from the United States and the UK, while the third was a British regional knockout competition.

Contents

The programmes were presented by Jeremy James and commentary was provided by other bridge experts. For the international series, books were published prior to the broadcasts documenting the boards and recording the players' thoughts as they bid and played the hands. [1] [2]

International tournament 1

Broadcast in 13 programmes between 11 October 1981 and 3 January 1982, [3] the first tournament featured 65 boards of duplicate bridge. Each US pair played each UK pair in approximately half of the boards. [4] The teams were:

The commentator was John Beard. After opening up a wide lead and losing it again, the British team eventually won the tournament by 7 IMPs.

International tournament 2

The second international tournament was played at Painswick House, Gloucestershire, and broadcast between 20 February and 14 May 1983. [5] There were 78 deals in seven sessions, and a prize of £8,000. With one exception, the teams were as in the first series:

Commentary was by Jeremy Flint. The British team won again, this time by 32 IMPs.

Regional tournament

Later in 1983, from 10 September to 10 December, BBC2 broadcast a knockout tournament among teams from British bridge clubs. [6] The club pairs were advised by four experts: Jane and Tony Priday, Irving Rose, and Victor Mollo. The teams were: Birmingham, Southampton, Buchanan (Scotland), Croesyceiliog (Wales), Bristol, St John's Wood "A" and "B", and Manchester. Two programmes were devoted to each match.

Broadcast commentary was provided by Jeremy Flint, Victor Mollo, and Tony Priday.

Related Research Articles

<i>Arena</i> (British TV series) British television documentary series

Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC since 1 October 1975. Voted by TV executives in Broadcast magazine as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has produced more than six hundred episodes directed by, among others, Frederick Baker, Jana Boková, Jonathan Demme, Nigel Finch, Mary Harron, Vikram Jayanti, Vivian Kubrick, Paul Lee, Adam Low, Bernard MacMahon, James Marsh, Leslie Megahey, Volker Schlondorff, Martin Scorsese, Julien Temple, Anthony Wall, Leslie Woodhead, and Alan Yentob.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duplicate bridge</span> Variant of contract bridge card game

Duplicate bridge is a variation of contract bridge where the same set of bridge deals are played by different competitors, and scoring is based on relative performance. In this way, every hand, whether strong or weak, is played in competition with others playing identical cards, and the element of skill is heightened while that of chance is reduced. This stands in contrast to Bridge played without duplication, where each hand is freshly dealt and where scores may be more affected by chance in the short run.

The Regal Trophy was an annual knock-out competition for British rugby league football clubs. Organised by the Rugby Football League (RFL), the competition was open to all professional clubs in the British rugby league system, but amateur teams and French clubs also took part at various points during its existence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jo Durie</span> British tennis player

Joanna Mary Durie is a former world No. 5 tennis player from the United Kingdom. During her career, she also reached No. 9 in doubles, and won two Grand Slam titles, both in the mixed doubles with Jeremy Bates.

The Bermuda Bowl is a biennial contract bridge world championship for national teams. It is contested every odd-numbered year under the auspices of the World Bridge Federation (WBF), alongside the Venice Cup (women), the d'Orsi Senior Bowl and the Wuhan Cup (mixed). Entries formally represent WBF zones as well as nations, so it is also known as the World Zonal Open Team Championship. It is the oldest event that confers the title of world champion in bridge, and was first contested in 1950. The Bermuda Bowl trophy is awarded to the winning team, and is named for the site of the inaugural tournament, the Atlantic archipelago of Bermuda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Sport</span> Sports division of the BBC

BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flagship analysis programmes such as Match of the Day, Test Match Special, Ski Sunday, Today at Wimbledon and previously Grandstand. Results, analysis and coverage is also added to the BBC Sport website and through the BBC Red Button interactive television service.

The Venice Cup is a biennial world championship contract bridge tournament for national teams of Women. It is contested every odd-number year under the auspices of the World Bridge Federation (WBF), alongside the Bermuda Bowl (Open) and d'Orsi Bowl (Seniors). Entries formally represent WBF Zones as well as nations so it is also known as the "World Zonal Women Team Championship", one of three "World Zonal Team Championships". It was first contested in 1974, as one long match between two teams, and has been concurrent with the Bermuda Bowl from 1985.

<i>Breakfast Time</i> (British TV programme) Television series

Breakfast Time is British television's first national breakfast television programme. It was broadcast from 17 January 1983 until 29 September 1989 on BBC1 across the United Kingdom. It was broadcast for the first time just over two weeks before TV-am, the commercial breakfast television station.

The BDO World Darts Championship was a professional darts tournament organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and held annually from 1978 to 2020.

Nico Gardener was a British international bridge player and a leading bridge teacher in London and on cruise ships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Priday</span>

Richard Anthony (Tony) Priday was an English bridge player and journalist, who had a longstanding and successful partnership with Claude Rodrigue. He was a member of Great Britain teams that finished third in the 1962 Bermuda Bowl and the 1976 World Team Olympiad, and those that won European Bridge League (EBL) championship teams-of-four in 1961 and came second in 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicola Smith</span>

Nicola Patricia Smith MBE, née Gardener, is a world champion English bridge player. She has many successes to her credit in more than 30 years of international competition, initially as Nicola Gardener. As of October 2017 she ranked first among Women World Grand Masters both by world masterpoints (MP) that decay annually and by placing points (PP) that do not.

<i>The Master Game</i> BBC chess programme

The Master Game is a BBC production of televised chess tournaments that ran for seven series on BBC2 from 1976 to 1983.

Jacquelyn M. "Jacqui" Mitchell is an American bridge player from New York City and was the wife of Victor Mitchell who, like her, played in international events. According to Alan Truscott, writing in The New York Times in early 1987, in September 1986 she became the World Bridge Federation (WBF) highest-ranked woman player. She has won five world titles, four of them when partnering Gail Moss.

Matthew "Matt" Granovetter is an American bridge player and writer. Granovetter is from Jersey City, New Jersey, and graduated from Hunter College. He subsequently moved to Netanya, Israel. After spending 1993 to 2005 in Israel, he returned with his wife Pamela to the US. They now live in Cincinnati.

Gail Harte Greenberg is a professional American bridge player from New York City. She has won major tournaments as Gail Shane, Gail Moss, and Gail Moss Greenberg. Sometime prior to the 2014 European and World meets, she was one of 73 Women World Grand Masters, ranked about 40th by placing points that do not decay over time. She married successively Steve Shane, Mike Moss and Jack Greenberg, and is the mother of Jill Levin and Brad Moss, all five being successful bridge players.

The United States Bridge Championships (USBC) is a yearly competition held to select either one or two teams that will represent the United States at international competition for the game of contract bridge. The general conditions of contest used by the United States Bridge Federation can be found here. There are multiple events in the USBC including Open, Women, Seniors, and Mixed divisions. This article contains information about the Open division in which anyone of any age or gender can compete.

Pat Davies is a world-champion English bridge player. Her partners have included Nicola Smith with whom she played in two BBC-televised bridge series Grand Slam, broadcast in 1981–2 and 1983. Pat was awarded the prestigious English Bridge Union Diamond award in 2017 for her outstanding contribution to English bridge in both domestic and international competitions dating back to 1977.

References

  1. ↑ James, Jeremy (1981). Grand slam : an international television bridge tournament. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. p. 7. ISBN   0-563-20047-2. OCLC   16537438.
  2. ↑ Flint, Jeremy (1983). Grand slam : an international bridge tournament between the United Kingdom and the United States. Feltham: Country Life. p. 7. ISBN   0-600-36878-5. OCLC   16604479.
  3. ↑ "BBC Two England - 11 October 1981 - BBC Genome". BBC Genome. BBC. 2019. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  4. ↑ James 1981.
  5. ↑ "BBC Two England - 20 February 1983 - BBC Genome". BBC Genome. BBC. 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  6. ↑ "BBC Two England - 10 September 1983 - BBC Genome". BBC Genome. BBC. 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.