The Bermuda Bowl is a biennial contract bridge world championship for national . 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.40th World Teams; "Information". 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.
The term Bermuda Bowl is sometimes used for the entire two-week event, comprising the four zonal teams and one or more concurrent lesser tournaments.
Marrakesh, Morocco hosted the latest contest in August–September 2023, where Switzerland won the title.
Structure See a description of the identical "Senior Bowl" structure or a detailed account of the 2011 event (below).
Inauguration and evolution Organized principally by Norman Bach, an accountant and bridge player from Bermuda who played for Britain,Bach won the Gold Cup for Great Britain in 1938 and was playing captain of the British team in the European Championships in 1938 and 1939. See The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, 6th edition, page 605. the Bermuda Bowl was the first world championship event held after World War II, and started as a competition between the US, Europe and Britain in 1950.
The first event was won by the US. After this, the Bermuda Bowl became a yearly challenge match between the US and the European champions. The format evolved progressively, with more teams and the addition of events for women and seniors. Key milestones were:
1950: The first open team event in Bermuda between the USA, Europe and Britain who played round-robin for raw scores or "total points". 1951: The next several contests were head-on matches between representatives of the American Contract Bridge League (North America) and the European Bridge League. 1958: The tournament permanently included the champions of South America. 1961: Eligibility was expanded to include the defending champions. 1966: The tournament expanded to five teams, with the addition of a representative from Asia. 1971: The field was expanded to include Australia. 1974: The World Bridge Federation inaugurated the Venice Cup for women's teams, contested four times on no fixed schedule before 1985. 1979: The defending champions were no longer eligible on that basis alone. 1981: Europe was awarded two places in the tournament. There would be nine teams if every WBF zone sent a champion team. 1983: North America joined Europe with double representation, and the host country was automatically included too, so the potential size of the field increased by two. European and North American champions would have two places in the four-team semifinal round. European and North American runners up would contend with champions of the other zones and the host country for two other semifinal slots. 1985: The Bermuda Bowl for open teams and Venice Cup for women would be contested side-by-side in tournaments with the same structure, and in a venue outside Europe and North America (maintained until 2001).
Predecessors
Austria won the 1937 International Bridge League (IBL) championships for both open and women's national teams. They are commonly considered the first world championships for national teams, and the first world championship tournaments of any kind, because teams from the United States entered both flights, two open teams and one women's.
The IBL was a predecessor of both the European Bridge League (est. 1947) and the WBF (est. 1958), although there was a competing international organization in the 1930s. The IBL organized annual championships for (open) national teams beginning in 1932 and for women beginning in 1935. Prior to 1937, Austria won three of five in the open category and both in the women category. All of the sites were in Europe and the European Bridge League considers the 1930s series to be the first eight European Teams Championships. + International championships under IBL auspicesYear Site Open WomenRankTeamRankTeam 1932 Scheveningen, Netherlands 1 Austria 1933 London, England 1 Austria 1934 Vienna, Austria 1 Hungary 1935 Brussels, Belgium 1 France 1 Austria 1936 Stockholm, Sweden 1 Austria 1 Austria 19376th European Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1937. EBL. Budapest, Hungary 1 Austria Karl von Bluhdorn, Edward Frischauer, Walter Herbert, Hans Jellinek, Udo von Meissl, Karl Schneider; Paul Stern 1 Austria 2 Culbertson Ely Culbertson, Josephine Culbertson, Helen Sobel, Charles Vogelhofer 3 Minneapolis Hungary 1938 Oslo, Norway 1 Hungary 1 Denmark 1939 The Hague, Netherlands 1 Sweden 1 France
In the 1937 (6–20 June) open tournament there were 19 teams from 18 countries: the USA had two teams, one led by Ely Culbertson which came second.
In the knockout stage, Culbertson beat Norway and Hungary before losing to Austria. USA Minneapolis lost to Austria in the semifinal.(Morehead)
World War II practically destroyed the IBL and its nascent world championship tournament series.
With Austria the leading nation at the card table, the 1938 Anschluss of Germany and Austria was a great disruption. The leading bridge theorist and mentor Paul Stern was an outspoken opponent of Nazism; he fled to London and later became a British subject. That same year, at least Rixi Scharfstein (Markus) from the Ladies emigrated to Britain; from the Open team at least Karl von Bluhdorn to Paris, Edward Frischauer and Walter Herbert to the United States, eventually California.Also from the Open team, Hans Jellinek was deported from Norway in 1940 and died in a concentration camp; Karl Schneider remained a leading player in Austria and Europe, which he represented in the 1954 Bermuda Bowl. There is no entry for Udo von Meissl in the Encyclopedia. The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, ed. 1 (1964): biographical entries Bluhdorn, Frischauer, Herbert, Jellinek, Markus, Schneider, Stern; biographical omission (von) Meissl.
The International Bridge League organized two more European championships (making eight annual tournaments for national open teams, 1932–1939) but no more tournaments or official matches involving any team from outside Europe.
1950s
1950 Hamilton, Bermuda
The first rendition, held at the Castle Harbor Hotel 13 to 16 November, featured three teams who played round-robin for raw scores or "total points". The USA team won both of its matches, by 4,720 points over Europe (also referred to as Sweden-Iceland featuring two pairs from Sweden and one from Iceland) and 3,660 points over Great Britain; Europe defeated Great Britain by 1,940 points.
YearEntriesRank19501st World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1950. WBF.31 USAJohn Crawford, Charles Goren, George Rapée, Howard Schenken, Sidney Silodor, Sam Stayman2 EuropeGunnar Guðmundsson (ISL), Rudolf Kock (SWE), Nils-Olof Lilliehöök (SWE), Einar Þorfinnsson (ISL), Einar Werner (SWE) (c), Jan Wohlin (SWE)3 Great BritainLeslie Dodds, Nico Gardener, Maurice Harrison-Gray (c), Kenneth Konstam, Joel Tarlo, Louis Tarlo
1951 Naples, Italy
Held 11 to 17 November, the match was between representatives of the American Contract Bridge League (North America) and the European Bridge League consisting of 320 boards using the 15-point International Match Point (IMP) scaling table for the first time. The USA team won by 116 IMPs.
YearEntriesRank19512nd World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1951, WBF.21 USAB. Jay Becker, John Crawford, George Rapée, Howard Schenken, Sam Stayman, Julius Rosenblum (npc)2 ItalyPaolo Baroni, Eugenio Chiaradia, Pietro Forquet, Mario Franco, Augusto Ricci, Guglielmo Siniscalco, Carl'Alberto Perroux (npc)
1953 New York City, USA
The United States team won its third consecutive championship by 8,260 points. Crawford, Rapée, Schenken, and Stayman were also members of the previous two winning teams. The 256 boards were played against Sweden at the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel in New York, 5 to 10 January 1953.
YearEntriesRank19533rd World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1953. WBF. 21 USAB. Jay Becker, John Crawford, Theodore Lightner, George Rapée, Howard Schenken, Sam Stayman, Joseph Cohan (npc)2 SwedenGunnar Anulf, Rudolf Kock, Robert Larsen, Nils-Olof Lilliehöök, Einar Werner (c), Jan Wohlin
1954 Monte Carlo, Monaco
France won the 1953 European championship with a six-man national team and the right to represent Europe in the Bermuda Bowl to be held 9–14 January 1954. Jean Besse of Switzerland and Karl Schneider of Austria replaced one of the French pairs; the team is also referred to as France. Schneider had been a member of the 1937 world champion Austrian team.Team Members: France , 14th European Team Championships, 1953. WBF. The USA team had won the right to represent that country by winning the ACBL summer nationals held in St. Louis in August 1953; the five members of that team invited Lew Mathe to round out the team to six first-timers for the Bermuda Bowl event.
The USA defeated Europe by 49 IMPs representing 4,400 points.
YearEntriesRank19544th World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1954. WBF. 21 USAClifford Bishop, Milton Ellenby, Lew Mathe, Don Oakie, William Rosen, Douglas Steen, Benjamin Johnson (npc)2 EuropeJacques Amouraben (FRA), René Bacherich (FRA), Jean Besse (SUI), Pierre Ghestem (FRA), Marcel Kornblum (FRA), Karl Schneider (AUT)
1955 New York City, USA
The 1955 event was held 9–14 January at the Hotel Beekman, New York. The British team had defeated 13 others to win the European title in 1954 in Montreux, Switzerland. The American team had won the 1954 ACBL summer nationals in Washington, D.C.; that team of five was augmented by Alvin Roth.
Great Britain won by a margin of 5,420 points.
YearEntriesRank19555th World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1955. WBF.21 Great BritainLeslie Dodds, Kenneth Konstam, Adam Meredith, Jordanis Pavlides, Terence Reese, Boris Schapiro, Reginald Corwen (npc)2 USAClifford Bishop, Milton Ellenby, Lew Mathe, John Moran, William Rosen, Alvin Roth, Peter Leventritt (npc)
1956 Paris, France
France made it two in a row for Europe. Bacherich and Ghestem were veterans from 1954.
YearEntriesRank19566th World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1956. WBF.21 FranceRené Bacherich, Pierre Ghestem, Pierre Jaïs, Robert Lattès, Bertrand Romanet, Roger Trézel2 USAMyron Field, Charles Goren, Lee Hazen, Richard Kahn, Charles Solomon, Sam Stayman
1957 New York City, USA
Italy's Blue Team won its first of ten consecutive Bermuda Bowls. Chiaradia, Forquet, Siniscalco, and captain Carl'Alberto Perroux were veterans from the 1951 team. Avarelli, Belladona, D'Alelio, and Forquet played in every one.
YearEntriesRank19577th World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1957. WBF.21 ItalyWalter Avarelli, Giorgio Belladonna, Eugenio Chiaradia, Massimo D'Alelio, Pietro Forquet, Guglielmo Siniscalco2 USACharles Goren, Boris Koytchou, Peter Leventritt, Harold Ogust, William Seamon, Helen Sobel
1958 Como, Italy
For 1958 the Bermuda Bowl tournament permanently included the champion of South America, whose federation and annual tournament were then ten years old. In the next several years, expansion covered other geographic zones and the defending champion.
YearEntriesRank19588th World Team Championships: Results & Participants, 1958. WBF.31 ItalyWalter Avarelli, Giorgio Belladonna, Eugenio Chiaradia, Massimo D'Alelio, Pietro Forquet, Guglielmo Siniscalco2 USAB. Jay Becker, John Crawford, George Rapée, Alvin Roth, Sidney Silodor, Tobias Stone3 ArgentinaAlberto Blousson, Carlos Cabanne, Ricardo Calvente, Alejandro Castro, Marcelo Lerner
1959 New York City, USA