When you go to a beginning bridge class, one of the terms you encounter is either vulnerable or vulnerability. Vulnerable means susceptible to harm and you wonder what this has to do with bridge. You later find out vulnerability involves scoring dependent on the hand and the number of tricks taken. You wonder who ever invented this? Which of these people are responsible?
- Charles Goren
- Ely Culbertson
- Eddie Kantar
- Harold Vanderbilt
.In 1925, while on board SS Finland, he originated changes to the scoring system through which the game of contract bridge supplanted auction bridge in popularity. Three years later he endowed the Vanderbilt Cup awarded to the winners of the North American team-of-four championship (now the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams, or simply "the Vanderbilt", one of the North American Bridge Championships marquee events). In 1932 and again in 1940 he was part of a team that won his own trophy; it remains one of the most prized in the game. Vanderbilt also donated the World Bridge Federation Vanderbilt Trophy, awarded from 1960 to 2004 to the winner of the open category at the quadrennial World Team Olympiad, and since 2008 to the winner of the corresponding event at the World Mind Sports Games.
Vanderbilt invented the first strong club system, which he called the "Club Convention" but which has since become more usually known as the Vanderbilt Club. The strong club, or forcing club, family of bidding systems has performed exceptionally well in world championship play. He wrote four books on the subject.
Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Stirling_Vanderbilt
