1981: Bridge Comes to Television | Grand Slam | BBC Archive

"Bridge has a reputation for being an extremely difficult game, but in fact it's not - it's mostly a rather simple game, much muddied by mystique." Jeremy James introduces the first-ever televised bridge tournament, between the United Kingdom and the United States. Eight of the world's top bridge players battle it out for the Grand Slam Trophy. The series will comprise a total of 13 programmes, featuring 65 boards of duplicate bridge in total. In this first edition, John Beard - the author of Develop Your Bridge the Acol Way - is on hand to outline the rules of bridge, and to explain some of the game's less familiar concepts, like the auction. As the game progresses, the players provide a retrospective commentary, explaining the motivation behind their moves. The players: Pat Davies and Nicola Gardener (UK) v Jacqui Mitchell and Gail Moss (USA) Jeremy Flint and Claude Rodrigue (UK) v Matthew Granovetter and Neil Silverman (USA) Clip taken from Grand Slam, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 11 October, 1981. You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults. Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?... You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive