Bermuda Bowl

The Bermuda Bowl is a biennial world championship contract bridge tournament for national teams. It is contested every odd-number year under the auspices of the World Bridge Federation (WBF), alongside the Venice Cup (Women) and d'Orsi Bowl (Seniors). Entries formally represent WBF Zones as well as nations so it is also known as the "World Zonal Open Team Championship", one of three "World Zonal Team Championships". It is the oldest event that confers the title World Champion in bridge, first contested in 1950. The Bermuda Bowl trophy is awarded to the winning team, named for the site of the inaugural tournament.

The term Bermuda Bowl is sometimes used for the entire two-week meet comprising the three Zonal Teams and one or more concurrent lesser tournaments.

The 2015 Bermuda Bowl took place in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. The next championships are scheduled to take place in 2017 in Lyon, France.

See a description of the identical "Senior Bowl" structure or a detailed account of the 2011 event (below)

Organized principally by Norman Bach, an accountant and bridge player from Bermuda who played for Britain the Bermuda Bowl was the first world championship event held after World War II and started out as a competition between USA, Europe and Britain in 1950.

The first event was won by USA and after this, the Bermuda Bowl became a yearly challenge match between the USA and the European Champions. The format evolved allowing for progressively more teams and the addition of events for women and seniors. Key milestones were:

Austria won the 1937 International Bridge League (IBL) championships for both open and women 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.

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 1932 and for women beginning 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.

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