Word: plafond
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...focused on the game's essential defect in comparison with present-day bridge: overtricks in excess of the bid counted toward game, just like bid tricks, so that a partnership could make a game without bidding it. Card Buff Vanderbilt found in the French variety of auction called plafond (ceiling) an innovation that he liked: only tricks bid and made were scored toward game, over tricks counting as above-the-line bonuses...
Seizing on the "ceiling" principle, Vanderbilt added an idea of his own: a partnership would have to bid a slam in order to get a slam bonus (in both plafond and U.S.-British auction, the bonus was awarded whether the slam was bid or not). The mechanics and scoring of the new game-with slam bonuses increased tenfold and more-were worked out by Vanderbilt and three card-playing friends on a cruise to Havana in November 1925. Contract was born...