Wilbur Cherrier Whitehead (1866-1931) was an American

auction bridge The card game auction bridge was the third step in the evolution of the general game of bridge. It was developed from bridge whist in 1904, possibly by 1900. Auction bridge was the precursor to contract bridge. Its predecessors were whist and brid ...

and

contract bridge Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions o ...

player and writer. Whitehead was president of the

Simplex Automobile Company The Simplex Automobile Company was formed in 1907 to take over the manufacturer of the S & M Simplex. The Simplex was an American luxury Brass Era automobile manufactured from 1907 to 1918. Headquartered with a manufacturing plant in New York ...

but retired in 1910 to devote himself to bridge. He invented several conventions of bidding and play and was instrumental in standardizing procedures in

and later in

. Whitehead was one of the members of the Bridge Headquarters, a group of experts who developed a

bidding system A bidding system in contract bridge is the set of agreements and understandings assigned to calls and sequences of calls used by a partnership, and includes a full description of the meaning of each treatment and convention. The purpose of bid ...

named the Official System.

Sidney Lenz Sidney Samuel Lenz (1873 – 1960) was an American contract bridge player and writer. He is a member of the American Contract Bridge League Hall of Fame, being inducted in the second (1965) class. Career Lenz was born July 12, 1873 in a suburb of ...

(another Bridge Headquarters member) deployed this system against

Ely Culbertson Elie Almon Culbertson (July 22, 1891 – December 27, 1955), known as Ely Culbertson, was an American contract bridge entrepreneur and personality dominant during the 1930s. He played a major role in the popularization of the new game and was wide ...

in the so-called "

Bridge Battle of the Century The "Bridge Battle of the Century" was the name given to a celebrated 1931–1932 contract bridge challenge match between Ely Culbertson and Sidney Lenz and their partners. The match pitted Culberson's bidding system, which had been laid out in hi ...

" of 1931. (Whitehead had helped Culbertson during Culberton's early days of poverty). Whitehead was a member of the team that won the

Vanderbilt Cup The Vanderbilt Cup was the first major trophy in American auto racing. History An international event, it was founded by William Kissam Vanderbilt II in 1904 and first held on October 8 on a course set out in Nassau County, New York, Nassa ...

in its first year (1928) and finished second the following year. He was a contributing editor of

Bridge World ''The Bridge World'' (TBW), the oldest continuously published magazine about contract bridge, was founded in 1929 by Ely Culbertson. It has since been regarded as the game's principal journal, publicizing technical advances in bidding and the pla ...

. He wrote a daily bridge column, "Sound Auction Bridge", which appeared in the ''

New York Evening Journal :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...

''. In 1930 he donated the Whitehead Trophy, which is still given to the winner of the

Whitehead Women's Pairs The Whitehead Women's Pairs bridge championship is held at the spring American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) North American Bridge Championship (NABC). The Whitehead Women's Pairs is a four-session matchpoint (MP) pairs event with two qualifying ...

, an annual tournament.

Publications

; Author: *.Bourke (2010), page 445. *Bourke (2010), page 444. *Bourke (2010), page 443. *Bourke (2010), page 443. * * * * * *. * * * * * * * * * * ;Co-author: * ;Editor: * ;Forward: * *Bourke (2010), page 391.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehead, Wilbur 1866 births 1931 deaths Contract bridge writers American contract bridge players