The Vienna System or Austrian System was one of the earliest conventional bidding systems in the game of contract bridge.
It was devised in 1935 by Austrian player Paul Stern.
[1][2][3] The Vienna System used the Bamberger point count to evaluate bridge hands: A=7, K=5, Q=3, J=1.
[4] That method has been generally supplanted by the Work count (HCP) (A=4, K=3, Q=2, J=1).
The characteristic features of the Vienna System were not in its methods of hand evaluation, but in its bidding structure: Austrian teams captained by Stern, playing the Vienna System, won the European championships (Open category) in 1936 and 1937, and defeated Ely Culbertson's American team in a challenge match in 1937 (see: Bermuda Bowl#Predecessors).