Scoring

Scoring

In competitive Bridge, competition is based on who does better holding the same cards. Thus, for each hand, the same cards are played multiple times. In team games, they are played twice; in pairs and individual games, they are played as many times as there are rounds of competition for the session. In most ACBL multi-section games, the same hands are played in every section. The cards for each trick are played face up in front of each player rather than thrown into the center of the table. After the trick is over, each player turns the card played from his or her hand face down in front of him or her, pointed in the direction of the side that won the trick. Thus at the end of the hand it is easy to count the tricks won and lost by each side. When play of the hand is complete, each player stacks the cards from his/her hand and replaces them in a "Duplicate Board," a metal or plastic container with four compartments, in which the cards are passed to the next table. Thus a bridge hand, called a board, can be played over and over again.

In Individual or Pairs games, a single session is usually between 22 and 26 boards.

In Knockout Teams competitions, a single match is usually 24 boards; for major games at national and international competitions a match can run over more than one session and be much longer.

For Swiss Teams, matches are usually between 6 and 11 boards. I've only played in 6-board or 7-board matches; these run four matches to a session. A Swiss Teams event on the final day of a tournament is often a play-through event of seven matches, with a half-hour or shorter break for a quick meal on-site after three or four matches.

Types of Scoring

• Matchpoints
  
  Individual and Pairs competitions are scored by Matchpoints. Each board is played some number "n" of times, at "n" tables. All North-South pairs playing the board have some "raw" score on the hand, and each one's Matchpoint score is simply the number of (North-South) competitors this pair's raw score beats. The East-West pairs are scored the same way; each pair's Matchpoint score is the number of East-West pairs the pair's raw score beats. For example, if a board is played eight times, the top possible Matchpoint score on the board is seven. What if pairs tie with the same raw score? Each is awarded 1/2 Matchpoint for each pair they tie. Thus if all eight pairs playing the board had the exact same scores, say Three No-Trump making nine tricks, then the Matchpoint score for each would be 3.5, that is, .5 for each pair they tied times the 7 pairs they tied. This would be an "average" board for each competitor. If one pair bid Three No-Trump and made ten tricks while the other seven pairs made only nine tricks at the same contract, that pair would score 7 Matchpoints for the board, a "top" board, while the other seven pairs would each score 3 (tied 6 pairs at .5 for each). A "bottom" board is one where a pair's score beats zero other pairs.
  
  Matchpoint scores are converted to percentages to determine overall winners in multi-section games where the number of tables differs from one section to another. Scores in a section generally run between forty percent and sixty percent; it's a very good session to score over sixty percent and a very bad one to score less than forty percent.
  


• International Match Points (IMPs)
  
  Knockout Team competition is by IMPs. Each board is played only twice, the difference between one team's raw score on the board and the other team's raw score on the board is converted to International Match Points on a set scale. The score on a single hand ("board") can range from zero IMPs to twenty-four IMPs.
  


• Victory Points
  
  Swiss Teams and round-robin team competition is usually by Victory Points. Each board is scored by IMPs, and the IMP result of the match is converted to Victory Points on one of two scales -- each match is either twenty VPs or thirty VPs. Thus a 20-VP match score can range from 10-10 (a tie match) to 20-0 (match won by 28 or more IMPs). Of course if one team wins the match 20-0, the other team loses by 0-20. Overall standings after all matches are completed are based on a team's total Victory Points, not on the number of matches won or lost.