Duplicate Scoring
If you’ve previously played rubber bridge, you’ll find that duplicate scoring is quite different from rubber bridge scoring.
In duplicate, each hand is scored separately. Assuming you make your contract, you are awarded points for all tricks made, plus a bonus for making a part-score contract, game contract, or slam contract. The amount of your game or slam bonus depends upon the vulnerability. Here is a document you can download that gives the score for every duplicate contract.
Duplicate bridge games are often scored using matchpoints (MP). Your MP on each hand is based on your score on that hand compared to the other pairs holding the same cards. You get one MP for each pair whose score you beat, and one-half MP for each pair whose score you tie. For example, here is the score on board 1 from a recent game recap with four tables (i.e., 8 pairs.) In this game, every pair moved, and played every other pair. The highest score in each direction (east-west and north-south) received the greatest number of MP.
**PAIRS**
BOARD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
\/
1> 3 3 2 0 1 2 1 0
150* 150 140 -150* -100 100* -140* -150
The bottom line is the actual score each pair received on board 1. The top line is the number of MPs each pair received on board 1.
Matchpoints
The highest number of MPs you can get on a board is one less than the number of times the board was played. In the above example, the board was played four times, so the top scorer(s) receive three MPs. Pair 1 played the board sitting east-west (that’s what the asterisk next to their score signifies), and they got the highest east-west score. Pair 2 got the highest north-south score. Both pairs received 3 MPs for their top scores.
Here is a complete list of scores for the pair that won our game this past Wednesday:
Wednesday Afternoon Pairs Stratum A Wednesday Aft Session September 19, 2018 IC Hawkeye DBC 275453 Average: 31.5 Top on a Board: 3 BRD DLR VUL DIR VS RESULT SCORE BRD DLR VUL DIR VS RESULT SCORE 1 N NONE E-W 5 100 2 12 W N-S N-S 3 -170 1 2 E N-S E-W 5 450 1 13 N BOTH N-S 1 -660 0 3 S E-W E-W 5 -200 3 14 E NONE N-S 1 50 3 4 W BOTH N-S 7 110 2.5 15 S N-S N-S 1 -150 2 5 N N-S N-S 7 50 3 16 W E-W E-W 8 -200 0 6 E E-W N-S 7 450 2.5 17 N NONE E-W 8 -130 1 7 S BOTH E-W 4 90 2.5 18 E N-S E-W 8 100 3 8 W NONE E-W 4 430 2 19 S E-W E-W 2 -420 0 9 N E-W E-W 4 650 1 20 W BOTH E-W 2 -710 2.5 10 E BOTH N-S 3 200 2.5 21 N N-S E-W 2 200 3 11 S NONE N-S 3 430 2 SESSION SCORE: 39.50 PERCENT: 62.70 Session rank: 1(A)
This pair received a total of 39.5 MPs (session score.) Their percentage is their score divided by the total number of available MPs. The total number of available MPs is the number of boards played multiplied by the top MP score on a board, or 63. So this pair’s percentage was 39.5 divided by 63, or 62.7 percent.
Analyzing Your Matchpoints
There are three possible reasons for receiving few MPs on one or more hands:
- Your bidding did not find the right strain and / or the optimum level. Example: Most pairs bid 4 spades, making 4 or 5. You are in 3 spades making 4. Solution: Review your bidding technique to see if the strength of each hand was clearly conveyed, e.g., accounting for useful shortness such as singletons or voids. Another example: Most pairs are in 3 NT making 4, but you are in 5 clubs, making 5. Solution: Remember the priorities majors, notrump, minors.
- Your defense was inadequate. Example: Most pairs are in 3 hearts down one. Your defense allowed the opponents to make 3 hearts. Solution: Use attitude, count, and suit preference signals. Furthermore, keep in mind that declarer will use dummy’s asset to make the contract. Defensively, negate dummy’s asset, e.g., lead trump to limit the number of losers that declarer can trump. If there is a long suit on dummy, try to eliminate declarer’s entries to dummy and the long suit.
- And last but not least, remember the concept of NOF (see original and follow-up articles on this subject.) Sometimes, you just play the wrong boards against the wrong pair. C’est la vie!