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Saturday 31st August PERTH CAFÉBRIDGE 

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Understanding the Match Point Scoring System
Understanding the Scoring System

A guide to how competition results are calculated

 

 

 

 

Match Points

What are Match Points?      What does my percentage mean each night?

As you know, every time a board is played you get a score.   Sometimes you get a plus score, sometimes a minus.

Sometimes you may feel you had a lot of big scores over a night’s bridge but then find your percentage is not good.

Other times you feel as if you did pretty badly but then come out near the top.

That’s because most pairs nights at the bridge club are scored using something called “match points”.

The purpose of this webpageis to explain how match points are worked out. It should help you understand why you get a certain percentage on any board or over a night of bridge.

Match Points

Match points are worked out by looking at all the scores that were achieved on any particular board – who did well on those cards and who did less well.  It is as if every pair had played a “match” like a football match, against every other pair playing the same cards.

Match points are scored according to how many pairs you beat that played the same cards as you.

It doesn’t matter if you beat them by 10 points or 800 points, it’s just whether your score on the board is better than theirs.

Again going back to football – in football a win is worth 3 points, no matter whether the scoreline is 1-0 or 7-0.

In bridge, a win (beating someone else’s score on a hand) is worth 2 points, called 2 match points.

How Match Points are worked out on an Individual Board

Here is an example of the kind of scores you might get on one board played five times over a night at the club.

NS

EW

Contract

By

Tricks made

Score for NS

+

-

2

7

3S

N

9

140

3

8

4S

N

9

100

4

9

3S

N

10

170

5

10

2Sx

N

9

870

6

11

4Sx

N

9

200

 

Looking at the results on that scoresheet, you can see if you were pair 5NS you would have beaten all the other four NS pairs on this hand.  North South pairs 2,3,4 and 6, playing the same cards, all had worse scores than your +870.

So, the best score on the board above is +870 by NS 5.  They beat all the 4 other pairs who played it, so they get 8 match points (2 for each pair they beat).  8 is the most match points you could score on this board, so it is sometimes called a “top”.

Still using the scores above, the next best NS score would be NS 4 who scored +170.  They beat 3 other pairs so they would get 6 match points on that board (2 for each pair they beat).

NS 2 beat two other pairs so they would score 4 match points.

NS 3 scored – 100.  They beat one other pair so they would score 2 match points.

NS 6 got the worst score NS.  They didn’t beat any other North South pairs so they don’t score any match points on this board. 

The match points scored on this board would therefore be: 
8 for NS5

6 for NS4

4 for NS2

2 for NS3

0 for NS6

And in percentages these scores would be:

NS 5                    100% (they scored 8 out of a possible 8 points)

NS 4                    75% (they scored 6 out of a possible 8 points)

NS 2                    50% (they scored 4 out of a possible 8 points)

NS 3                    25% (they scored 2 out of a possible 8 points)

NS 6                    would score 0% (0 out of a possible 8 points)

Notice that the NS 5 score of + 870 is no better in match points than if this same pair had scored +180 for playing in 2NT making 10. With a score of +180 they would still have beaten all the other four pairs and still got 100% on the board (8 match points out of a possible 8.)  In match points it is not how many you win by that matters but how many other pairs you beat.

 

What about when pairs have the same score as each other?

Most of the time boards don’t result in a different score every time they are played - usually several pairs have the same score.

Let’s change the scores slightly on the board we looked at before to make it more realistic:

NS

EW

Contract

By

Tricks made

Score for NS

+

-

2

7

3S

N

9

140

3

8

4S

N

9

100

4

9

3S

N

9

140

5

10

2Sx

N

9

870

6

11

4S

N

9

100

Looking at this scoresheet, NS 5 still have the best score.  They still beat four other pairs so they still get 8 match points.  But the next best score by NS is +140, scored by both NS 2 and NS 4.

NS 2 and NS 4 drew with each other.

For a draw in match point bridge, as for a draw in football, you get 1 point.

NS 2 and NS 4 both beat the other two NS pairs, so they get 4 match points for those wins, and they drew with each other (both scoring 140) so they also each get one match point for that draw.

Therefore, on the board above NS2 and NS4 would score a total of 5 match points.  (2 points for each pair they beat and 1 for the one they drew with)

NS3 and NS6 also drew.  They didn’t beat any other pair but they get 1 match point because they drew with each other.

So the NS match points on this board would be:                                           8 for NS5

5 for NS2

5 for NS4

1 for NS3

1 for NS6

In percentages, then, on this board:

NS would score 100% (8 match points out of a possible 8)

NS 2 would score 62.5% (5 out of a possible 8)

NS 4 would also score 62.5%

NS 3 would score 12.5% (1 out of a possible 8 match points)

NS 6 would also score 12.5%

At the end of the night the match points / percentages from all the boards played are added up and the pair with the most total match points and therefore total percentage is the winner.

N.B.  Just a note about East-West pairs on the boards above

Their scores would be just the reverse of the North-South pairs they played against.

For example, NS 5, who got the best score, scored + 870 and got 8 match points (100% or a “top”) on the board.

EW 10, who played against NS5 on that board, would have scored – 870, the worst score of all the EW pairs on that board.

They beat none of the other EW pairs who had the same cards, so they would score no match points (0%)

Do I have to play in a different way if I am playing match points?

Not exactly.  You’re still going to bid hands according to your system, try to make contracts or defeat them just the same.

But when you come to play or defend a hand it’s quite good to think what everyone else might be likely to score on it.

You need to try to equal or beat those scores.

For example, let’s say you are declarer playing in 3NT and you can see everyone else is also going to bid 3NT.

If you have 29 points between the two hands, probably just making 9 tricks is not going to be a good match points score because with 29 points most people will make more than 9 tricks.  So unless there is a big danger of going off you would not just take the first 9 tricks you can see, but be looking for where you have a chance of making extra ones.

What is a good percentage to get in match points?

Obviously, the nearer to 100% over any night’s bridge, the better your score.  But in real life no-one gets anywhere near 100%.

That’s because 100% would mean a pair had got an outright top score on every board they played and nobody had even got an equal top score with them on any of the boards.  This is virtually impossible. 

It would mean one pair found a different, better contract than every other pair on every single board or else managed to score more tricks than everyone else on every single board.  It just doesn’t happen.

Most boards in a night are more or less flat with similar scores by most people and just the odd variation here and there.

That’s why percentage scores over a whole night’s bridge are usually between about 40% and 60%.  Less than 40% or more than 60% are not common scores (though don’t panic if you score under 40 - even the very top players in the country will have done that several times!)

In general, you can probably say that a score above 50% in a match point event means you have played okay.

Anywhere near 60% is a really good score.