Looking at the results.

Several members have asked how to get to the interesting and useful results analysis, and what it all means. So I thought I'd write a walk through...

• Click on the latest 'Results' entry at the top right of the website 'Home' page.

• Click on your name in the 'Ranking' list. This will open your 'Scorecard'

• Click on 'Play it again', below the hand diagram. This will open 'Bridge Solver Online'. Or if you're asked to choose then pick 'BS Online'. This also abbreviated to BSOL.

• BSOL provides 4 views – 'Play It Again', 'All Pairs', 'Personal' & 'Board'. Initially the 'Play It Again' view is shown, but I'll come back to that later.

• Click on 'Results Analysis', this opens the 'Personal' view of BSOL and makes other views available via the buttons at the top ('Go To..' also opens the 'Board' view).

• These notes are based on the BSOL 'Help', so if you want more detail go there.

The 'Personal' view:

• The table shown in the 'Personal' view mostly replicates the 'Scorecard' information, except that by default it is sorted 'By Role' (Declarer/Defender). The computer analysis is shown in the centre 'DD Tricks (ETF)' column, and by colouring within the 'Ld' (Lead) column. 'DD' is short for 'Double Dummy', which is the name of the analysis method. 'ETF' is short for 'Extra Trick Factor', which is the number of tricks made above or below the theoretical maximum (which might not be biddable/makeable in practice).

• Green or Red colouring in the 'Ld' column indicates sub-optimal leads (grey indicates an impossible lead was entered during scoring). They are shown in red if they were made by your partnership (disadvantageous to you), and in green if made by the opposition (advantageous to you).

• The 'DD Tricks (ETF)' column can be switched to show 'Adjusted ETF', by clicking on the column header, and I always do this. 'DD Tricks (ETF)' is based on the optimal lead being made whereas 'Adjusted ETF' uses the actual lead made by or against you, which is more realistic. Note that the '% of Boards with ETF >= 0' & 'Avg ETF' values in the 'Summary' change if you make this switch (these give an idea of how well you have played).

• The 'Personal' view should help you identify boards that might be worth a closer look (using the 'Board' view). For example you could look at:

  • Boards where you might have made a poor lead - coloured red in the 'Ld' column.

  • Boards you might not have played well – coloured red in the 'Adjusted ETF' column.

The 'Board' view:

• There are 3 sections to this view:

  • The top section contains summary information.

  • There is a hand diagram on the right, with Dealer and Vulnerability in its top-left corner, hcp counts in the bottom-left, and makeable contracts below the diagram.

  • The main table contains all the contracts played for that board, together with the theoretical optimum contract.

    • Contracts are sorted in descending order (i.e. 7NT redoubled at the top and Passed Out at the bottom).

    • Different contracts are shaded in alternating cream/grey blocks for ease of reading (the colours don't signify anything else).

    • Your partnership is shown shaded in light purple (in either the NS or EW column).

    • Colours and 'Made' column numbers are from your perspective (and other pairs sitting in the same orientation - NS or EW).

    • The 'Target' and 'Made' columns are based on the 'Adjusted ETF' but where a sub-optimal lead was made the unadjusted 'DD ETF' values are also shown in brackets. e.g. if the ETF analysis calculates you should make 10 tricks but the opposition make a sub-optimal lead (such that you should be able to make 11) the 'Target' column will show 11(10).

    • The two conventions above can be confusing so I'll go into some detail (I'll shorten 'DD ETF' to ETF and 'Adjusted ETF' to AETF herein).

      • Sub-optimal leads by you will be shown in red and those by your opposition in green (because they benefit you).

      • Likewise a better than AETF result for you will be green in the 'Made' column & red if worse than AETF.

      • The values

      • The +/- values in the 'Made' column work in the same way

      • and if you actually only make 9 tricks the 'Made' column will show -2(-1). If the board is played by your opposition then if they make one trick more than the 'A

    • A sub-optimal lead by you or another sitting in the same orientation (NS or EW) will be coloured red in the 'Lead' column. A sub-optimal lead that is advantageous to your orientation is coloured green. Impossible leads are grey.

    •  

• Things to look at:

  • The optimum contract might not be biddable/makeable in practice, and if no one has found it then perhaps that's the case. However optimum contracts involving slams or sacrificing might get missed due to insufficiently competitive bidding.

  • If other partnerships are bidding into more successful contracts then look