What’s the Score

What’s the Score?

“When a contest is ‘match pointed’ it pre-supposes that all the players are of equal calibre – the fact that in practice they are seldom equal, introduces such an element of luck into the game, that these contests loose much of their merit”

[extract p 81/82 CONTRACT BRIDGE: Bidding and Play by Edward Reeve published by Joiner & Steele 1936]

I suspect Mr Reeve was not the only one in his day to have an aversion to match-pointed pairs, but the above may have been one of the last outcries against this most common, and popular, form of present-day Duplicate Contract Bridge club event. So what was his alternative, and how was it scored?

It may not surprise you, because there is little else it could be, that aggregate pairs was the name of the game. You simply scored what you made (plus or minus), but since each deal was to be considered in isolation, one had to introduce ways of dealing with games, part scores, and overtricks.

The now standard bonuses for games and slams were in use even then. What was more contentious was how to deal with part scores and over-tricks. Remember that Contract was just emerging from Auction. Even Milton Work, one of the originators of the 4,3,2,1 high-card point count once thought that Contract Bridge would never catch on! In Auction Bridge one scored what one made, providing it was equal to or greater than what one had bid. Game and slam bonuses, awarded only after the contracts had been bid, clearly distinguished Duplicate Contract Bridge from Auction, but what about part scores? It was not considered “fair”, in some circles, that “2-diamonds plus one” should score the same as “3-diamonds bid and made”.

The remedy was simple and ingenious. There was no 50 point bonus for part scores, but the value of a made part-score contract was doubled. Overtricks carried only trick value. So “2D + 1” scored 40 x 2 + 20 = 100, whereas “3D just made” scored 60 x 2 = 120. Similarly “1NT + 2” would score 40 x 2 +60 = 140, “2NT + 1” would score 70 x 2 + 30 =170; but “3H made” would score 90 x 2 = 180. So you see this method, of effectively devaluing over-tricks, gave more incentive for accurate part-score bidding and reduced the desire, still somewhat current, to play in a risky NT contract, for the sake of the added 10 points awarded at the one level.

Even today, the above charge of “unfairness” of part-score scoring could be levelled. At the game level too, it can be galling to bid and make a sound major-suit game to score say 420, only to be pipped by a lucky 3NT + 1 which scores 430. Could we not borrow an idea from the past to remove the last vestiges of Auction Bridge from Duplicate Contract Bridge? Consider what would happen if (retaining the modern 50-point bonus for part scores), instead of doubling the bid element of part scores, we simply halved the value of overtricks at all levels. So reviewing the above examples: 2D + 1 would score 100, but 3D would score 110; 1NT + 1 would score 105, 1NT +2 would score 120, 2NT bid and made would also score 120, 2H + 1 would score 125, but 3H bid and made would score 140. At the game level too this scheme produces “fairer” scores: 4H bid and made scores 420 say, but 3NT + 1 only 415!

If nothing else such scheme would bring into play the last digit of bridge scores. At present they all end with “zero”. Think of the ink we have been wasting!