[dougcb68]

My father, who lives in the USA, and I, who live in Mexico want to play internet bridge. We have just started to try out BBO as a solution, but we have always played rubber bridge. We are unfamiliar with the scoring systems used in BBO bridge (IMP, BAM, or Totalpoint scoring). I have spent a significant amount of time unsuccessfully searching the BBO web pages for information that would explain these various scoring systems. Undoubtedly, I am missing something, and my request here is for somebody to point me to resources that I can use to learn about these scoring systems.

Thanks in advance-
doug brown

[Zelandakh]

Hello Doug and welcome to the forums. Rubber scoring is actually available on BBO but unfortunately only to those who created an account prior to a certain date. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this decision was taken. The closest of the scoring methods available to you is Total Points. In this, each hand is scored up separately according to similar rules as would apply to an unfinished rubber. However there are some differences. Notably:

a part score only scores an extra 50 points
a non-vulnerable game scores an extra 300 points
a vulnerable game scores an extra 500 points regardless of whether the opponents are vulnerable or not

Also, the vulnerability will rotate constantly - you do not need to score a game to become vulnerable. However, tactically the game is quite similar to rubber.

The next closest is Cross IMP scoring. As with Rubber and Total Points, this scoring method puts a premium on making (or breaking) a contract. The difference here is that each score is compared with other tables who played exactly the same hand. More than this, the result is then converted using a scale that tends to flatten results somewhat. It sounds complicated but if you just play your usual game you will not be too far wrong. This is the most common scoring method used on BBO.

Finally there is Match Points and BAM. Coming from rubber bridge I would recommend staying away from these two initially until you have the hang of scoring against other tables from Cross IMPs. Match Point (MP) scoring is a different way of comparing results against other tables that only takes account of the relative positions and not of the size difference. This means in practise that scoring an overtrick in 3NT is huge if the rest of the room is in 4 of a major or 3NT making exactly. MP play tends to be about frequency and you will sometimes need to put a 100% contract at risk to do well at it.

BAM is effectively a special form of MP scoring where you only compare against a single table. Again, I would suggest avoiding this for now. That should not be difficult , since BAM is also the least played scoring on BBO.

Finally, I would suggest to you that for the time being you not worry too much about the scoring method but just play your normal rubber bridge game and enjoy yourself while getting used to the site. It will not take long to see how it works. However, if you really wan to know the details, here is a link to the wiki entry for bridge scoring, which has much more information about this.

[1eyedjack]

You might want to have a read of this. Not perfect but helpful:

http://kvisit.com/So6Qj

[dougcb68]

Thank you! This is just what I needed. It will take some study, but I am now on track.

doug

[1eyedjack]

There is also a little Excel spreadsheet at the same place, to help calculate the "duplicate" score for a particular result.

It is a leeeetle bit more complicated than it needs to be for your purpose, because the original intention of it was to provide a break-even analysis to determine (for example) what would be the required probability of a result to justify going for it in an IMP-scored environment.
But if you ignore all the baggage you can still use bits of it just for the purposes of working out the aggregate score of a hand under duplicate principles.

http://kvisit.com/S3ZWKAQ