[Thranduil]

It maybe mostly due to the player level in free tournaments in BBO, but something that frustrates me quite a bit when playing Bridge is the scoring system. I'm a chess player too, and there only the result at my table matters. If I plasy better and checkmate my opponent, it is a win, a good score for me. But in Bridge, the score at other tables are what your score is compared against. That works in a strong and even playing field (like the face-to-face tournaments I play in), because most scores will be close to the par score - but it ceases to work once we have a weaker/more uneven playing field. I've had the following things happen in BBO tournaments:

• Scoring 10 or 20 % for what should be a par score, because I just made the 4 ♥ game everyone reached, while defenders misplayed on every other table, allowing for an overtrick
  
• losing over 25 IMPs over two boards, because I reached two slams that any good player would bid, but they both happen to fail due to freak distributions - while almost everyone else just played 4 ♥♠ with an overtrick.
  
• got like 20% for 1 ♠ down two, because lots of other players in my position did not pass partner's 1 ♠ opening with 4 HCP, 5-4 in hearts and diamonds and a single spade and instead bid a two-over-one gameforcing with 2 ♥ (and passed partner's response of 3 ♦); and some others in my parter's position opened their 5-5 in spades and diamonds incorrectly with 1 ♦.

Can Bridge scoring be improved in some way to avoid situations like that? Would it make sense to weigh par scores in some way so that you are more likely to get around 50% for par in an MP tournament? Does it make sense to curate the deals as a TD in some way, like not including deals with freak distributions that cause otherwise solid slams to fail, because they would be too punishing/"unfair" for experienced players who actually go for slams?

[DavidKok]

It sounds like you are thinking of a bidding contest, rather than a full game of bridge?

[hrothgar]

Few thoughts here

First and foremost, I don't want to live in a world in which tournament directors are able to curate deals.
In my experience, a bunch of TD's use these sorts of capabilities to cheat.

You'd have to be nuts to play in any of the big cash prize games where the tournament sponsors have enormous incentives to make sure that one of their confederates wins.

If there's one thing that we're learned over the past few years its that bridge players cheat on a pervasive basis.
They do so at all levels of the game and this extends to individuals that the ACBL places on pedestals.
Not sure why anyone would extend significantly more trust to, say, the tournament directors.

I' very proud of the work that Hans van Stavern did to provide systems for generating bridge hands that ensure that tournament directs are not able to bias hands. You still need to trust the platform providers, but there are ways to hand this as well presuming that bridge moves to a fully electronic playing environment for major events.

With respect to scoring, there are absolutely some changes that I would like to see, but I doubt that this is the sort of thing that you're talking about.

I'd like to see Masterpoint awards weighted by the degree of certainty that one has that that the pair that scored the highest actually was the best pair rather than the one that got luck with respect to which boards they played against which opponents. (At the most basic level, I'd like to see master point allocations weighed by confidence bounds)

With respect to the sorts of changes that you're suggestion, you might be happier with par contests and the like...

[awm]

The best solution to this problem is to play more team games. This tends to remove the "strength of the field" component since it's all about what you and/or your teammates do at the table. An alternative is to play in better fields where things tend to be less random in this way.

Comparing against "par" scores is not really a good solution here for a number of reasons. You should keep in mind that for example:

1. Sometimes the par score is making game by doing ridiculous things (like dropping a singleton king in an eight card fit); this will feel just as random as getting fixed when your normal contract goes down.
2. You're still going to be at the mercy of opponents on a lot of boards; you can get a bad score because they are the only ones in the field to bid the cold game (regardless of whether scored via par or via field comparison).

Philosophically, you should accept that (unlike chess) bridge is somewhat random. If you take the right percentage actions you will do well in the long run, but any particular hand could go against you. In some ways this can make bridge more interesting/exciting (for example, my bridge team beat the world champions recently in a 40-board match; this sort of thing happens in bridge maybe once or twice out of ten, whereas I would assume for comparison that a below-grand-master-level chess player would not beat the world champion even once or twice out of 100).

[barmar]

The problems you describe tend to even out in the long run. Sometimes the misdefenders will be at your table and give you a gift, other times they'll be at someone else's table.

The duplicate bridge format mitigates much of the luck factor of rubber bridge, but there's still some luck due to which opponents you happen to play against and whether your choice of bidding system happens to work well with the hands you're dealt. But the best players are consistently near the top of the leaderboards, so I think there's plenty of evidence that the scoring system works well for distinguishing good players from bad ones.

Occasionally poor players get lucky on some hands, but you can't depend on that happening enough to win the event.

It's a common complaint that you sometimes get bad results due to no fault of your own. Unfortunately, the scoring system isn't able to determine blame. But the converse is that you sometimes get good results without doing anything exceptional.

[Chas_P]

 barmar, on 2024-July-21, 16:36, said:

It's a common complaint that you sometimes get bad results due to no fault of your own. Unfortunately, the scoring system isn't able to determine blame. But the converse is that you sometimes get good results without doing anything exceptional.

Exactly. The secret to success, in my opinion, is avoiding mistakes. My objective every time I sit down to play is not to pull off a Vienna Coup or a backwash squeeze, but to make no more than two mistakes. The scoring system is unlikely to change; as the saying goes, "It is what it is". And the pair that makes the fewest mistakes is likely the pair that wins the match.

[johnu]

 Thranduil, on 2024-July-21, 07:53, said:

But in Bridge, the score at other tables are what your score is compared against. That works in a strong and even playing field (like the face-to-face tournaments I play in), because most scores will be close to the par score - but it ceases to work once we have a weaker/more uneven playing field.

Even in a strong field, you can get an unexpected good score, or an unexpected bad score. What matters is what happens in the long run.

In a weak field, you'll get a lot more unexpected good scores compared to bad scores, so you should win a lot higher percent of the time. Sure, you might have a game where you get by far the worst of the luck, but that's less likely than having a game where you get the best of luck because bad players are doing such bad percentage bids and plays.

Not relying on the score at other tables is called rubber bridge. I've played perfectly for 4 hands of Chicago style bridge and lost 3000+ points which basically makes it almost impossible to get back to even in a short session.

[thepossum]

"I am a good player therefore the rules need to be changed to help me"

In some sports there are things like handicaps to try to even it up and make it more fun and competitive

It's a long run thing really

Imagine being the top team in a league and occasionally losing to the worst team becaus they played well one day, or were very lucky, or had a terrible referee

Some top teams in football, say, do everything they can to just play each other and avoid lesser teams - which ironically is why they sometimes have shock defeats because they don't even want to be playing, or they don't like the facilities and the terrible pitch

As a very ordinary Bridge player I have sympathy and experience of situations where better players had unfair results

[AL78]

johnu, on 2024-July-21, 19:25, said:

Even in a strong field, you can get an unexpected good score, or an unexpected bad score. What matters is what happens in the long run.

In a weak field, you'll get a lot more unexpected good scores compared to bad scores, so you should win a lot higher percent of the time. Sure, you might have a game where you get by far the worst of the luck, but that's less likely than having a game where you get the best of luck because bad players are doing such bad percentage bids and plays.

Not relying on the score at other tables is called rubber bridge. I've played perfectly for 4 hands of Chicago style bridge and lost 3000+ points which basically makes it almost impossible to get back to even in a short session.

I wish. I have to bust a gut to get over 50% at my club which is a very mixed field with four or five tables usually when I play, although that possibly indicates I am at the lower end of the distribution of standards.

The only way I can visualise a scoring system that closely represents how a pair performed rather than how many gifts or stictch-ups they recieved is to look at the bidding and the play, and factoring out the events they had no control over, how close to the theoretically best score possible did they achieve. Very difficult to calculate that in real time I would imagine. At least with this method if (for example) your opponents ignore a nine card major fit and play in 3NT and you take your maximum three tricks in defence, you score as well as the other pairs taking their maximum three tricks defending 4M.

Duplicate bridge is the only game that immediately comes to mind where you have no influence over your opponents, and that is where much of the luck factor comes in.

[AL78]

thepossum, on 2024-July-21, 21:04, said:

"I am a good player therefore the rules need to be changed to help me"

In some sports there are things like handicaps to try to even it up and make it more fun and competitive

It is more like "I am a good player and the rules need to be changed so that results are as closely related to skill as possible and the influence of luck minimised".

Some of the running monthly competitions at my club are handicapped and that is a small bone of contention with me as sometimes I get the impression the handicaps are overly biased towards weak players winning. I say this (partly) because in one of these competitions a couple of years ago, my partner and I had a handicap of -8 whereas our combined NGS was much less than 58% and my partner's NGS had been on a downward trend. This meant that in a field of three or four tables, there were occasions on individual sessions where we needed a gross score near 70% in order to win, which pretty much makes winning impossible.

[johnu]

AL78, on 2024-July-22, 06:42, said:

I wish. I have to bust a gut to get over 50% at my club which is a very mixed field with four or five tables usually when I play, although that possibly indicates I am at the lower end of the distribution of standards.

Mixed field is not a bad field. There may just be a number of good pairs that are better than you and your partner. Or maybe the so called bad players aren't as bad as you think. Also, as the chess champion Tarrasch once said, “It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well”

AL78, on 2024-July-22, 06:42, said:

Duplicate bridge is the only game that immediately comes to mind where you have no influence over your opponents, and that is where much of the luck factor comes in.

In the long run, "luck" evens out. If luck doesn't even out in the long run, a little introspection into your game would go a long way. When there was a local money rubber bridge club in my area, there was a player who consistently lost. He was one of the best players in the region, would later win a national championship, and played professionally with mediocre players in regionals and win more than his share of titles. The club owner commented that this guy used rubber bridge as a therapy session to let off steam after playing weekends with clients in tournaments around the region.

[bgm]

I think of this some time ago - but this also need some human judge base on the hand record.

If we can compute a weighted score that also account for the bidding part, with the playing result to form a weighted sum.
A subjective weight need to be assigned.

Like in the example - almost all the declarer side should bid the game. So bidding 4♥ should be score like 50%(+), while any pair underbid partial or overbid slam should receive a poor score in the bidding.
The 5♥ bid should be worse than 4♥, depends on the slam potential of the hand. If the hand has no slam potential and declarer side are likely to have 10 tricks only, the score should be poor as well.
So it is like a bidding contest.

On the other hand, the playing result also matter. If the example hand is cold with 10 tricks with no legitimate way to play for overtrick - only some serious error will lead to the overtrick, then the weight of the playing result should be very small compare to the bidding score, so that overtrick will not affect the result greatly. Of course if the cold contract go down, the playing result should be 0.

On the defensive side, if the shape is very defensive with no chance to overcall, the bidding score should be 50% regardless of what opponent bid. Of course phantom sacrifice will be heavily punished in this case. Equivalently the bidding weight should be very low. For the playing part, score 50%(+) for holding 10 tricks, while giving a very poor score when gifting the up trick.

So the weighting of each side depends on whether that side can take an active action in the bidding / playing of that board. If that side can only take passive action and wait for opponent make mistake, the weight should be low in order to minimize the variation.

[pescetom]

johnu, on 2024-July-22, 16:22, said:

When there was a local money rubber bridge club in my area, there was a player who consistently lost. He was one of the best players in the region, would later win a national championship, and played professionally with mediocre players in regionals and win more than his share of titles. The club owner commented that this guy used rubber bridge as a therapy session to let off steam after playing weekends with clients in tournaments around the region.

I believe this is an important and much undervalued (at least until recently, when it became acceptable and even mainstream to seek psychological help) element in any kind of high level sports competition. Winning requires not just talent but a complex sequence of mental postures which are stressful to maintain: for many, occasionally playing to lose is a good way to take off pressure (at any level, be it Advanced, Expert or World Champion).
I have no illusions about my own potential as a bridge player, but I do happily and knowingly lose the Friday evening club carnage to let off steam for the battles that count. In cycling and athletics (where I was at a much higher level) I had no compunction about considering a race merely as useful training knowing that the next one was an objective.

[blackshoe]

The first thing that occurred to me on reading the OP was "if you don't like duplicate, play rubber bridge".

[AL78]

blackshoe, on 2024-July-23, 19:26, said:

The first thing that occurred to me on reading the OP was "if you don't like duplicate, play rubber bridge".

https://www.logicall...-Critic-Fallacy

[DavidKok]

bgm, on 2024-July-23, 11:53, said:

I think of this some time ago - but this also need some human judge base on the hand record.

If we can compute a weighted score that also account for the bidding part, with the playing result to form a weighted sum.
A subjective weight need to be assigned.

Please no. We already have far far too many players explaining 'how the game should be played' and 'which bidding agreements are wrong' - and I don't mean directors explaining the laws of the game. If the game becomes a jury sport that kills off the last motivation to pick it up, to innovate and improve. Most of the bidding panels I've seen are shallow enough as is, if pandering to them equates to winning I will invent my own bridge league on the spot just to be rid of them.

To me there are so so many aspects of the game that are underexplored - in declarer play, in defensive play, in bidding agreements and in hand evaluation. There is a wealth and complexity available far beyond what we are currently using, and the scoring system is one of the few objective guidelines for whether innovation is heading for gold or for bedrock. It would be nice if the sample sizes required for a good answer were about three orders of magnitude smaller, but making the scoring subjective outright kills it.

[mikeh]

I am strongly opposed to the ideas set forth in the OP.

I’m one of the stronger players in my area. I’ve started playing club games more often, after playing maybe once a year for over a decade. Last summer I had a string of 13 games where we averaged comfortably over 60% with a couple of 70% plus. But even then, we got ‘fixed’ quite a few times…..many years ago I’d have resented that. Now I enjoy it.

Our opps LOVE getting good boards against us. It makes them feel happy…and what does it cost me? Maybe we finish 4th if were fixed several times or if another pair or two play better than we did or just got lucky. Big deal…meanwhile, several players are happy they finished ahead of the local ‘guns’ or scored a top against them.

My priorities have very much changed from my super-intense earlier days and I like seeing other players enjoy themselves

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve played quite a few boards against the best players in the world. We beat the Lavazza team in 2010….we blitzed them in the round-robin stage of a WC! 5 world champions playing on that team! We were pumped.

That win wasn’t all or even mostly luck but I’ve definitely had some good results that were lucky…they outbid our pair to reach a good slam that fails and we win 11 imps, for example.

Not only does luck even out but, more importantly, it enhances the enjoyability of the game. I’d guess that maybe 1% of the club and local tournament players would merit being called ‘expert’. Yet an advanced pair can beat an expert pair even if they don’t play as well…..and feel happy and come back. An intermediate pair can beat an advanced pair, and so on.

I can play the best players in the world and lose most of the time but occasionally win. An intermediate pair can play against me and my main partner at a sectional and lose most of the time but occasionally win. I can’t imagine enjoying the game if luck were eliminated, much as sometimes I moan about getting fixed.

One of my favourite hands was from the 2000 Bermuda Bowl. We faced Meckwell, with Soloway and Hamman at the other table. We had a relay auction to 7C which was cold unless trump were 4-0….they were but I could and did pick them up…I then needed a 3=2 spit in a side suit, or a red suit squeeze. Down 1. I’m told that Hamman frowned when he saw his dummy in 6C but smiled when he was held to his contract.

While that hand hurt at the time (how often are we going to outbid a pair like Hamman-Soloway?) I can’t imagine playing under rules that granted me a win on that board. Whatever that game was, it wouldn’t be the game I love.

[helene_t]

The theme of the OP reminds a bit on the eternal discussion in the Esperanto community about improvements of the Esperanto grammar. Sure, we might have made some different choices if we were to start over, but it is better not to touch it. The strength of bridge (and Esperanto) lies for no small part in the fact that there is a universally accepted standard. So let's not break that up.

Also, unlike Esperanto, bridge can't, AFAICS, be improved much without distorting key aspects of the game and/or making it even more complex than it already is. The only thing I can think of would be getting rid of the vulnerability. But then again, better not touch it ....

[AL78]

mikeh, on 2024-July-24, 08:55, said:

I am strongly opposed to the ideas set forth in the OP.

I’m one of the stronger players in my area. I’ve started playing club games more often, after playing maybe once a year for over a decade. Last summer I had a string of 13 games where we averaged comfortably over 60% with a couple of 70% plus. But even then, we got ‘fixed’ quite a few times…..many years ago I’d have resented that. Now I enjoy it.

Our opps LOVE getting good boards against us. It makes them feel happy…and what does it cost me? Maybe we finish 4th if were fixed several times or if another pair or two play better than we did or just got lucky. Big deal…meanwhile, several players are happy they finished ahead of the local ‘guns’ or scored a top against them.

My priorities have very much changed from my super-intense earlier days and I like seeing other players enjoy themselves

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve played quite a few boards against the best players in the world. We beat the Lavazza team in 2010….we blitzed them in the round-robin stage of a WC! 5 world champions playing on that team! We were pumped.

That win wasn’t all or even mostly luck but I’ve definitely had some good results that were lucky…they outbid our pair to reach a good slam that fails and we win 11 imps, for example.

Not only does luck even out but, more importantly, it enhances the enjoyability of the game. I’d guess that maybe 1% of the club and local tournament players would merit being called ‘expert’. Yet an advanced pair can beat an expert pair even if they don’t play as well…..and feel happy and come back. An intermediate pair can beat an advanced pair, and so on.

I can play the best players in the world and lose most of the time but occasionally win. An intermediate pair can play against me and my main partner at a sectional and lose most of the time but occasionally win. I can’t imagine enjoying the game if luck were eliminated, much as sometimes I moan about getting fixed.

One of my favourite hands was from the 2000 Bermuda Bowl. We faced Meckwell, with Soloway and Hamman at the other table. We had a relay auction to 7C which was cold unless trump were 4-0….they were but I could and did pick them up…I then needed a 3=2 spit in a side suit, or a red suit squeeze. Down 1. I’m told that Hamman frowned when he saw his dummy in 6C but smiled when he was held to his contract.

While that hand hurt at the time (how often are we going to outbid a pair like Hamman-Soloway?) I can’t imagine playing under rules that granted me a win on that board. Whatever that game was, it wouldn’t be the game I love.

I disagree. One of the things I like about chess is that there is no luck, if you lose it is because you blundered or you were outplayed. I don't play at the local chess club because when I had a go a few months ago I found it too exhausting. I prefer to think of bridge as primarily a game of skill and when the luck factor starts to dominate, that destroys the gameplay for me and I feel as if I am wasting my time. The lack of enjoyment is amplified by the occasional long-time smug individual who smirks after a reckless action that happened to work and no-one else found, or the very weak players who start giggling like silly schoolgirls as though they have done something clever when they misbid to the optimal contract or take an absurd line which works on that particular layout. Being made a fool of is not enjoyable or good for my mental health. This and the destruction of the social side of the club as the membership have largely decided they prefer to play online is why I will stop playing after this year.

[mikeh]

There are tremendous differences between chess and bridge. I played chess for some 7+ years, starting when I was 7 and ending when I graduated from high school few months after my 15th birthday. I was on the chess team, 2-3 years younger than anyone else. So I do know the game.

1. There is no luck in chess (other than if playing a single game, who is white and who is black). Why? Because it’s a game in which both players know ALL of the relevant information

2. Moreover, chess begins every game with precisely the same ‘power’ on each side and the starting positions are always the same.

3. While top players have lots of support…coaches, computers etc…for preparation, the gameplay is between two soloists. Neither has to trust or rely upon anyone else at the table.

4. Bridge truly is a partnership game. I rarely play with weak players….my last venture was when I was auctioned off as part of a fund raiser. I’ve only recently learned to enjoy that sort of game, and it took an internal recognition that I wasn’t really ‘playing bridge’ when I did so, because my partner simply couldn’t ‘play bridge’ in any competent fashion….but she was a delightful woman and I hope she had fun. In my regular partnership, we have a hundred pages of notes, with many ‘basic’ propositions not written down. We have detailed agreements on lead tendencies, signalling (our approach depends on dummy, what we infer about declarer and other factors…and sometimes deliberately lie). The psychological part of the game is hugely important…which includes partnership harmony.

5. Not only is the information on any hand incomplete, but the information available at each table will often vary table to table. At one table west opens an aggressvecpreempt while at another west passes. At both tables N-S find their 9 card heart fit, missing Qxxx. The suit breaks 3-1 and at the table where west passed, declarer correctly plays for the drop…correctly on the information he has….at the other, declarer correctly plays for the 3-1…correctly on his information. But…wait a second…the suit broke 2-2 so the player who correctly played for the drop seeded while the player who correctly played for the finesse lost!

One can see this either as part of the attraction of the game or part of why it’s frustrating…or, as I do….both. Which is why it’s impossible for humans (ignoring the use of AI which may be literally a game changer) to ever develop a ‘perfect’ strategy.

In any game of incomplete and variable information, where what players know depends upon not only their methods and style but also the methods and style of their opponents, there is going to be some randomness. Add to this that most play problems boil down to probability calculations based on information that differs table to table, and often involves drawing inferences if uncertain reliability, and there is always going to be randomness even if, as never happens, every player plays a technically perfect game.

So luck is always built into the game, making it utterly unlike chess.

Want to eliminate luck? Go play chess.

Want to enjoy bridge? Embrace the luck element, recognizing that over many hands luck evens out.


As for getting fixed and resenting the opps who didn’t even realize how badly they played…..laugh at it. It’s not easy. I’ve always been very…too…intense and hated getting fixed. But as ingot older…and as I started doing better…I realized that I was spoiling my enjoyment of a game I love….and if I allowed my resentment to come out, I was spoiling the enjoyment of others. Now (usually…I’m not perfect) I laugh at fixes and sometimes tell the opps ‘well done’. What does that cost me? Nothing. Meanwhile I’ve added to the happiness of two players who usually give me tops or near tops. Where’s tye downside?

Without this element of luck, bridge would be a far different, far less sociable and for the vast majority of players, far less enjoyable pastime.

I do recognize that my situation differs from yours in many ways…the most important likely being that in my town (population along 400,000) we have two thriving clubs averaging around 29 tables 4 times a week. We also have 7 grand life masters (neither I nor my partner amongst them) and 10 players with one or more national titles. We’re I playing in a 3-4 table game with zero good players, id probably quit and go online. But that is irrelevant to the idea of trying to decide ‘what the right result should be’. It’s not possible unless everyone always has identical information at every decision point and that often wont be the case pm nor should it be. We open 1N, nv, on a balanced 10 count. Two days ago, in a NABC team game I held A10xx Kx Jxx Qxxx. Partner opened 1N and we played 1N xx making on a strip-squeeze endplay for +560. At the other table. Our teammates played in 1N the other way, making. Was that luck? How would our hypothetical luck remover deal with this?