Scoring methods

[GeeGee]

Hi,

 

I was reading Elianna's blog at http://directorcalls.blogspot.com/, and was interested to read the following (I hope you don't mind me quoting you, Elianna):-

 

3) An illegal method of scoring (though that wasn't the way the caller put it). Basically, James (Berglund) was writing the score as 4S +2 (when they took 12 tricks). I told him what the accepted way of writing it in the US is (4S + 6), and asked him to do that so the next table doesn't get upset when they see it (it seems people are very confused). I mentioned it to John, who said that it was actually illegal in the US to keep score as James wanted to. I had never heard of that.

 

I was a bit surprised to read this, as I believe the practice in the UK is to write 4S + 2, and an old-fashioned scoring program that I use sometimes, won't accept anything other than 4S + 2.

 

Are there different practices around the world?

 

Geoff

[Walddk]

There is a very simple way of doing this, used in many European countries, Denmark included. Mark the number of tricks declarer gets in his contract. Then there is no confusion possible. Examples:

 

E 4♠, 11, -450

S 6♣, 11, -100

N 2♥, 9, +140

 

Roland

[Elianna]

I don't mind you quoting me. Especially since you did it properly, by attributing it to me, and referring people to my website. :o

 

Almost every American I've ever seen would score 4S taking 11 tricks as 4S + 5 (writing the number of tricks above 6). And I don't know whether it's legal or not to write it other ways (such as Roland suggested or as 4S + 1) but as I said, I've been told it isn't, and even if it is, I recommend that anyone playing at an american (I don't know if all ACBL clubs, but at least at American ones) write it as 4S + 5, or else you'll just have a lot of people annoying you about it.

[mink]

Just curious, what do they write when they go down? 4S +3 means one down??? I really prefer the method used here in BBO or the one Roland described.

 

Karl

[Gerben42]

Normally 4♠+3 means taking 13 tricks, i.e. 4♠ and 3 overtricks. This is the standard method in Germany and Netherlands. I've occasionally seen writing the number of tricks taken but normally this accompanied by an extra field for "number of tricks", so you'd write 4♠ and 13 somewhere else.

 

I find the 4♠+7 method very confusing also. Who is using it?

[coyot]

In CZ, we prefer the "difference method" (as most of Europe seems) - how many under/overtricks were made. The alternative is the total count of tricks taken by declarer.

 

Americans are strange :unsure:. Why would I have to do the math? Not that substracting 6 is hard :-).

 

And, if I recall correctly, BBO vugraph uses the same notation as Europeans :)

[Gerben42]

Does it say anywhere in the ACBL rules that you must write this way?

[mikestar]

I know of no ACBL regualation. In the US, we tend to write it the way most of us verablize it.

 

In four spades, if I take 8 tricks, I say "four spades down two" and write 4S-2

 

if I take 10 tricks, I say "four spades making four" and write 4S+4

 

if I take 12 tricks, I say "four spades making six" and write 4S+6

 

 

I have no experience with practice elsewhere, but from books I gather that British or Australian players would express the first result the same way but verbalize the others as "four spades making" and "four spades, two over" or similar and write them as 4S= and 4S+2.

[Al_U_Card]

Hmmmmnn.....4S -2 is 2 down, but 4S +4 is making?

 

Over the last 15 years I have always written in 4S -2 as taking 8 tricks so down 2 and 4S +2 as taking 12 tricks so plus 2.....

[Walddk]

There you go. Confusion all over the place. There really should be an international standard. I don't take any credit for what we use in Denmark, but you've got to admit that this is unambiguous:

 

N 4♥, 11, 450

E 7♦, 10, 300

 

provided that South made 11 tricks in 4♥ non vulnerable, and that East went 3 down (10 tricks) vulnerable in his ambitious grand slam.

 

Roland

[mpefritz]

Here is a link to a picture of a traveler:

 

http://www.baronbarclay.com/MATCHPT.html

 

When I enter the score in the traveler, I write the contract in the contract column and fill in how many tricks over a book it made (OR undertricks in the DOWN column).

 

I have never recorded a contract as 4S+5, just "4S" and "5" under the made column. When speaking to someone, I would say "4 spades, making 5", but in an email or my personal score sheet, I would write 4S+1. Just my style.

 

There is a difference between verbal and written conversational score and traveler entry.

 

fritz

[Free]

It's quite confusing if you write down "3♠+3". Logic imo is that you made 3 extra tricks. If you just made, you can easily write down "3♠="...

 

However, if there's a column 'made' it might be logical to write down the number of tricks actually made, or the contract which was made. But that still doesn't mean you have to write the "+"! The "+" sign is confusing, not the reasoning.

[bearmum]

Hmmmmnn.....4S -2 is 2 down, but 4S +4 is making?

 

Over the last 15 years I have always written in 4S -2 as taking 8 tricks so down 2 and 4S +2 as taking 12 tricks so plus 2.....

ITA

 

 

Here I Australia we write the CONTRACT in one colume (ie 4S) and in the next write ither "C" for making the contract OR the number of tricks you make above or below the contract so 4S +2 means u made 6 :) -- and as I thought ACBL tourneys did the same -- but we often saw EW so only had to check the SCORE was correct

[GeeGee]

The EBU travellers, which I think are in common use in England (did I say the UK before? I shouldn't speak for the rest of the Kingdom. :) ) , have columns for the contract, by whom, the number of tricks, and two columns headed North-South, the first saying plus, the second minus.

 

So, if West is in 3H, making 4 (see, that's how we verbalise it in England as well), then the columns should read : -

 

3H+1,W, 10, , 170.

 

This I think is quite good, as it means the result is recorded three times, so if someone makes a mistake in one column, the scorer can usually work out the correct score from the other two.

 

That only leaves the problem of when you put the 170 in the wrong column, and your handwriting is so bad it's hard to tell the difference between N and W.

[coyot]

Our travellers usually have the fields: Contract, declarer, tricks, N/S, E/W (or, alternatively, +N/S, -N/S). Some versions have contract+declarer in one field.

 

Most people prefer the notation of tricks -n, =, +n, some write the total number of tricks scored (without any sign).