How to Keep Score

Teams

Team play has become popular in clubs and tournaments. Two members of your team, playing as a partnership, sit North-South at one table. Two other members of your team, also playing as a partnership, sit East-West at a different table. The two pairs from the opposing team fill the empty spots at the two tables. During the course of the match, exactly the same boards are played at both tables.

Each player should have a score card to record the score on each board. The card has a row for each board. The beginning of North’s card from table 1, when completed, might look like this:

Board		Final		Score		IMPs
Deal #	Vul	Contract	By	Plus	Minus	Plus	Minus
N 1	-	4S	S	420
E 2	NS	5D*	W	500
S 3	EW	3NT	W		690
W 4	All	2H	N	140

Note that the scoring for actual contract is the same as in duplicate scoring. What will change is how the scores at both tables are compared.

In the contract column 5D* (diamonds) means 5D doubled. The “By” column shows who was declarer. The score is recorded from North’s point of view, so when West goes down in 5D, it is positive. The IMPs can be filled in only when this card is compared with one from the other room. Suppose that our teammate East at the other table has a card like this:

Board		Final		Score		IMPs
Deal #	Vul	Contract	By	Plus	Minus	Plus	Minus
N 1	-	4S	S		450
E 2	NS	4H	N		620
S 3	EW	6NT	W	1440
W 4	All	4H	N	100

Now the differences can be converted to IMPs for the team. The following standard table is used:

Point difference	IMPs
0 - 10	0
20 - 40	1
50 - 80	2
90 - 120	3
130 - 160	4
170 - 210	5
220 - 260	6
270 - 310	7
320 - 420	8
370 - 420	9
430 - 490	10
500 - 590	11
600 - 740	12
750 - 890	13
900 - 1090	14
1100 - 1290	15
1300 - 1490	16
1500 - 1740	17
1750 - 1990	18
2000 - 2240	19
2250 - 2490	20
2500 - 2990	21
3000 - 3490	22
3500 - 3990	23
4000 or more	24

So in the example, on the first board the difference between the two tables was 30 against us, and we lose 1 IMP. On the second board we lose 3 IMPs. Although our North-South pair defeated West’s 5, with the same cards our East-West pair allowed North to play and make 4. On board 3, where we bid the small slam while they stopped in game, we gain 13 IMPs for a 750-point difference. On board 4 both Norths made nine tricks in hearts, but we gain 6 IMPs because our North-South pair just bid 2 rather than 4. Overall we are 15 IMPs ahead on those four boards.

At the end of the match, the result is the difference in IMPs between the teams. Sometimes there is then a further conversion of this margin into a match result, in which some fixed number of victory points is apportioned between the teams. There is no standard conversion table, but here is an example table for a 24-board match:

IMP difference	Victory Points
0 - 2	10 - 10
3 - 6	11 - 9
7 - 11	12 - 8
12 - 16	13 - 7
17 - 21	14 - 6
22 - 27	15 - 5
28 - 33	16 - 4
34 - 39	17 - 3
40 - 46	18 - 2
47 - 54	19 - 1
55 or more	20 - 0

In the example, if we were still 13 IMPs ahead having played 24 boards, using this table we would win the match 13-7. If the match was part of some larger competition, such as a league, then we would score 13 victory points and our opponents would score 7.