INTRODUCTION to DUPLICATE by Simon Ainger and Updated by David Stevenson
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INTRODUCTION TO DUPLICATE by Simon Ainger and updated by David Stevenson f I had not derived great pleasure compared with all the scores achieved made of rigid plastic (sometimes they Ifrom playing duplicate bridge over by the other North-South pairs. The are soft plastic wallets) with slots for many years, I would not have been quality of the hand that you hold is individual hands. It might look like this: persuaded to write this booklet. I say therefore irrelevant to success; it is this because there are things which, on whether you do better than the other the face of it, may cause the social North-South pairs that is critical. You do player some concern; all this talk about not need good cards to win. ‘alerts’ and ‘stops’ and such like. Be This is what happens. At the start, the assured that the techniques of duplicate players at any one table shuffle the are easily and quickly absorbed and cards and deal the initial deals (usually that it is played, in the great majority of two or three) for the first round of the clubs, as among friends and completely competition. Suppose that there is a free of any legalistic hassle. total of nine tables and 27 deals are to Certainly, of its nature, duplicate be played overall, then each table will bridge is competitive and success or deal three deals initially. These same Since each original hand is placed (or, failure is both measured and evident. deals will subsequently move round all subsequently, replaced) in its designated You can still bemoan your bad luck, from the other tables. For this to happen, it is slot, the same hands are played when the time to time, but, overall, it’s a level obvious that, firstly, each player must sets of boards are moved from table to playing table and you can’t hide behind retain his individual hand intact and, table. poor cards and wrong finesses. Maybe it secondly, that the individual hands must You will notice that both the dealer is enjoyed most by those who relish the be stored so they can be moved to and the vulnerability for each hand challenge to improve but, to all, it offers another table. (board) is given. In duplicate, every hand stimulation and the opportunity for new The first objective is achieved in the is a separate entity with both the dealer friendships. Simon Ainger manner of playing to each trick. Instead and the vulnerability determined accord- of playing the cards in the centre of the ing to a set pattern. The dealer might be The Basics table, as you would do at rubber bridge, indicated in writing or with an arrow; each player plays his card directly in the vulnerability in writing or colour- In duplicate, compass points are front of him. When his side wins a trick, coded (red or orange for vulnerable, assigned to distinguish the two pairs he turns his card over upright and, when white or green for non-vulnerable). playing at the same table. Thus North- he loses a trick, sideways. Progressively There also has to be a record of every South play against East-West. In rubber it looks like this: pair’s score (you will be assigned a bridge, these two pairs are in direct number for identification) on each deal opposition. Success or failure depends and this is handled by having a scoreslip partly on skill, but very much on luck in which travels with the board (it goes into the quality of the hands that you are that slot at the bottom) and is known as dealt. a ‘traveller’. They vary in size and In duplicate pairs, North-South and design but a simple example is given on East-West are not in direct competition Your side lost the first trick, won the the next page. against each other but, instead, each next two and lost the fourth. The pattern Finally, there needs to be a pair is competing against every other continues until all the cards are played. ‘movement’ to determine how the pair sitting in the same direction and The second objective is achieved by boards and the pairs will move during who will hold exactly the same cards. having what is called a ‘board’ into the session. This is the responsibility of As North-South, for example, your which the hands are placed after the a ‘director’. Movements and directors score on every hand played, will be play of the hand ends. These are usually will be discussed later. i Introduction to Duplicate continued Pair 1 has a better score than five other pairs (5 x 2 points) and has the same score as one other pair (1 point), giving them 11 points on this board. You can see that the matchpoints for East-West, The Traveller ability. There is no bonus for ‘honours’. shown in the right-hand column, are The actual score plus the value of over- complementary to the North-South The initial, uncompleted, travelling tricks and any bonus are all added matchpoints. scoreslip may look like this: together to produce a composite figure Note that North-South pairs 3 and 9 (no below and above the line). This is achieved their good result because they then entered either in the North-South had the best scores and not because they plus column or the North-South minus bid and made a game. Had they bid and column. In other respects, duplicate made just 2NT (+120), they would have scoring is exactly the same as in rubber. gained the same matchpoint scores. If a hand is passed out, North enters How a Pairs’ Event the East-West pair number on the is Scored Overall traveller, writes ‘passed out’ alongside it and enters ‘0’ in the North-South column. At the end of the session, there will be a As a matchpointed score, it takes its completed traveller for every board place midway between the North-South played. The scorer now takes over. Each plus and minus scores. board is scored independently. This Sometimes, when things go wrong at means that, if you have a terrible result the table, the director needs to award a on one deal, the worst score recorded in matchpointed score in the absence of a your direction (known as a ‘bottom’ in valid normal score. This will usually be contrast to the best score, known as a related to average, either average itself ‘top’), you will score badly only on that (50%, exactly half a top) or average plus particular board in isolation. Lose 1,700 (at least 60%) or average minus (at most The score is entered after the play of points on one deal in rubber bridge and 40%). The introduction of an average any board ends. Custom, though not it will cost dearly. In duplicate, it means will involve a slight adjustment to the law, gives this responsibility to North only a single bad board out of many other matchpointed scores. but East or West should check the entry. played. After matchpointing all the travellers, The number of the board must be The scorer takes each traveller and the scores for every pair on each board written at the top. The North-South pair matchpoints it. He assigns every North- are recorded and totalled to produce a numbers are usually pre-printed and South two points for each score they separate result for the North-South pairs North fills in the row opposite the pair have bettered and one point for each and the East-West pairs. Sometimes the number that he has been assigned score the same. He gives comple- movement is designed to produce only (beware of mistakenly using the board mentary matchpoint scores to East- one overall winning pair and number). The East-West pair number West. If North-South gain 16 match- consequently that will be the pair with goes in the next column, then the points (here the top score) then East- the highest overall percentage. It may contract (identify a doubled contract by West must get zero matchpoints for the happen that one or more pairs play adding ‘x’ and a redoubled contract by bottom score in that direction. fewer hands than the majority of the adding ‘xx’), the declarer (N, E, S or Let us look at a traveller which has field but, when this happens, their W), the number of tricks made and, been matchpointed: overall score will be factored up to finally, the score as related to North- compensate. South. The columns on the right, In practice, few scorers work by hand headed ‘Matchpoints’, are for the use of any more. Scores are entered into a the person scoring the event overall. computer, and results are nearly always If the overall scoring is done by shown in percentages. 50% is an average computer, the North-South pair number session, 60% is good, 70% is brilliant. column may be blank and the score is Normally, 62%-63% will win a session. entered on the first available line. More and more clubs use Bridgemates for scoring. North enters the score The Scoring into an electronic box designed for the purpose, and East checks it. Then the Since each board is a separate entity, percentage score at the time on that with pre-determined vulnerability, board is shown and earlier scores may duplicate scoring is slightly different be seen. from rubber bridge. A vulnerable game Since the scores are transmitted earns a bonus of 500 points, a non- immediately by radio to the central vulnerable game 300 points and a part- computer, clubs with Bridgemates often score 50 points, irrespective of vulner- have screens showing everyone’s ii m p Introduction to Duplicate continued it in sequence down from 2 to 1 are laid in a stack on the table with only the 2NT card visible on top of the stack.