Playing teams in bridge
is the very best form of contract bridge. Because the most common form of club
bridge is duplicate pairs it is important to understand the different scoring
system in teams.
There are 4 players or 2
pairs in each team of 4. When playing against another team you will commonly
play 24 boards. One pair will play as N/S and the other pair will play as E/W.
The 24 boards will be played by both pairs of the team usually by swapping the
boards at intervals.
So for any one given
board your team will have played it both N/S and E/W. Each person keeps an
individual record of his/her scores
Let us imagine that as
N/S you bid and made a non-vulnerable game and thus scored 420 points. Your E/W
team mates defeated the game by 1 trick and therefore scored 50 points. At the
end of the session you sit down with your team mates and add your scores for the
board together. On this board the team scored a cumulative 470
points.
Now you convert that
score into IMPs (international match points) by using a chart at the bottom of
most score cards.
The chart goes as follows: 0-10 points 0 IMP
20-40 p 1 IMP
50-80 p 2 IMP etc
So the score is scaled
down using the chart.
Another example: N/S do
not bid a vulnerable game but make 10 tricks 170 points scored, E/W allow the
game to be bid and made – 620 points. Total – 450 which is converted to – 10
IMPs, a large loss for not bidding a vulnerable game. If it had been a
non-vulnerable game the loss would have been – 250 or – 6
IMPs.
The last example: N/S
bid and make 3NT (nv) with 1 overtrick = + 430 but the opposition bid and make
4H = – 420. A cumulative total of +10 points = 0 IMPs
Then you total your IMPs for all the boards to see if you have won or lost the match.