Answers

What do all the numbers mean?

So, you have clicked on your names in the ranking and now you are looking at your personal score card, and you are confused by what all the numbers mean. Not surprising really, there are quite a lot of them ! Before reading on, I suggest you print out your scorecard, so that you can easily see which bits I am referring to.

So - starting at the top. You have position and percentage - those are obvious, I think - your local and overall ranking and the percentage you got. They are different because the event has been re-scored across the whole field, and if you are confused as to how this affects it and why it happens, click here to find out.

Now I am going to skip to the bottom of the scorecard, where it says Club Top and Overall Top. These numbers are the highest possible score you can achieve on any one board. So if you score that number on a board you have a complete "top" on the board.

This "top" is calculated by the computer based on the premise that a pair scores 2 points for each time they had a better score than anyone else on a board, 1 point for each time they tied with anyone on the board and 0 points when they had a worse score than anyone else on the board.

Which is fine, but ... but ... this is bridge, so it isn't QUITE as simple as it sounds because you also have to take into account the fact that boards are not always played the same number of times, especially with a Simultaneous Pairs. So, in theory you could have boards 1 - 28 all played, say, 100 times but boards 29 and 30 are only played 50 times. Now, if you are one of the pairs playing boards 1 - 28, because it is played a different number of times, the potential top is considerably higher than the top for boards 29 and 30. Which would mean that if you played boards 29 & 30 you would be decidedly miffed because your score - your total match points on those boards - would be lower. So the computer applies what is known as the Neuberg formula. In simple terms, it looks for the most played board in the whole set (normally board 11 or 12 for some obscure mathematical reason that I don't understand and doesn't really matter). It calculates the "top" on that board - i.e. the highest number of master points a pair can achieve - and then applies it to all the boards in the set. THEN it looks at the number of boards ACTUALLY played by the pair in question, and factors the master points accordingly.

So, to go back to your scorecard, and back up to the top line, where it says Factored Match Points. These the total Match Points you have scored - these are used to calculate your percentage but could be used on their own, of course, to calculate your position in the club or overall ranking.

Now go to the column headings.

Board - well that's the board number

Dir Played - NS or EW

Against Pair - the pair number you played against

NS+ and NS- - the score on the board. Do remember that this is basically the NS score, so if you played EW your score will show as NS-

Adj - this is where any adjustment (i.e. percentage like a 60/60 score awarded by the TD) will be displayed

Club MP - this the club Match Points awarded on the board. These are based on the Club Top at the bottom of the page, and basically indicate how may pairs you beat (2 points) or drew with (1 point) on that board.

Overall MP - this is the same thing, but based on the overall top.

% of club top and % of overall top - these are the percentages you gained on each board. So you can see whether you have gone up or down on each board when it is scored across the whole field.

So - that's what your scorecard tells you. Now, bear in mind that anything underlined is a link. So if you click on your opponents' pair number it will show you their scorecard. If you click on the Board number you will get the overall frequencies for that board. On the left of the page, you have links to the Club results, the Club Frequencies and the page explaining WHY the percentages change between local and overall scoring.

And for an explanation of frequencies - click here ! But please don't sue me if your head explodes :-)

 

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