Her bidding and play strategy is quite matchpoints-centric even when playing IMPs.ĭoes anyone have an elegant way of explaining the differences between these two scoring methods to someone who is not terribly sophisticated?ĭoes your partner play golf? If so, explain that MPs is analogous to match play, and IMPS is analogous to stroke play. ![]() I know the difference between matchpoints and IMPs but I'm finding it difficult to explain the difference to her without resorting to examples. Somehow she has missing learning much about scoring. I have a partner that is passionate about bridge and knows a lot about bidding and cardplay. Their skill most of the time is enough to more than compensate for the run of the cards, but if they have an off day, they can significantly underperform and/or be subject to the wrong side of the random element. The top pair in my club are regularly winning, but very occasionally, they finish below 50%. ![]() I should add that I was not intending to imply duplicate was mostly luck, or make excuses for my own poor performance. Cycling time trials have just come to mind. I'm not directly familiar with marathons or cross country skiing, but it looks like there are some events where a competitor has no influence over their opponents. This apart, you make many good points here. Duplicate is straight forward in comparison. And often you will be busting a gut for no good reason as you have already lost or are miles ahead. In mass start events like marathon or cross country skiing you quite often never see your direct opponents until the prize ceremony, if you are competing for a category win rather than absolute. I can't immediately think of any other games or sports where it happens to the extent it does at bridge. One of the drawbacks of duplicate bridge is the lack of influence over your true opponents. On very flat boards, no-one is getting more than about 55% (unless someone blunders), whereas on boards where a double game swing is there, you can get anything from 0 to 100% depending on whether or not you hit the perfect outcome. At MPs, it is not quite accurate to say all boards are equal (only true in a mathematical sense), because the potential to get matchpoints on a board is dependant on the deal. ![]() I much prefer head-to-head teams, where your teammates have a chance at replicating what happens at your table (and vice versa), and you have direct influence over your opponents. In the latter case, it is very difficult to generate matchpoints or imps if you spend most of the evening passing and following suit, and repeatedly get the thin games and slams bid against you that only one or two others find. You don't want to get the flat boards against weak pairs, and you don't want the hands requiring high skill against the top pairs. The former increases the luck factor by being dependant on which hands you play against which pair. One of the better players in my local club refers to duplicate as largely a crap shoot, and it is in the situations where the variance in standard around the room is high, or there is a huge bias in which way the good hands go (both happen at my local club). For example, which way you finesse on the slam-hand.Īt teams (imp/vp), however, one sponsor can provide the livelihood of up to 5 professionals.Īt duplicate, there is a lot of luck in both. MPs/BAM is more skilful because all boards are potentially equal and each trick is important.Īt aggregate or imps, the result of a match often completely depends on only one or two boards.
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