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How do you calculate the results for the extreme scores?
What you describe is Butler scoring.
What you describe is Butler scoring.
No, it wasn't. With Butler, one takes the scores, throws out high/low, get a datum (typically by arithmetic mean), IMP your score vs. the datum. With cross-imps, one imps vs. every other score, then divide by # of comparisons to get an average. If one wanted to not compare vs. extremes, but still cross-imp, then you imp vs. every other score except the high/low of the other scores, & again divide by number of comparisons (2 fewer than a full cross-imp).
But I am with inquiry, don't throw out results, there's no basis to say they aren't perfectly valid data. Just increase # of results. Warn / toss people who do the random 7ntxx on 20 hcp. But just because one pair your direction randomly overbids is no reason to be upset about the fractional imp you lose. It's just the same as having teammates who randomly overbid 1/15 times (one doesn't get to choose teammates in pair games). This effect is random & will even out. The pair who bid the normal game against you did something good by avoiding the overbidding; why shouldn't they be rewarded some small amount? Your side did nothing wrong, but lost a little, but that's fairly common on boards where the other side has most of the points & controls the action. Not much you can do about that, that's just a perfectly normal part of pairs bridge. If you want total fairness, everything under your control, play teams.