[ArcLight]

According to Richard Pavliceks score chart (and also on BBO)
3 Spades Vulnerable, Doubled, making an over trick = 950
but
4 Spades Vulnerable, Doubled, making 4 = 790

WHY are they not the same?

They are BOTH doubled, into game, making the same number of tricks
VULNERABLE - Why does 3 spades doubled making 4 = a lot more than 4 spades doubled making 4?

I there a hidden bonus?

[hotShot]

doubled overtrick is 200 vul and 100 non vul
a doubled trick is only 40/60

For details to scoring click here

[EricK]

Are you asking how the score is calculated or the reason that the score table is designed so that one is higher than the other?

In the score table, a doubled over trick is worth 100 or 200 (depending on vulnerability) whereas a doubled contracted trick is only worth double the normal score for that trick (so 60 for a major, 40 for a minor etc). So the tenth trick in 3S+1 is worth mopre than the tenth trick in 4S=.

As for the reasoning, instead of asking why 3 Spades doubled with an overtrick scores more than 4 spades making, you should look at it from the point of view of the side which actually doubled. It is clear, is it not, that the pair who doubled 3S when 4 was on made a worse error of judgement than the pair who doubled 4S when it makes "on the nose". It seems reasonable that the doublers of 3S deserve a worse score than the doublers of 4S.

[ArcLight]

Hotshot , thank you for explaining the scoring


>It is clear, is it not, that the pair who doubled 3S when 4 was on made a worse error of judgement than the pair who doubled 4S when it makes "on the nose". It seems reasonable that the doublers of 3S deserve a worse score than the doublers of 4S.

No, I dont agree.
It seem sto me that both contracts should score the same.

In any case, there is no point arguing, the scoring table is as it is.
I was just curious.

[barmar]

ArcLight, the point is to penalize bad doubles based on how bad they were. If you thought you could set them, but they actually make an overtrick, it means your double was worse than if they just made their contract exactly.

Consider the opposite situation. Do you think you should get the same score for 3♠X-2 and 2♠X-1? In both cases declarer only took 7 tricks, which is analogous to the situation in your original post where declarer took 10 tricks in both cases. But again the score is different because of the difference between the number of tricks contracted and the number actually made.

In all cases, doubles cause overtricks and undertricks to be exaggerated in value.

[pclayton]

ArcLight, on Jan 14 2007, 08:05 AM, said:

According to Richard Pavliceks score chart (and also on BBO)
3 Spades Vulnerable, Doubled, making an over trick = 950
but
4 Spades Vulnerable, Doubled, making 4 = 790

WHY are they not the same?

They are BOTH doubled, into game, making the same number of tricks
VULNERABLE - Why does 3 spades doubled making 4 = a lot more than 4 spades doubled making 4?

I there a hidden bonus?

3♠ x'd vul with an overtrick is 930, not 950. Yes its a little weird, but there's a lesson here: Don't make tight doubles of part scores.

This situation doesn't frost me as much as the following.

Your side holds the spades and you succesfully compete to 5♠, get hammered, and make it on the nose. +650 (NV; good job right?). Other tables get hammered at 4♠ and make the overtrick for +690 . To me, these scores should be the same.

[cherdano]

pclayton, on Jan 15 2007, 06:58 PM, said:

This situation doesn't frost me as much as the following.

Your side holds the spades and you succesfully compete to 5♠, get hammered, and make it on the nose. +650 (NV; good job right?). Other tables get hammered at 4♠ and make the overtrick for +690 . To me, these scores should be the same.

Nah. Wasn't doubling 4♠ more stupid than doubling 5♠, and thus should be punished more?

[EricK]

Soemtimes what seems silly when looked at from one side looks sensible when looked at from the other side. Perhaps for certain contracts we should award one positive score to one side and a different negative score to the other!

[barmar]

EricK, on Jan 15 2007, 01:14 PM, said:

Soemtimes what seems silly when looked at from one side looks sensible when looked at from the other side. Perhaps for certain contracts we should award one positive score to one side and a different negative score to the other!

That's a whole different kettle of fish. There are lots of inequities in the symmetric scoring system that bridge uses. Suppose you're defending a hand where 10 tricks are cold, but most pairs won't bid the game. If you're unlucky enough to play against the overbidders at the club on that hand, you'll get a bad score on the hand through no fault of your own, just the luck of the draw.

The general problem is that there's usually no straightforward way to tell whose fault it was that a certain contract or result was reached, which is what you'd need to assign split scores like that. So we live with the simple scoring system we have, and expect that in the long run these factors will balance out. Sometimes you'll play against the overbidders who bid that game; other times you'll play against the underbidders who don't bid the cold game that everyone else does, and you'll get a good score -- both are undeserved, but that's the way it is.

[awm]

In fact it's pretty easy to argue that at pairs, luck is an extremely large factor in the results.

All bridge players make mistakes. In fact, I'd bet there are very few players who average less than one serious mistake per session. Of course the average club player is probably making on the order of a mistake every three boards! It's a fair estimate at pairs that I'll score a top each time an opponent makes a serious mistake and a bottom each time I make one (or partner does). So basically it's a game of "who can make fewer serious mistakes, us or them?"

The point is, in a strong field where most people are making something like 2 mistakes per session, even if partner and I happen to play flawlessly our expected result will still look something like 58% (we get 4 tops on boards where opponents make mistakes, and averages on the other 22 boards). But while the opponents are making a mistake every 6.5 boards on average, it's not hard to see that we might be unlucky and not get any mistakes made against us (ending up dead average even though we played flawlessly) or that we might get lucky and have 8 mistakes made against us instead of 4 (ending in the high 60s).

It might be nice to normalize somehow so that the number of mistakes made by opponents is not such a factor. But this is virtually impossible -- my own side's actions will often effect the mistake probability and this kind of thing is hard to unravel. It's easier to just figure that in a long event (4-6 sessions for pairs) these things should tend to average out. If partner and I magically play flawlessly for four sessions and score up four 58% results, this is normally enough to win. In a single session pairs with a strong field you need the luck on your side (58% is usually not enough to win).

Of course this is all hypothetical because partner and I don't usually manage to play flawlessly. But I've certainly had sessions where it felt like partner and I made mistake after mistake and so did the opponents, and we ended up in the high fifties despite playing pretty badly, or where it felt like we played really well throughout and ended up just barely above average because the opponents weren't throwing MPs at us.

[blackshoe]

awm, on Jan 16 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

Of course the average club player is probably making on the order of a mistake every three boards!

So few?