Matchpoints in Bridge: How Matchpoint Scoring Works

Matchpoints are the scoring method of duplicate pairs games. On each board your score is compared with the score of every other pair who held the same cards: you get 1 matchpoint for each pair you beat and half a matchpoint for each pair you tie. Your total for the session, divided by the most you could have earned, is your percentage.

The size of the win does not matter. Beating a pair by 10 points earns exactly as much as beating them by 1000. That one fact explains almost every matchpoint habit: fighting for overtricks, choosing notrump over a major, doubling the opponents for +200, and playing the same contract as everyone else. Below you will find how the scoring works, a fully scored board, and the tactics that win pairs games.

Matchpoints, written MP or MPs, are used in pairs events, the format of most club duplicate games. Each pair plays a set of boards against different opponents. The boards move from table to table, so by the end of the session every board has been played several times by different pairs. If you are new to this format, duplicate bridge explains how a session runs.

Your score on a board is never judged on its own. +420 can be a great result if most pairs went down, or a poor one if the rest of the room made an overtrick. All that counts is how your score ranks against the other pairs who sat in your direction: North-South pairs are compared with North-South pairs, East-West pairs with East-West pairs.

A warning about the letters. In North America, MP also means masterpoints, the ranking points the ACBL awards for good finishes. Masterpoints measure your record over the years; matchpoints score a single board. In this article, MP always means matchpoints.

Here is one board played at seven tables, not vulnerable. Each North-South pair is compared with the other six, so the top on this board is 6 matchpoints.

How the numbers work:

1. Count the pairs you beat. Each one is worth 1 matchpoint.
2. Count the pairs with exactly your score. Each one is worth half a matchpoint.
3. Add them. Each of the three pairs on +420 beat two pairs (+170 and -50) and tied with two, for 3 matchpoints.
4. Give East-West the rest. On every line, the East-West pair scores the top minus North-South's matchpoints. The pair who defended against +480 scored 0; the pair who beat 4♠ scored 6.

In Britain and much of Europe the same board is often scored with 2 matchpoints for each pair beaten and 1 for each tie, so the top here would be 12 and +420 would earn 6. The percentages come out identical, so a 60% game is a 60% game on either scale.

The bridge score calculator on BridgeDummy has a matchpoint converter: enter your score and the other results on the board, and it returns your matchpoint percentage. It is a quick way to check a traveler after the game.

Add your matchpoints on every board and divide by the maximum. In a 24-board session with a top of 6 on each board, the maximum is 144. Score 86.4 matchpoints and you have 60%.

• 50% is average.
• 55% is a solid game and often places.
• 60% or more often wins a club session.
• 70% is rare and very good.

Because each board carries the same top, a partscore board counts exactly as much as a slam board. A pair who never loses the small battles will beat a pair who bids one brilliant slam and leaks 20 points here and there.

When a board cannot be played normally, the director gives an artificial score. In most clubs average plus is 60% for a side not at fault, average is 50%, and average minus is 40% for a side at fault. When some boards are played fewer times than others, the scores are scaled so every board still counts the same; the usual method is the Neuberg formula. You do not need to do these sums yourself, but it helps to know why a board played five times can show odd decimals.

Matchpoints reward how often you beat the others, not by how much. Look at the board above. The pair on +450 took one more trick than the three pairs on +420, and that 30-point edge was worth 2 extra matchpoints. Had they scored 1000 points more, they would have earned exactly 1 more matchpoint, for beating the +480 pair. Every comparison is worth one point, whatever the margin.

So as declarer you count overtricks the way an IMP player counts the contract. You plan the play to take the most tricks on the most layouts, you do not concede a trick early to save time, and you think hard about every discard at the end. As a defender, saving one overtrick turns a bad board into an average one. Players who are new to pairs games give away more matchpoints this way than any other.

With the same number of tricks, notrump scores 10 points more than a major, and a major scores more than a minor. At IMPs those 10 points are worth nothing. At matchpoints, 430 against 420 is a win against every pair in the other contract.

Scores are not vulnerable. Two lessons come out of the table. First, 3NT making nine tricks scores the same 400 as five of a minor making eleven, so matchpoint players look hard for 3NT before they settle for 5♣ or 5♦. Second, when notrump and a major take the same tricks, notrump wins the board. That happens most often when both hands are flat.

You hold 17 HCP and a 3-4-3-3 shape, a normal 1NT opening. Partner has 12 HCP, four hearts and a 4-3-3-3 hand too. Many pairs would use Stayman, find the 4-4 heart fit and play 4♥. Here it does not gain: neither hand has a short suit, so the trump suit gives you no ruffs, and hearts take no more tricks than notrump. Double dummy, both 3NT and 4♥ make exactly ten tricks.

That is +430 for 3NT against +420 for 4♥. If half the room plays 4♥, your 3NT beats all of them. That is why many matchpoint players raise 1NT straight to 3NT with a 4-3-3-3 hand, even with a four-card major.

It is a tendency, not a rule. When one hand has a singleton or a doubleton, the major fit usually takes an extra trick by ruffing, and +450 in 4♥ beats +430 in 3NT. Look for the flat hands before you choose notrump.

Your score is compared with pairs who hold your cards. If most of them will reach 4♠, the normal result is 4♠, and you beat the field by making an extra trick in it or by defending better on the next board. A wild 6♠ gains only when it makes, and loses to every pair in game when it fails.

So at matchpoints, bid the contract the field will bid unless you have a clear reason not to. Choose an unusual contract only when it is likely to score better more than half the time. Slams follow the same rule: bid a small slam when it makes more often than not, and remember that a grand slam that fails scores below every pair who stopped in six.

Many boards are partscore battles, and each one counts as much as a slam board. Do not sell out cheaply at the two level when your side has a fit. If the opponents make 2♥ for +110 and your side could have made 2♠ for +110, selling out turned an average board into a bad one. Compete to the level of your fit, as the Law of Total Tricks suggests, and push the opponents one level higher whenever you can do it safely. A pair who goes down one, not vulnerable, for -50 still beats every pair who let the opponents score +110.

At matchpoints a penalty double risks one comparison to win one comparison, like every other decision. That makes doubles of partscores far more attractive than at IMPs.

The key number is +200. When the opponents are vulnerable, down one doubled is +200, which beats any partscore your side was likely to make: +110, +140, even +170. So when the opponents push to the three level vulnerable and you are sure they are going down, double.

Sacrifices follow the same logic from the other side. Against a non-vulnerable game worth 420, going down 300 is a good save and going down 500 is close to a bottom. Against a vulnerable game worth 620, going down 500 is a good save and 800 is a disaster. Either way the save is only good when their game really makes and the rest of the field bids it. Our undertrick penalties table has every doubled and redoubled number.

As declarer in a normal contract, choose the line that takes the most tricks most often, even if it puts the contract at some risk. Say the whole field is in 3NT with nine top tricks, and a 50% finesse could give you a tenth but sets up the defenders' suit if it loses. Win it and you beat every pair; lose it and every pair beats you. That is an even bet, so take the finesse when the odds are better than 50% and skip it when they are worse. At IMPs you would never take it, because the downside is 10 IMPs (12 when vulnerable) against a gain of 1.

Your contract also changes the plan. In a good contract the field will miss, such as a making game that most pairs did not bid, play safe: just making it may already be a top. In a poor contract, take the risk the field did not need, because a normal result is a bottom anyway.

On defense, every trick counts in both directions. Do not take a wild chance to beat a contract that the whole field will make, if the price is an overtrick when it fails: holding declarer to ten tricks may already be a good score. Against 3NT and suit contracts, safe leads such as the top of a sequence usually score better than a desperate try. Our opening leads guide covers how the form of scoring changes the lead.

For team scoring in full, read IMPs in bridge. For the IMP scale table and more examples of how the two forms pull in different directions, see matchpoints vs IMPs.

Matchpoint judgment comes from many small decisions: which lead gives nothing away, which call wins the partscore, when to double for +200. The more of them you make and check, the faster it grows.

BridgeDummy puzzles come in matchpoint and IMP versions, so you can train the matchpoint habit on its own. In a lead puzzle you are South and choose one opening lead. The hidden hands are dealt hundreds to thousands of times to fit the auction, every lead is solved double dummy on every deal, and in the matchpoint version each lead is graded by how many tricks declarer takes against it on average. One trick here and there is exactly what decides a pairs game, and the 1 to 5 star grade shows you right away whether your lead held declarer to the minimum.

If you want the raw contract scores behind all of this, start with bridge scoring.