Good morning Mr. Wolff,
Our club has started a monthly teams-of-four game. The plan is to keep cumulative total scores throughout the year toward a final standings, and a two-tier playoff. (four teams in each tier, as we have eight teams).
We are currently playing a full round-robin each month (seven short matches of three Boards). We are scoring by Board-a-Match (partly to keep the at-the-game scoring process very simple).
One way to keep the “standings” is by cumulative win / tie / loss record, but we are not sure whether three Boards is enough, or whether that’s too volatile to reliably find a winner. The other way is to keep the standings based upon cumulative BAM points.
(In future years we may switch to a schedule with fewer but longer matches, but for this year we will stick to the full round robin, three-Board matches.

Your views / comments / suggestions on scoring would be most appreciated, i.e. W/ L record or total BAM points? Also, any other suggestions?

Thanks

Hi Clarksburg,

In most ways, perhaps all, your league and your overall scoring method, BAM, might just be the most effective way of scoring.

However, if my understanding of what you mean by cumulative scoring, is what I think it might, then I do not agree since only wins, losses and ties should count, not the total amounts of scoring, plus and minus, since that method of scoring, IMO, is severely flawed and not true to life, since just one or two huge swings can overcome many small victories (like overtricks) which may indeed require stellar play, bidding and defense.

I will suggest that in order to break ties at the end, among the winners in both brackets, the individual record between the matches between the two tied teams should be the first tiebreaker, e.g. if Teams A & B tied in bracket 1 for the two leading scores in that bracket, than the results between those two teams would then determine who wins and who finishes 2nd. If a 3rd team is also tied with the top two then that bracket should be decided by the #1 team in quotient between the three tied teams. If that is tied there should be a 3 board match between the tied teams (overtime) which would be the 2nd way of determining who wins and still, if tied, continue to play 3 board matches until the tie is broken. If all 4 teams wind up tied for first then cards should be drawn with the two highest (bridge order, spades before hearts, etc.) should determine the matchups and then the two winners would play each other in the final, but this contingency is wildly unlikely.

BAM scoring, in some ways, is the truest form of scoring because every hand, whether part score, game or slam hand, takes on equal importance and experience dictates that overall all encompassing bridge skill itself usually will separate the teams rather than some luck involved with bidding and making slams (for example) which large number will overrate that achievement in the final result.

The above is especially true in short matches, which your overall tournament will feature.

May the best team win. You know who I will be rooting for.

Thanks,
Just to be sure I have made my question clear, and fully understood your advice:
All scoring of Boards is by BAM scoring. Winning a Board by 10 points counts the same as a win by 800 points.
We are scoring 2 for a win and 1 for a tie. The narrowest margin of victory would thus be 4-2; a sweep of all three Boards would be 6-0. If I understand you correctly you are saying that a 6-0 win is not worth any more than a 4-2 win.
Extending that to the full-year-end standings, we should be using W/L/T record of 3-Board matches won, not total number of Boards won, through the year.
Is that your intent and advice?
Thanks again.

Not exactly,

First I recommend, instead of 2-1-0 to make it 1-1/2-0 which is the universal way of scoring B-A-M.

Then those totals would carry forth. I incorrectly was thinking your group was intending to also differentiate how much the board was won or lost by and use that much larger number to carry forth. Since you were only interested in real B-A-M scoring the total number of points won does carry forward, as long as it (under my proposed scale) never be greater than 1 to 0 per board. With 3 board matches 3 to 0 is the highest score possible. to carry forward. Obviously your proposed 2-1-0 would not alter anything from mine since the proportion would be the same.

In your explanation 4-2 would be the the narrowest margin of victory, but 3-3 would also be common. Compare that with 2-1 or 11/2-11/2.

No misunderstandings, no doubts, no errors, no player confused with the only possible imperfection possible (and maybe likely) would be, one or more terrible (basic novice) team(s) competing may cause a larger luck element than wanted since that team or teams will be no threat to win (or even come close to average) but still have an undue influence on which teams do, by the chance happening of how difficult the hands come up at those tables. Perhaps an answer would be to try and not have any of those teams (if there are any lurking) enter by demanding some credentials. Sometimes that causes hard feelings, in spite of it being done in the best interest of the event itself.

In a very long event like all real bridge World Championships have become, luck has time to even out so that by the time the later stages of the event occur, there are only the best teams still competing, thereby solving the problem. Since your event is an entire round robin with no playoffs at the end, your event will be subject to more chance than longer events would be.

I do not recommend any change because of this, but if this event becomes popular then later you can change the format to provide protection.