Scoring bridge or mahjong

The Game Room
#1

Is there a way to score bridge and majhong to account for changing players over time?

I play bridge and mahjong (not at the same time!) casually at lunch with whoever’s available to play. Usually there are 6-8 people interested and we can get four together for a round, but it’s not always the same four.

Both bridge and mahjong have scoring systems that affect the strategy of play. Without scoring the incentives change and the game is not as interesting. However, an hour or less over lunch is not enough time to complete a whole number of games of bridge or a full round of mahjong.

I’d like to keep score but need a scoring system that allows the players to change over time. It doesn’t necessarily have to track who’s playing against whom though that would be ideal.

Anyone have any ideas?

#2

What kind of mahjong?

#3

For bridge, “rubber” or “party bridge” (same thing) should work just fine. Play N-S against E-W, and new players assume the score for the seat they take.

No point in attempting duplicate scoring with only one table.

If you are wanting some type of individual scoring…hmmm…I think the ACBL might have some sort of system used for individual events, but probably in a tournament/duplicate format…dunno if that would work or not.

#4

Welcome to the SDMB, Redshirt. We have a separate forum for discussions of games and sports, so I’ll move this thread thither.

twickster, Cafe Society moderator

#5

I think you could play a whole rubber of bridge in an hour, if you play fast enough and get reasonable cards, though you can’t count on that happening. I think you’ve got two alternatives:
(1) Start a new rubber each time, and just total the score at the end for an incomplete rubber: 300 points for a game, and 50 points for part score as I remember it. (I only play duplicate now, which has no score for being one game ahead in a rubber.)
(2) Continue the same rubber over several days, if necessary, with new players coming in if the players that started are unavailable.

#6

Thanks, twickster. This is actually a return for me, I was (somewhat) active years ago, possibly even with the same username.

cckerberos, we’re playing the Hong Kong rules according to the North American Mahjong Federation. Mainly because that’s the organization I found when I Googled “mahjong rules”, and the Hong Kong variant was closest to the way we were already playing.

**Oakminster **and Giles, keeping score by pair/table would help for bridge, though we never seem to get through a rubber in an hour: too many of us are learning as we go. I’m not sure it would work so well for mahjong. Oakminster, I’ll check out that link.

#7

Join the free bridge site Bridge Base Online:

BBO

There you can choose your partners and play rubber or duplicate,
with all the partnership and scoring information archived for 1-2 months.

The drawback is that you will not be able to play face-to-face unless
you can get four PCs together in one room. There is a chat function,
however, so you can yak away at each other in real time from any
different locations.

#8

I was just glancing at your join date. We are pretty strict about multiple accounts – could you please email tubadiva at aol dot com and give her the info she needs to straighten that out?

Thanks.

#9

twickster, as I say it was many years ago—pre–pay-to-play. I don’t remember the username I had back then, but it may have been the same; it’s been so long I’d assumed the old one expired.

#10

Not a big deal, but pls. email tubadiva.

#11

For Bridge, use Chicago Scoring.

It is “complete in four deals” with duplicate scoring.

#12

K364, that’s perfect for what we do here with bridge.

I’m going to do some thinking about the mahjong situation, it’s a bit different.

#13

Yeah, Chicago scoring is ideal for what you want.

If you’re at all serious about the game of bridge, don’t neglect the post-mortem analysis of the bidding, play and/or defense after the hand is complete! (That is not irony, that is the official term.) If you’re all learning (with no “senior member” to lead you through analysis), check out Doop, a one-table (four ppl in two partnerships) duplicate format. Don’t worry if you haven’t played duplicate (tournament) bridge (yet), the scoring for duplicate is essentially the same as Chicago scoring, with minor modifications for penalties of doubled contracts for going down by more than three tricks (which may be standard for Chicago now too).

With Doop, you will have hand records for up to 26 hands (the normal number to play for a 13-round, 2-boards-a-round duplicate bridge pairs event) and the accompanying matchpoint scoring “as it really happened” for the deal. So if you ended up in, say, 4S making 4, you can see at a glance whether or not that was a “normal” result, and if not, how not (“how come almost everybody else in 4S went down, did my opponents misdefend?”, or “what, so many people took 2 overtricks and quite a few bid the slam too, did I do something wrong in the bidding or play, or did the opponents do something good?”)

#14

We get together maybe six or seven of us to play bridge over a weekend, all arriving at different times. We play rubber bridge scoring, four players at a time. New rubber for each new partnership. Play a number of hands as a multiple of four. At the end of the allotted hands, we add up the scores using the 50 for scores in unfinished game and 300 for game in unfinished rubber. Each player scores the points they’re earned minus the points conceded. So after a variety of different partners and different numbers of hands played, each player has either a “+” or a “-” score, but the total points always adds up to zero.

#15

Dahu, that might work for the mahjong too. If we keep a +/- for each player, along with the number of games played, we can maintain an average score for each player over a longer period of time, like a week or two.

Thanks, everyone, for your help.

#16

Most of the mahjongg variants that I play, points are zero-sum; every point one player gained has to be lost by another player. In these systems, you can easily just have people sit down, and keep track of how much they have gained or lost by the time they leave. Money makes a convenient tracking device. :smiley: