[pilowsky]

In another thread the frequently debated topic of which game is more interesting arose: chess or bridge.

For me they are both interesting but in very different ways.
When one is faced with the starting position of a chess game, the possible intermediate positions a player must contend with are vast, yet the result can only be win, lose or draw.
This richness of intermediate positions before a clear outcome is reached is a key feature of chess.

In Bridge OTOH, the starting position is determined by the deal of the cards so that in tournaments with players of above average skill it is common for the same outcome to occur at every table.
In this way bridge seems to have a lot in common with solving a chess puzzle where there is a knowable optimal outcome and you have to find it.

It is also quite common in tournaments to get a result where one pair gains a score of 100% not because they skilfully find the best contract but because their opponents make a terrible bid.

So, my question is: Is it possible to design a scoring system for bridge that best rewards the pair that achieve the optimal contract for any given deal?

[DavidKok]

You mean a bidding contest?

[AL78]

Bridge is more frustrating and at times far more demoralising than chess because of the distribution of randomness on top of the variance in your skill. Chess is a game of complete information and has no luck so if you lose at chess, it is because you were outplayed. Bridge is a probabilistic game and consists of making decisions based on incomplete information where good decisions can be punished and bad decisions can be rewarded. MP scoring where you have no influence over your opponents (which is unusual in games and sports) amplifies the luck element.

I'd say both are interesting where for me, interesting means beautiful plays that can theoretically be found but requires skill/excellent judgement based on the available information. Interesting to me is not a highly distribution deal where I get the only opponents to bid 5 over 5 where it is right and so get an unavoidable bad score, but many club players seem to find those sort of hands interesting, which I suspect is because of a higher luck factor.

As far as a better scoring system is concerned, my opinion is that a score based on how close you got to the best score possible based on what happened in the bidding and play at your table would be ideal, but that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to implement.

[hrothgar]

pilowsky, on 2023-June-15, 23:57, said:

So, my question is: Is it possible to design a scoring system for bridge that best rewards the pair that achieve the optimal contract for any given deal?

Can't help but believe that the auction impacts whether or not a given contract is "optimal"

[barmar]

hrothgar, on 2023-June-18, 08:36, said:

Can't help but believe that the auction impacts whether or not a given contract is "optimal"

It depends on what you mean by "optimal". Hand records often include a "par result", which is the contract with the best possible score for each side, assuming double dummy play and defense.

One could certainly have a form of contest where you're scored relative to par rather than other players.

[AL78]

barmar, on 2023-June-26, 09:14, said:

One could certainly have a form of contest where you're scored relative to par rather than other players.

IMP pairs where the comparison is with the par score, not the mean score across the field or cross-imped against every other pair in the opposite direction.