Bridge Scoring System FAQ

Play social bridge, duplicate bridge, team bridge games and use Bridge Among Friends for the scoring for free.  Play team games involving multiple groups.  Upload BBO .lin files and see what the top players did with each board.

Bridge Among Friends works on all smartphone mobile phone devices, ipads, minis, laptops or desktops with an internet connection.  Only one player on each table needs to have the program working to record scores for boards played.

You need playing cards, pencils and bidding pads. 

You can pre-deal the cards for a file uploaded, eg, a BBO .lin file or capture hands.  Alternatively, instead of pre-dealing boards  you can shuffle/deal cards as you go. Bridge Among Friends knows when a hand is to be played for the first time and indicates when shuffling/dealing is required.  If the hand has already been played, players are instructed just to play the hand.

Run Bridge Among Friends in your browser and add to your home page. You do not need to download an app. To add to your home page, google brand of phone add to home screen. 

For apple phones:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/shortcuts/apd735880972/ios

For Google phones:

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/2781850?hl=en

For android phones:

https://www.androidauthority.com/add-website-android-iphone-home-screen-3181682/

When playing, some phones drop out and the connection dies when they go into sleep mode.  If you can do so, set the sleep timeout to 20 minutes to keep the connection alive.  If it drops out, just log back on - the program remembers where you are.

Enter your email address and case sensitive password then click the Login button.

Note: your password has initially been set to your first name, first letter is a capital letter, eg, Lesley

Click on the Sign Up button on the home page.

Your name, email address, country and timezone are all that's needed to sign up on Bridge Among Friends. Bridge Among Friends sends you an email with a password to log onto the program - check your junk folder if you can't find it.  Once logged on, create a new group then add players to the group.

Minimums

Individual games - 1 table, 4 players, each player plays against the other 3 players.

Duplicate pairs - 1 table, 2 pairs the simplest of movements...  or 2 tables, 4 pairs with a Howell movement.

Team events - 2 tables, 2 teams of 4 players in each team, 8 players.

Maximums

Individual games - 12 tables, 48 players.

Duplicate pairs - 14 tables, 28 pairs - Twin Mitchell, Skip Mitchell or Relay Mitchell movements.

Team events - 16 tables, 16 teams of 4 players in each team, 64 players - American Whist movement.

Groups

Duplicate: 2 groups with 4 - 7 teams per group
Teams: 2 groups with 2 - 7 teams, 3 groups with 2 - 5, 4 groups with 2 teams per group

The Howell movement, devised by Edwin C. Howell, enables all players to play against all other opponents. One pair remains stationary whilst all other pairs move around, producing one winner. A Three Quarter Howell movement is one where not every team plays against all teams, limited by the number of players and number of boards to be played.

The Mitchell movement, best suited for games with higher number of tables, produces two winners. North/South players remain stationary whilst the East/West players move to the next table and the boards move to the previous table. In it's most simplest form this is played with an odd number of tables. For an even number of tables, Skip Mitchell or Relay Mitchell with relay tables are used so that no team plays the same board more than once. A Hesitation Michell is suitable when you need to squeeze an extra round out of a Mitchell movement.

An Arrow Switched Mitchell or Scrambled Mitchell movement are suitable for games when you want to produce one winner. Played like a normal Mitchell movement North/South and East/West teams are switched, usually on the last one or two rounds. The number of rounds to switch is 1 out of every 8, so we switch on the last round up to 11 tables and the last 2 rounds when more than 11 tables.

A Double Weave Mitchell movement when the number of tables is a multiple of 4, eliminates the need for relay tables. Odd and even East/West pairs move in opposite directions.

A Twin Mitchell movement is useful when you have a long narrow room as an even number of tables are arranged in two rows side by side. Boards are shared between tables opposite each other.

A Square Mitchell movement for 4 tables is where E-W pairs move horizontally, then vertically, then horizontally and boards move diagonally, then horizontally, then diagonallly.

A Hybrid movement contains two complete movements in the one game. We have a hybrid movement for 4 tables playing 7 rounds in which the first 4 rounds are an Arrow Switched Mitchell movement followed by a Howell movement for the last 3 rounds.

Click  here for list of movements for duplicate bridge games.

An American Whist movement is the perfect movement for teams with an odd number of tables. Like the Mitchell movement, each team plays every other team except that East/West players move down 2 tables and drop the boards off 1 table down. There are variations of American Whist movements for even numbers of tables.

Round Robin movements are perfect for teams with an even number of tables. Boards are shared between each pair of tables playing a match however the same boards may be played by other matches in various rounds.

A Thurner movement may be used for an even number of teams where only 2 tables share boards. The last table shares boards with all the other tables so it should be located in the middle.

A Stagger movement is run in 2 stanzas so that you can take a break between sessions.

A Patton movement, devised by Major C. L. Patton, based on a twin Howell movement in which the same boards are shared and played by both pairs of every team.

Click here for list of movements for bridge team games.

The Rainbow movement, devised by Mr. Oswald Jacoby and Mr. Shepard Barclay, enables players to compete individually. North players remain stationary. Boards move to the next lower table. South players move to the next higher table. East players skip one table higher. West players skip one table lower.

Click here for list of movements for individual bridge games.

Bridge Among Friends supports the following scoring methods for duplicate bridge, teams bridge, individual bridge games.

Cross IMP Scoring

First we calculate IMPs score against results from the other tables, then we average them.

Butler Datum Scoring

First we determine the average of the scores then IMP each score against the average score.

Match Points

Comparing scores by other players 2 match points are awarded for a win, 1 match point for equal scores and 0 for a loss. Percentage is based on the maximum number of match points available for each board.

Chicago Russian

Used for individual games, we look up target score based on vulnerability and high card points and calculate IMPs on the difference.

Total Points

Aggregated number of points scored by the hand.

Victory Points

Used for team matches, calculate continuous Victory Points from difference in IMPS between two team scores in a match using algorithm WBF IMPs to continuous VPs, devised by Henry Bethe and Peter Buchen.

Yes, sitouts are available for individual games and duplicate bridge. Bridge Among Friends knows how many players there are and keeps a track of which table each player needs to be at for each round. For games with sitouts select a movement where the number of boards per set is lower so that the players on the sitout table don't have to wait too long.