Bridge rules Bridge strategy & bidding Bridge championships

Neuberg formula

In duplicate bridge pairs tournaments, the Neuberg formula is a method of fairly adjusting match point scores when not all boards have been played the same number of times. The objective is to give equal weight to each board by calculating the expected number of match points that would have been earned if the board had been played the full number of times.

A board might not have been played the full number of times because:

The method is:

Example

The above method is in fairly common use. Note that the formula does not allow for the relative strengths of the partnerships. If, for instance because the movement was not completed, you miss out on playing against the weakest pair in the tournament, you do not benefit from any adjustment for this and you lose out. It would be relatively straightforward to adjust the formula to correct for this, but this is not done - perhaps because it is considered to be over-complicated.

A similar method can be used for example in a club competition when it is desired to give equal weight to scores achieved over a number of sessions, but there were different numbers of tables at each session.

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