Rubber Bridge Scoring

The pad, the line, the bonuses, and a rubber worked through.

The Score Pad#

Rubber bridge is scored on a pad ruled into two columns and cut by a horizontal line. The columns are WE (your side) and THEY. Open it any time from the ≡ menu, or by tapping the score chips on the home screen.

Below the line goes one thing only: the trick score for a contract that was bid and made. Only these points count towards a game.

Above the line goes everything else — overtricks, penalties, slam bonuses, honours, the insult for making a doubled contract, and the rubber bonus itself. These count in the final total, but never towards a game.

When a side reaches 100 below the line, a heavy line is ruled underneath and a new game begins with both sides at zero below. At the end of the rubber both columns are added up in full — above and below together — and the side with more wins by the difference.

The consequence worth internalising: bidding a game is worth far more than making the same tricks in a part-score. Making 4♠ scores 120 below and heads for the rubber. Bidding 2♠ and making ten tricks scores 60 below and 60 above — the same cards, a fraction of the value.

Below the Line: Trick Scores#

Only the tricks you contracted for score below the line. Tricks taken beyond the contract are overtricks and go above.

So 1NT made is 40, 2♥ made is 60, 3♣ made is 60, 4♠ made is 120.

Doubling doubles the trick score; redoubling quadruples it — and this is scored below the line, so it can win a game outright. A doubled 2♥ made is 120 below: game in one hand from a part-score contract. A redoubled 1NT made is 160.

Once a side passes 100 below, the game is theirs and both sides' below-the-line totals reset. A side sitting on 60 when the opponents make a game loses the benefit of that 60 for game purposes — the points remain in the total, but the part-score is gone.

Above the Line: Bonuses and Penalties#

Everything that is not a contracted trick score lands above the line:

• Overtricks — undoubled, each is worth the contract's trick value (30 in no trumps). Doubled, each is 100 non-vulnerable or 200 vulnerable; redoubled, 200 and 400.
• The insult — 50 for making a doubled contract, 100 for making a redoubled one, regardless of vulnerability.
• Slam bonuses — small slam (a 6-level contract, bid and made) 500 non-vulnerable, 750 vulnerable. Grand slam (7 level) 1000 and 1500. The slam must be bid: taking twelve tricks in 4♠ pays two overtricks and nothing else.
• Honours — 100 or 150 for a concentration of top trumps in one hand. See its own section below.
• Undertricks — paid by declarer to the defenders. Full table in the next section.
• The rubber bonus — 700 for winning two games to nil, 500 for two games to one.
• Unfinished rubber premiums — 300 for a side with the only game won, 100 for each side holding a part-score, when a rubber is abandoned.

Note what is not here. Rubber bridge has no bonus for making a part-score and no bonus for bidding a game as such: the reward for the game is that it takes you towards the rubber. That is the whole engine of the scoring.

Undertricks, in Full#

When declarer falls short, the defenders score above the line. The amounts depend on how many tricks short, whether the contract was doubled, and whether declarer's side was vulnerable.

The rule behind the doubled columns: non-vulnerable, the first undertrick costs 100, the second and third 200 each, and every one after that 300. Vulnerable, the first costs 200 and every one after that 300. Redoubled penalties are exactly twice the doubled figures.

Two numbers are worth memorising because so many decisions turn on them: 500 (three down doubled, non-vulnerable) and 800 (three down doubled, vulnerable). A non-vulnerable save against a vulnerable game is usually a good trade at 500 and a bad one at 800.

Honours#

A pure lottery, and one of the charms of the rubber game. If a single hand holds:

• Four of the top five trumps (A K Q J 10 of the trump suit) — 100 above the line;
• All five top trumps — 150;
• All four aces at no trumps — 150.

Honours are scored by the side holding them, whether they declared or defended, and whether the contract made or failed. They are worth nothing towards game — always above the line — and they cannot be split between two hands of a partnership: four honours divided A K in one hand and Q J in the other score nothing.

In the robot game the app checks all four hands after every deal and awards honours automatically, naming the seat that held them. On the Live Scorepad you claim them yourself with the Honours row.

Winning the Rubber#

The rubber bonus is the largest single number in ordinary rubber bridge and the reason the game is played the way it is:

Two consequences follow directly, and both are strategy rather than arithmetic:

• The first game is worth more than it looks. Winning it puts you one game from 700 and makes the opponents' sacrifices expensive relative to what they are saving against.
• A game bid and made when the opponents are vulnerable and you are not is the best moment in the game. Your penalties are cheap, their mistakes are dear, and the rubber is one game away.

When the second game goes to a side, the app announces the rubber, adds the bonus to the pad, and offers to start the next one. The score pad remains readable at all times from the ≡ menu.

A Rubber, Scored Through#

Follow one rubber all the way, to see how the pieces fit.

Deal 1. We bid 2♥ and make exactly eight tricks. Trick score 60 below the line. Nobody is vulnerable, no game yet — we have a part-score of 60.

Deal 2. They bid 3NT and go two down, non-vulnerable, undoubled. We score 100 above the line. Our 60 below is untouched.

Deal 3. We bid 2♦ and make it: 40 below. That brings us to 100 below the line — game. A line is ruled; both sides restart at zero below; we are now vulnerable. Running total: we 200, they 0.

Deal 4. They bid 4♠ and make it with an overtrick: 120 below and 30 above. That is 100+ below, so they win a game too, and they become vulnerable. One game each. We 200, they 150.

Deal 5. We bid 4♥, vulnerable, and go one down doubled. Vulnerable doubled, one down, is 200 to them. We 200, they 350.

Deal 6. We bid 3NT and make it. 100 below the line — our second game, so the rubber is ours. Because they won a game, the bonus is 500 rather than 700. One of us also held all four aces: 150 for honours.

Final: we 200 + 100 + 500 + 150 = 950; they 350. We win the rubber by 600.

Notice that we lost more deals than we won on tricks, and won the rubber comfortably. That is rubber bridge: the games and the bonus dominate, and a part-score converted into a game is worth more than a string of overtricks.

Scoring: Quick Reference#

Trick scores (below the line, per trick bid)

Overtricks (above the line, each)

Bonuses (above the line)

Tricks needed — a contract at level n needs n + 6 tricks. 1-level 7, 2-level 8, 3-level 9, 4-level 10, 5-level 11, 6-level 12, 7-level all 13.