Duplicate Bridge Basics: How It Differs From Rubber Bridge and How Masterpoints Work

Most seniors learned bridge at the kitchen table as rubber bridge, which is the original home game where the deal is shuffled each hand and the partnership that wins two games first wins the rubber. Rubber bridge is fun, social, and casual. It is also heavily influenced by the luck of the deal. The team that gets the better cards usually wins. Duplicate bridge solves that problem and is the format played at every sanctioned ACBL club and every tournament in the world.

In duplicate bridge, the same hands are played at multiple tables. The cards are dealt once into small plastic trays called boards, and the boards travel from table to table during the session. Each pair plays the same hand that another pair plays. The score is then compared against every other pair who held the same cards. The result is a percentage. Winning the most tricks no longer matters by itself. What matters is winning more tricks than the other pairs who held the same cards. A pair that scores 60 percent across a session has beaten 60 percent of the field on the average hand. A 55 percent game is a solid result. A 65 percent game is excellent. Above 70 percent is rare and usually wins the section.

Masterpoints are the currency that tracks long-term success in duplicate bridge. They are awarded to the top finishers in every sanctioned game, and the awards add up over a playing lifetime. A small club game might award a top prize of about 1.5 masterpoints. A regional tournament event might award 25 to 50. The official ACBL ranks go from Junior Master at 5 points, to Club Master at 20, to Sectional Master at 50, all the way up to Grand Life Master at 10,000. Most senior players reach Life Master, which is 500 points, after about ten years of regular play. The ranking is permanent. Once a level is earned it stays for life. Source pages include acbl.org, acbl.org/learn, and acbl.org/masterpoints.