Australia-Wide Open Pairs
25-31 August
Supplementary Regulations and
Frequently Asked Questions
CLUBS
Q: How many boards should we play?
The minimum is 24, but most clubs generally play 26 or 27. A few clubs play all 36 boards (some of the larger regional clubs cater a lunch, to make a full day of it). Clubs with mostly new players might just play 18 or 21 boards, which is fine, but in this case we will award a 50% score on unplayed boards to bring the total to 24.
Literally any movement is fine; just treat this like a normal club game. However, we do recommend that you take care to avoid having all of your best players sitting in the same direction, as this will give those players an unfair advantage. We reserve the right to remove individual boards in cases where a club has attempted to manipulate their results or their field strength (for example, by sitting all of their top pairs in the same direction).
To earn a place in the national top ten, a pair must have played against at least four different opponents. In other words, if you have three tables or two and a half tables, you must play a Howell in order to win the event or qualify for prizes. Clubs failing to meet that condition (that is,
three-table Mitchells and all two-table games) will still be included in the results, but will have their pairs' scores capped at 11th-place.Q: How is the event scored?
See scoring section, below. Q: How do we submit the results?
Go to our upload page which has a full set of instructions, assisting you to automatically transfer your result file directly to our web server. Alternatively, you can email the result file to us if you already know how to produce it.
Compscore users: please ensure that your results file includes scores for each board, and not just the summary of names. If you are unsure how to do this, please phone Brad on 0412335840 and I'll be happy to help. It will be simplest if you do this immediately after the game (even for night games).
Q: Who can play in the Novice and Restricted events?
The Novice Pairs is for players with fewer than 100 MP as at 31 March, and the Restricted Pairs is for players with fewer than 300 MP as at 31 August.
Australian Bridge reserves the right to allow players outside the stated MP range into the event at our discretion (in particular, we will commonly make generous allowances for small clubs who do not have the numbers to run a separate novice section, or for a stray novice player with no eligible partner), but such players will have their scores capped at 11th place.
It is also perfectly acceptable for non-contending players to participate for practical reasons, with the stated intention of not being included in the final results (with no entry fee charged).
We also reserve the right to disqualify players whose actual level of expertise is clearly inconsistent with their masterpoint total (for example, those who have played at a non-affiliated club for 30 years). Historically, several ABF novice events have been won by experienced players taking advantage of poorly-designed eligibility criteria, and we would appreciate players respecting the spirit of these restricted events.
Q: How do we process the masterpoints?
Your club should award green points just like in a normal session. We will award the red points after the event has finished.
Q: When responding to the invitation email, why can't I edit the table with our entry details?
When you click REPLY on an email, you can edit your own reply, but you can't edit my original email. Your reply will automatically contain a copy of the table from my email – that is the table where you should enter your club's details.
PLAYERS
Q: Where can I play in the Australia-Wide Pairs?
If your home club isn't participating, please contact us and we will refer you to a club near you.
Players can participate at two different clubs with explicit permission from the organiser at the second club, but only as a non-contending pair (scores not included in the national results, and no entry fee is charged). Also, we insist that if you do play at two clubs, you sit in a different direction at your second session.
Q: How do I see my results?
Once your club has submitted your scores, your results will be published here. Choose your club and your name from the drop-down box, and you will be taken to a special results booklet with all kinds of information about your personal results. Hand records, detailed result analysis and travelling scoreslips will be added to the booklet as soon as the last club has completed play.
Q: Does the event use specially selected deals, or are they random?
In the Open and Restricted Pairs, the boards were all randomly computer-generated under the same conditions that are used in all Australian national events. In some years, the Open Pairs uses a randomly-selected set of boards from a past national or international tournament, but in all cases the boards were randomly dealt for that event.
Contrary to popular belief, we never use "set hands" or "trick hands". Last year someone wrote to us, "You didn't do a good job of setting the hands, because it was easy to tell what the catch was on each deal". Leave the conspiracy theories at home; there's no catch.
However, in the Novice Pairs, held in May, we do occasionally remove hands that we feel are too complicated or too wild for Novice players.
Q: Is it true that North has 38 HCP on Deal One?
No, the hand record displayed in the online results booklet during the event is not the real deal, it's just a placeholder until the real hands are published after the event is finished. Also, it's only 37 HCP. Hands with 38 HCP are far more rare than you'd think.
SCORING
Q: How is the event scored?
For all events convened by Australian Bridge Magazine (including events outsourced to us by the ABF or BridgeNSW, such as the NSW State-Wide Pairs and the NSW UHMP Final) a pair's final result is determined by awarding them a matchpoint percentage score on each individual board that they played (or are deemed to have played), calculated across all pairs who played the board, and then calculating the average of all of those scores. Boards that are not played, for whatever reason, are not included in a pair's score, unless the onsite director or the event convenor has awarded a designated score on the board.
The event is treated as one field. There is no separate NS and EW field, because most clubs are playing a Howell movement and the event is scored across the whole field.
Q: What do I do if I find a scoring error?Email us at mail@australianbridge.com and let us know what happened. Scores that we believe are obviously incorrect will first be listed on the main event web page, and some will be automatically averaged if no one explains them. Non-obvious errors can only be corrected after confirmation from your director, or from the player who benefited from the error.
There is no official deadline for reporting scoring errors or masterpoint errors. We value accuracy ahead of regulations; if an error is reported, it will be corrected. However, there will be no changes to the top ten positions after the results have been published, and no changes to the allocation of physical prizes. At the point when the final results are emailed to the clubs (by which time the list of likely scoring errors will have been on display for over a week) all prizes are final.
Q: Why is my final score lower (or higher) than the score I was originally given?Once the event has been scored across 800 tables, your score will be different than when it was scored across ten tables. The difference may be as much as 10%, as small pairs games can produce very random results. There is a more detailed explanation here. There is a simple, more visual explanation, here, and a full magazine article on the subject here. If you are checking the results booklet regularly, which I recommend, you can actually watch your scores fluctuate as each new club submits their results.
PRIZES
Q: How do I know if I won a prize in the event?
If you were in the top 25 pairs overall, you have probably won some kind of prize, and there are also some spot prize winners mentioned in the results booklet. We will have already notified your club, but ultimately we will need your email address so that we can send you a link to the prize selection page. There is a limit of one prize package per person, even if you qualify for that prize in two different ways. For example, if you are in the top five Restricted pairs, and are also in the top five overall, that is just two ways of winning the same prize – not two separate prizes.
Q: Can I combine my prize points with my partner?
Yes, there may be advantages to doing this. You can also combine points with any other prize winner, if you know them. There is one exception: all subscription prizes run for one year starting on the day of the event, and cannot be combined into a single two-year subscription (we had to disallow that practice when some regular prize-winners built up an eight-year subscription). However, if you find yourself with an unwanted 2nd subscription to the magazine, you are welcome to transfer one of them into a friend's name, maybe as a birthday present.
Q: How are the spot prizes awarded?
There are four prizes each on six selected deals. On each of those boards, two pairs will receive a prize for meeting the goals specified in the souvenir booklet. The two pairs will be calculated according to the formula on page 22 of the souvenir booklet (based on scores calculated two days after the final day of play, even if the scores are not complete at that time). Additionally, there are a couple of spot prizes for selected pairs who achieve a unique top board on any board – these prizes will be personally chosen by the convenor.
Q: Someone received a spot prize for making 2H, but I made 4H. Why didn't I get a prize?
Two pairs are selected using the formula that's described in the booklet and on the FAQ page. The prizes go to the pairs who are selected by the formula, not to the pair who got the highest score. The intention of the spot prize is to reward pairs who achieved a difficult goal – the pairs who made ten tricks aren't more deserving just because their opponents misdefended.
The 2H prize (Board 13 in the 2025 Open Pairs) is a good example. The prize condition is simply to play in 2H. There are several pairs who played in 4H and made it, but (a) they shouldn't have bid it, and (b) they only made it because of bad defence. The prize is for pairs who managed to stop in 2H, because that's the right spot on the board (not 3H which failed for most pairs, or 4H which should be beaten easily).
Q: Why are the calculations for the spot prizes so complicated?
In the first year that we added these prizes, each prize went to the eligible pair closest to 52%, and closest to 56% (the aim being to give some prizes to the pairs who did not make the leaderboard). However, this resulted in several of the prizes going to the same pair. We now use a formula that spreads the prizes across the field, with each prize having a different target score.
Q: How do I claim the special offers mentioned in the booklet?
Click the link on Page One of your results booklet (see main results page).