Part-scores in Rubber Bridge

Below the line, under 100, and still there next hand.

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What a Part-score Is#

A part-score is a trick score below the line that has not yet reached 100. It is what you have when you bid and made a contract too small to be a game.

Trick scores below the line run: 20 per trick in clubs and diamonds, 30 in hearts and spades, and 40 for the first trick then 30 at no trumps. Only the tricks you bid count below the line; overtricks go above it and are irrelevant to game.

So 2♥ bid and made is 60 below the line — a part-score. 3♣ is 60. 1NT is 40. None of them is a game, and all of them stay on the pad.

Part-scores Carry Over#

This is the mechanic that makes rubber bridge a different game from duplicate, and it is the one newcomers most often miss.

A part-score is not wiped at the end of the hand. It sits below the line and accumulates with any further part-scores your side makes, until somebody makes a game. Two part-scores of 60 and 40 are a game between them, scored across two separate hands.

The practical effect: once you are 60 below the line, the cheapest contracts on the card are worth a game to you. 1NT is 40 and gets you there. So is 2♣. Your opponents can see this as clearly as you can, which is why the auction on the very next hand will be far more competitive than the cards alone would justify.

What Turns a Part-score Into a Game#

You need 100 below the line. From a standing start that means 3NT, 4♥, 4♠, 5♣ or 5♦ — or a doubled contract that gets there, such as 2♠ doubled, which is 60 doubled to 120.

From an existing part-score, much less will do:

The moment a game is made, the line is drawn. Both sides' part-scores are wiped — including your opponents' — and the next game starts from zero for everybody. The side that made the game becomes vulnerable.

Both Sides Can Hold One#

There is nothing exclusive about a part-score. Your side can be 60 below and theirs 40 below at the same time, both accumulating, both one modest contract away from a game.

This is where rubber bridge produces auctions that look reckless out of context. With both sides holding a live part-score, a 2♦ contract that would be worth nothing at a duplicate table is worth a game to whoever makes it, and worth stopping at some cost to the other side. Bidding one more, or doubling for a small penalty, can both be correct where they would be absurd elsewhere.

And when a game does land, the losing side's part-score is destroyed with it — which is its own argument for getting yours converted rather than nursing it.

A Part-score Is Worth 100 at the End#

If the rubber is abandoned unfinished — the evening ends, somebody has to leave — the part-scores are not simply thrown away. Each side holding a part-score in the unfinished game collects 100 above the line, and both sides can collect it in the same rubber.

A side that has won the only completed game collects 300 as well. If the games stand at one apiece, neither side gets that premium.

These are the numbers that make an interrupted rubber scorable rather than void, and they are handled for you by the score calculator, which shows the premiums as soon as you tell it the rubber is being abandoned.