V N Ramamoorthy
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Yes, sometimes Bridge can be a matter of Life and Death!
In a Team of Four game if, at the end of last round two teams, are tied - with the same score, how do you decide the winner / runner up?
Flipping a coin is ruled out because it is literally a toss - up 🙃
There are many different ways to do this.
The simplest way, of course, is the result of the direct match between the two teams (if they have played each other)
Another, more complicated way to do it (used particularly to figure out which of the two tied teams should play in the post league event), is what is known as 'VP Product'. In this method, your score against each of your opponents is weighted by your opponents average score during the Swiss League. Therefore, if you have played against superior opponents through out the Swiss League, you stand a better chance of qualification.
Or the Tournament Director can ( in my opinion), decide on the basis of "sudden death". Meaning the tied teams have to play 2 more boards (random dealt) and whichever team scores more imps is the Winner. Something similar to "Super over" in Cricket!
I was part of the team in a Bengaluru Tournament (Bowring Institute)and we had a tied score. We had to play "Sudden death" - and we lost by 1 IMP!
So when you play tournament bridge and especially team of four duplicate, you can encounter " sudden death " 🙂 . (Sudden deaths of first 4 boards and then 2 more or even 1 more are routinely used to break a tie in knock out matches - Eds)
Happy bridging,
VNR
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.