Summary

Bridgemate Control Software can detect suspicious contracts. This feature helps you to identify scoring or duplicating errors.

Type of Suspicious contracts

Bridgemate Control Software can detect two types of suspicious contract:

Contracts in the same trump suit declared by both NS and EW. If the combined number of tricks made by both NS and EW exceeds the user-specified limit, the results will be flagged as suspicious. There are separate settings for suit and no-trump contracts, as it’s more likely that the combined number of tricks in no-trumps will be greater.
Double dummy check. If hand-record information is present in the .bws file the double-dummy result can be determined. If the number of tricks made differs from this double-dummy result by more than the user-specified limit, the result is flagged as suspicious. For information on how to import hand records (with double dummy analysis into BCS) see this article.

Frequently asked questions and answers about suspicious contracts

Is there a way to mark suspicious scores valid?

Yes, double-click a score flagged as suspicious and tick the Contract is valid checkbox.

Why are multiple records for one board marked as suspicious?

BCS will flag results as suspicious if the total combined tricks exceed the user-specified limit. It only marks the results that are suspicious. For example, on a board played 10 times with: 4S E +1 (11) 7 times, 4S E = (10) twice, 4S N +1 (11) once, it will only flag the 4S by N as suspicious, since it will “deduce” that 4S by E is the “valid” contract.
When there are only 2 results in on a board, e.g.:
6H N = (12)
6H W = (12)
Both Results will be flagged as suspicious, since the software cannot determine which result is valid. (it doesn’t use the double dummy analyse for it, as it might be a misduplicate)

Now a 3rd result on the 6H board comes in so that the results are:
6H N = (12)
6H W = (12)
4H S +2 (12)

Now BCS will only flag 6H by W as suspicious since deduction learns this is the odd result (2 vs 1).
If this then changes to 2 vs 2, all results will be flagged as suspicious. So in the above example if a fourth results comes in that is for example 4H W +2, all four results would be flagged as suspicious.
Note that as soon it's 2+ vs 2+ all results will be flagged suspicious.

How does one know if the suspicious contract flag is due to tricks difference between directions – and when because of makeable contracts?

This is not clear from the interface; if you want to be sure, you can turn either check off and see if the contract is still marked as suspicious.

Additional information

There is no additional information available for this article.

Update history

20-04-2020 - Article published

INFO: Suspicious contracts