Pairs Events

Two = a Pair. Most Duplicate Tournament events are open for entry by any pair of players -- thus, 'Pairs Events".

You pay your money for the whole event - one or two sessions - and play N/S one session and E/W in the other session. Usually, in a second session, you are in a different section in order to play with and against as many different players as possible. Handicapped players can play N/S all the time as N/S pairs don't move between rounds. Just tell the Director selling entries and he'll arrange it - no problem.

Qualifications. There may be qualifications in terms of age, gender or minimum/maximum number of master points held for pairs events. However, there is always at least one event for everyone to play in at every session at a tournament.

Open Pairs

When a section is open to any pairs at any level of master points, it is called 'Open'. Such sections will include the best players at the tournament, as Open is the top category in bridge just like in tennis. Open events pay the most master points, too.

Flighted Pairs

Usually, a tournament event will have several 'flights'.

In flighted events, everyone plays the same hands, but the players with less than 300 master points play each other, those with up to 750 play each other and those with over 750 play each other. These are Flights C, B and A, respectively.

In Novice events, these flight ranges may be 0 to 5, 0 to 49 and 0 to 99. In this way, you play the same cards as the experts but only compete for master points with players of your own level.

Start with novice events: it's the easiest and least stressful to get comfortable with duplicate tournaments.

Stratified Pairs Events

A very popular format nowadays is Stratified Pairs.

In Stratified Pairs, pairs of players of all three ranks above Novice - C, B, and A - are mixed in each section and play as though it were an Open event. Of course, the players don't know who are the A's and who are the C's.

However, the scoring is by rank - C, B and A. In other words, as a C pair, you are only competing for Master Points with other C players but you are playing against C, B and A players. So, if a pair of C players beat most of the B players and some of the A pairs, they may collect master points from any level. However, you only get the highest of the multiple awards - not all of them.

In a recent Stratified Pairs event, we were first in C's, first in B's and third in A's -- a really good session for us. Unfortunately, we didn't do so well in the evening session.

Special Pairs Events

Other ways tournaments offer variety are via specific pair combinations.

For example, big tournaments may have Men's Pairs and Women's Pairs -- some have Senior Pairs, Non-Master Pairs, Unmixed Pairs, Junior Pairs and Mixed Pairs (a man and a woman).