Editing Duplicate bridge (section)

===Pairs game===
[[File:Duplicate bridge score sheet.jpg|320px|thumb|Score sheet for [[American Contract Bridge League|ACBL]] pairs tournament]]
In a pairs tournament, each deal is played a number of times by different players, after which all the scores are compared.

The tournament consists of a number of '''rounds'''; in each round, a number of boards (i.e. hands), usually two to five, is played against the same opponents. A '''session''' typically consists of between 24 and 28 boards in total, but this can vary. Typically around eight boards are played per hour, so a typical session will last 3 hours or slightly more. If there is an odd number of pairs, one pair will have to sit out in each round. Most events are single-session, but tournament events can consist of two, four or more sessions.

Immediately after a board is played, the North player writes the result of that board on the [[Board (bridge)#Pockets|travelling sheet]], and the East player checks it. The information recorded includes at least the (identifying) numbers of the North-South and East-West pairs and the score achieved. Usually the contract and the number of tricks won are also recorded, and sometimes also the opening lead. Sometimes the cards in each hand are also written on the traveller, which is useful in case the cards are inadvertently mixed up. The traveller is contained within and travels with the [[board (bridge)|board]]. This means that the players learn how they did up to that point on each board. This might be regarded as an advantage or as a disadvantage: information about their relative standing in the field might induce a pair to change their strategy (e.g. aggressive or conservative bidding and play) on the remaining hands. Alternatively, the scores for each round may be recorded on '''pickup slips''' collected during the event to enable the scorer to start to process the results before the end of the session, so that the results can be announced soon after the end of the session. A modern development is an electronic data-entry device on each table that transmits the results wirelessly to the director's computer.<ref>[http://www.bridgemate.us/ Bridgemate scoring device website]</ref> This allows results to be posted at a club or on a website very quickly after the end of play.

The usual form of overall scoring for a pairs tournament is [[Bridge scoring#Matchpoint scoring|Matchpoint scoring]]; occasionally [[Bridge scoring#International Match Point scoring|IMP scoring]] is used instead.

Every pair plays against a different opposing pair in each successive round, depending on the size of the field. After each round, some or all of the players reseat themselves according to a prescribed "movement", so that each pair opposes a different pair in each round; the boards are also moved. The movement must be set up so that each pair does not play more than one round against the same opponents; and, of course, does not play the same board more than once.

The tournament director will select the movement depending on the number of pairs playing, to allow them to play the desired number of boards each, without repetition. Tournaments with up to about a dozen tables are usually played either as a Mitchell movement (each North/South pair plays against all or most East/West pairs) or a Howell movement (each pair plays against all or most other pairs, and switches between North/South and East/West as required). A Howell movement is typically used if there are fewer than about 7 tables. With larger fields the tournament can be split into separate '''sections''' (every section operates its own separate movement, but the scores are compared across all sections); each section normally plays a Mitchell movement.