Pianola Plus analyses your card play so you can see how you and your partner compares to the best-in-field for each game (i.e. the players who ranked in the top third).
To evaluate your card play, Pianola compares whether you made the number of tricks the double dummy says you should - whether as declarer or defender.
In this context:
- Equals means you made exactly what double dummy expected you should for the suit (or NT) that the hand was played
- Undertricks means you gave tricks away to your opponents
- Overtricks means you made more than you were expected to
So, it's possible that you made overtricks against the contract you were playing but Pianola reports you made undertricks compared to the number of tricks your side should have taken.
Understanding the data
You will find that there is a very strong correlation between winning at bridge and playing the cards well, especially when playing matchpoints scoring at club level, where one extra trick can make the difference between a top and a bottom.
What we see when we look through all our data is that good players rarely give tricks away and often steal tricks from their opponents.
The example above shows that this pair's card play was significantly worse than that of the pairs who ranked in the top third for this game.
If you see that your card play is consistently worse than the top third, you should consider how you can make more tricks. It might be that you need to improve your declarer play, or work on your defensive signals with your partner.
Whatever it is you need to improve, replaying hands will help you to see where you might have gone wrong. Pianola's "replay" feature gives you card-by-card guidance on how to make all the tricks that double dummy says you are entitled to. You'll find an option to "replay this card with card-by-card guidance" wherever you see a board - that's the travellers page and the hands page.
