Computer Automated Ratings Database System
Clubs can now rate their players using the CARDS rating system. A rating is an accurate measure of the player's current standing at bridge. This is so because the system takes into account the strength of the partner and that of the opponents. It also puts more weight on recent games. The system is akin to the international chess rating system.
Ratings are not designed to replace masterpoints. Masterpoints largely reflect how long a player has been playing rather than a player's current performance and that is quite different from ratings.
Most duplicate players want to know how they went. That is why they go to the trouble of going to the club. The percentage tells the player how his or her partnership went on the day but it does not tell the whole story. What a player really wants to know is how good that result is when you take into account the strength of the partner and the opponents. This is what CARDS does.
All the work is done by the CARDS software. The only other software you need is your bridge scoring program, though it is possible to use the CARDS system with manually scored events.
Firstly you will need to know the details of the event you are conducting. This is normal for any event that you might conduct with your scorer. Typically the details are known once the event has started and can be entered into the CARDS system manually.
Where you are working with a supported scoring program, most of the details of the event can be automatically obtained from the files found in your scorer.
There are three main parts to the process:
1. The club members file
2. the events
3. the ratings (impact calculations and reporting).
The members' masterfile or database contains all the members' details (name and other personal information), ratings data (used in all the calculations) and finalized events (scored, ratings impact calculated and completed) .
The masterfile will be kept up to date from your scorer's player file or may be managed manually, entering new players, deleting non-participating players and changing personal details when needed. At the end of each month the masterfile contents are uploaded to the CARDS system with all the events that have been finalized. A new and updated member list is returned as soon as possible (once month end processing is completed). The masterfile is then ready for the next month's processing and contains the latest ratings of all the members.
