The scoring system is fully described on the web site http://www.pagat.com/boston/bridge.html.

In general, the scoring system favours the more adventurous players. Effectively, you lose points heavily by failing to bid a game, rubber or slam that is made. Having said that, there are heavy penalties for reckless bidding - 3 or 4 down when doubled and vulnerable is pretty serious ! These points are illustrated in the sample score sheet below.

The score sheet is for an imaginary rubber. The bracketted numbers would not normally appear, and reference the hands in sequence.

The hands in this imaginary rubber went as follows :

1. 'WE' bid 1 Club for 20 points 'below the line', and made 2 Clubs for an overtrick, representing 20 points 'above the line'.
2. 'WE' bid 2 Spades, but only made 1 Spade. One undertrick when not vulnerable gave 'THEY' 50 points 'above the line'.
3. 'THEY' bid and made 3 No Trumps for 100 points below the line, giving game (a line is drawn below the points accumulated by both sets of players for the completed game). 'THEY' now became 'vulnerable'.
4. 'WE' bid and made a small slam in hearts, giving 180 points below the line, and game. There are also another 500 points for the small slam when not vulnerable, and another 100 points for 4 Honours (4 of ace,king,queen,jack,10 in the contract suit). 'WE' now became vulnerable.
5. 'WE' bid 4 Hearts but only made 1 Heart, and were also doubled. The penalty points for going 3 down when doubled and vulnerable are 800 ! These points go to 'THEY' above the line.
6. 'WE' bid and made 1 Spade and were doubled. 'WE' got double the points for the spade contract, giving 60 points below the line, and an extra 50 points above the line for making a contract when doubled.
7. 'WE' bid 1 No Trump and made 2 No Trumps, giving 40 points below the line, and 30 points above the line. 'WE' now had 2 games for rubber, giving a further 500 points for a rubber won by 2 games to 1.

The accumulated points for the rubber is shown at the bottom of the sheet, 1500 points for 'WE' and 950 points for 'THEY'.

'Honours' are not shown on the BOOP summary page. This is because in the BOOP system we do not usually bother with Honours points. This can be regarded as an optional extra for BOOP players. Remember though to count them when playing with non-BOOP bridge players.