Like most other card games, the winning team is the one that scores more points than the opposition. The strategy and tactics of winning are greatly influenced by the way the scoring system is structured.
Contract Points During a duplicate session, a team will play from 18 to 36 boards of bridge. After each board, Contract Points are awarded to each team based upon whether or not the declarer's team made the contract. These scores are enterred on to the travelers that accompany each board.
Match Points At the end of the session, the 18 to 36 travellers are collected from the boards. The contract points on each traveller are compared and converted to Match Point scores. The team with the most Match Points wins the duplicate session.
Contract Points and Match points are calculated differently, and are explained in their respective web pages.