OBJECTIVE A scoring system to predict early mortality and morbidity in CABG, distinguishing low and high risk patients. METHODS 563 patients (1998) served as development dataset, 969 patients as validation set. Univariate and logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors. RESULTS Gender, hypertension, pulmonary disease, reoperation, age, operative status and left-ventricular function were predictive variables for early mortality. The area under the ROC curve was 0.81. We identified a low risk, mortality of 1.8% and a high-risk group, mortality of 13.4%. Diabetes, hypertension, kidney and lung disease, reoperation, operative status and left ventricular function were predictive variables for morbidity. The area under the ROC curve was 0.73. We identified a low risk, morbidity of 17%, and a high-risk group, morbidity of 41%. CONCLUSIONS This scoring system is a simple system identifying a low and high-risk group for morbidity and early mortality.