All tie-break systems are intended to somehow rank a set of players or teams with identical scores, so that those who face "difficult" schedules will end up ahead of those who have "easy" ones. WinTD offers several different tie-break systems, and allows you to choose the order in which they are applied. You can choose from:
Modified Median
Solkoff
Cumulative
Opponents Cumulative
Sonneborn-Berger
Median
Kashdan
Percentage Score
Adjusted Cumulative
Played Black
Competition Average
US Amateur (Team only)
Performance Index (Team only)
Game/Match Points (Team only)
IHSA (Team only)
Details on each are given below. Note that the "Team only" choices only apply to team tournaments, and are ignored for individual and combined individual/team tournaments (see Team Tournaments for details on team and combined tournaments).
Also, please note that tie-breaks should only be used for indivisible awards, such as trophies.
Choosing Tie-breaks
When you create a new tournament, the Tournament Info dialog allows you to select the desired ordering of the tie breaks. For an existing tournament, use the operation File-Edit Information... to bring up this dialog box.
WinTD will use only the first four tie-breaks listed that are applicable for the tournament in question. If you run both team tournaments and individual or combined tournaments, we recommend that you list one "Team only" tie-break first, followed by four individual tie-breaks. For an individual tournament, WinTD would then ignore the "team" tie-breaker, and use the four individual tie-breaks in the order listed.
When you save a preference set, WinTD will include the most recent setting of the tie breaks list on it.
Individual Tournaments
For individual Swiss System tournaments, the USCF recommends that you use the following tie-breaks in the order shown:
1. Modified Median
2. Median
3. Solkoff
4. Sonneborn-Berger
5. Cumulative
(If any order other than this is used in a USCF-rated tournament, that information is supposed to be posted). On the prize lists, WinTD will rank players first based upon score. Within each score group, they will be ranked based upon the first tie-break you select. In any groups which are still tied, the second tie-break will be applied, etc. Players who are still tied (that is, their scores and first and second tie-breaks are all identical) will be ranked by the third tie-break, etc.
If you have two players tied through all five of those (rare, but possible, particularly for perfect scores), any further tie breaks are scarcely better than a coin flip.
Details on the tie break methods
A player's Solkoff is the sum of his or her opponents' scores. The Modified Median and the Median are similar to the Solkoff, but the "least meaningful" results are left out. For all scores for Median, and for even scores for the Modified Median, both the highest and lowest (two highest and two lowest for tournaments with nine or more rounds) are discarded. Modified Median differs from Median in its handling of plus and minus scores. For players with plus scores, the lowest opponent's score is discarded (lowest two scores for nine or more rounds). For players with minus scores, the highest score (two scores for nine or more) is discarded. For players with even scores, both high and low scores are discarded. For instance, suppose two players with 4-1 scores met players who ended with the following scores:
Player A: 0,3,3,4,5
Player B: 3,2,5,3,3
Player A's Solkoff tie-break is 0+3+3+4+5=15, Player B's is 3+2+5+3+3=16. Player A's Modified Median is 3+3+4+5=15 (discard the 0) and Player B's is 3+5+3+3=14 (discard the 2). Player A's Median is 3+3+4=10, Player B's is 3+3+3=9. If we use Modified Median or Median first, A ranks higher than B; if we use Solkoff first, B ranks higher than A.
A player's Cumulative is the sum of his or her scores at the ends of each round. If Player A won his first four and lost the last round, and Player B won two, lost the third round, and won the last two, the players scores at the ends of the rounds are:
Player A: 1,2,3,4,4
Player B: 1,2,2,3,4
Player A's cumulative is 1+2+3+4+4=14, Player B's is 1+2+2+3+4=12. The cumulative tie break measures strength of schedule indirectly. By Swiss System pairing rules, players who do not lose until later rounds (and thus have high cumulatives) will usually face tougher opponents than players who lose in early rounds (and thus have low cumulatives). The Adjusted Cumulative is the Cumulative score minus the first round's contribution, which might be useful if there are many unplayed games in the first round.
OpponentsCumulative is the sum of the cumulatives of a player's opponents.
As it is reported in WinTD, a player's Sonneborn-Berger is the sum of 2x(scores of opponents defeated) + 1x(scores of opponents drawn). This is twice the usual S-B. We do this so that it can be shown with just one decimal like the other tie breaks.
A player's Kashdan is 2 x wins + 1 x draws. In effect, this makes a win and a loss worth more, for tie break purposes, than two draws.
The Percentage Score is simply a player's score divided by the number of games played, multiplied by 100. For example, 5 points in 5 games played gives 100%, while 3 points in 6 games gives 50%. The most common use for this is as a tie break for board prizes in a (long) team tournament.
The Played Black option simply counts number of games played black.
Competition Average is the average of rated opponent's ratings. Unrateds are left out of the average.
Combined Tournament Tie-breaks
Team awards for combined tournaments are broken according to the same tie-break systems as individuals. WinTD ranks a team's players according to their scores and tie-breaks. It then sums the values of these for the number of players who make up a team and orders the teams accordingly. It uses the same tie-break order as for individuals except that "Modified Median" is not used. (Modified Median treats positive score groups differently from even and minus score groups and thus is not appropriate for breaking ties involving players with different scores). Note that the "team only" tie break methods are not used--these are only utilized for true team tournaments (see below).
Team A Score Median Solkoff S-Bx2 Cum
Player A1 5.0 8.5 13.5 27.0 15.0
Player A2 4.0 9.0 16.0 23.0 14.0
Player A3 3.0 8.0 11.0 10.5 7.0
Team B
Player B1 4.0 8.5 13.5 21.0 11.0
Player B2 4.0 8.5 13.5 17.0 13.0
Player B3 4.0 8.0 15.0 20.0 14.0
Player B4 4.0 7.0 13.5 17.0 13.0
If we count the top three scores and use the tie-breaks in the given order, the two teams' tie-breaks are
Score Median Solkoff S-Bx2 Cum
Team A 12.0 25.5 40.5 60.5 36.0
Team B 12.0 25.0 42.0 58.0 38.0
Team A finishes ahead of Team B because its top three players have a higher Median than Team B. If we had used Solkoff first in the order, then B would have finished ahead of A, which is why it's important to decide on the tie break order in advance. (Note that neither order is "wrong", but since tropies are indivisible you have to have a method to break the tie). Note that if you have players tied for the last "counting" score on the team, the same three (in this case) are used throughout the calculation for the team's tie breaks. If one has a higher median and another the higher Solkoff, the one with the higher median is still used to compute the Solkoff if the median is the first tie break.
USCF may require use of "incompatible" team and individual tie breaks for some National tournaments. The "USCF Team Tie Breaks?" check box on the Tournament Info Dialog Box is used to force the USCF team tie break order regardless of the choice for individual tie breaks.
Team Tournament Tie Breaks
WinTD offers three tie-break systems used only for team tournaments: US Amateur Teams, Performance Index, and Game Points. These are only used for team section tie breaks and are ignored for other types. The USAT takes the sum of opponent's matches won x points scored against that opponent (WinTD actually produces 2 x this definition to keep things at one decimal). The Performance Index is a weighted sum of the total game points and the team's Solkoff (see description below). Game/Match Points is the sum of total points won (game points) if you are basing placement on match results and the number of match points if you are basing placement on game points.
WinTD will use the top four tie breaks to break team ties. To determine individual board awards in team tournaments, it will use the top four tie-breaks excluding team-specific tie breaks. For team tournaments, you should probably list either the USAT or the Performance Index first. Use Game/Match Points as the secondary tie break if you want that to have precedence over the match records of the opponents (Solkoff); otherwise, just use the one team tie breaker and put the individual tie breaks next. (A secondary tie break for teams is rarely needed with either USAT or the Performance Index, since they will almost never match after three or four rounds unless the two teams had identical results against opponents with identical records). For example, you might want to use the following order:
1. US Amateur (Teams)
2. Percentage Score
3. Solkoff
4. Modified Median
5. Cumulative
The first four will be used to break team ties, while two through five will be used to break ties for individual board awards (see below for comments on these choices).
Choosing a Team Tie Break
It's possible to use just a standard tie break like Solkoff or Modified Median as the first tie breaker in team tournaments. This, however, has the drawback that individual games are meaningless once the overall outcome of the match has been determined. The simplest of the three special team tie breaks is Game/Match Points. It is not a good choice for a first tie breaker because it is likely to produce the opposite of the desired result: a team which faces weak opposition is likely to pile up more game points than a team facing tougher opponents.
The US Amateur Teams tie break is superior to those. It has two minor drawbacks: the individual games against a very weak opponent are unlikely to count much (they don't count at all against an opponent who gets 0 match points) and it tends to put too much weight on crushing wins against middle of the pack teams versus competitive matches with top teams. (4-0 against a team with a 2.5-3.5 record is worth more than 1.5-2.5 against a 6-0 team). The flip side of giving more tie break points to wins against high-scoring teams is that losses to high-scoring teams hurt more than losses to low-scoring teams.
The Performance Index is an experimental tie breaker. It takes a weighted sum of the Solkoff and Game Points, with the weight on the Solkoff becoming higher as the number of rounds increases. It is based upon the following calculation: suppose a team scores S (out of G games) against an opponent who scores W match points in R rounds. Assign to this opponent a base performance value of 100+(W/R-1/2)(50+10R). (This is roughly 1/10 of the typical "rating" for such a performance if all teams had a prior rating of 1000 - we divide the "rating" calculations by 10 to give it a scale more like other tie breakers, and to avoid confusion with the actual ratings). Add to this (S/G-1/2)*80 to get the performance index for this match. Take the average of these across all of the team's matches. (Unplayed rounds are treated as 0 scores against an opponent scoring 0, as they are in the other tie breakers). Since the sum of W's is the Solkoff and the sum of S's is Game Points, the result will be a weighted sum of Solkoff and Game Points. Unlike the USAT tie break, all games are equally valuable. It tends to rank teams pretty similarly to the USAT, but seems more likely than the USAT to place highly teams which lose to the top teams over those which lose to lower scoring teams.
Choosing Tie Breaks for Board Prizes
Because teams get paired, not players, the information in most of the standard individual tie breaks can be less valuable than usual. A good player on a weak team can pile up lots of wins without having to play any of the stronger players on his board.
In a long tournament, where most players will probably sit out several rounds, the Percentage Score tie breaker may be your best bet. That would put, for example, a 7-0 ahead of 7-1. Solkoff would likely put them the other way around.
IHSA (Teams)
WinTD also offers the IHSA (Teams) choice for use in Illinois High School Association tournaments.