I am running a scholastic primary/elementary championship tournament this weekend with a five rounds game/30. I am having a blitz playoff for the top two on tie breaks in each section, with G/7 W, G/5 B with Black getting draw odds. The idea is to make sure there is a clear “champion” in case there is a tie for first place. I may not actually get as many entries as I anticipated to have to worry about it, won’t know till the last minute, and its a little late now to be asking, but, what in general does anyone think about this as a way to resolve such tie breaks? Thanks!
I like regular old tie breaks better. For one thing, I never like to encourage the little kids to play fast. For another, some of them just aren’t good at it.
Plus, tie breaks will sort out the entire standings for you, not just the top two players.
Another thought…we just had our local (unrated) championships…with NO tie breaks. Nobody seems to mind the fact that there are two or three people in the top score group in some divisions, all of whom got first place.
I think that you, like many others, are trying to solve a problem that has no good solution.
Bill Smythe
KMuir:
Ken,
And if there are more than two tied for first place in a section?
Although I don’t like particularly like the normal tiebreaks because they’re difficult to explain and it can be argued that they are somewhat capricious, trying to have playoffs presents all kinds of different problems, so I’ve always stuck with the recommended tiebreaks.
Questions for Ken Muir…
How many players do you anticipate in each section?
How well do you know your players? Will five rounds SS sort things out well enough all on its own?
Are there some ace chess players in the pool who are likely to prevail no matter what? More than one in a section?
Might accelerated pairings reduce the number of kids with perfect scores?
The number of players will determine how likely it is that you have more than one reach the final round clear. One way to try to prevent that if you have enough players is to accelerate the pairings. For a 5 round event I beleive you would more than 64 players to accelerate.
But we typically just award trophies based on regular tie breaks.We call all the kids in the top score group co-champions and then say they got this trophy on tie breaks.
I would buy more trophies before I would do a blitz playoff in an individual tournament.
Now we do have a blitz playoff in our 4 board state team if 2 tie and there was not a claer result if they played head to head. But both teams are lsited as co-champions- the blitz if for the 1st place trophy only.
It’s pretty tough to accelerate pairings in a primary section, at least in our area, because not enough players have ratings. I agree that some kids are much better at blitz than others, and not necessarily proportionate to their G/30 skill levels. This makes blitz a poor tiebreaker, in my opinion.
In Georgia, if there are multiple players with a perfect score, we award them both champion trophies. If you win all your games, you are a champion. If people tie without perfect scores, we use the standard tiebreak methods.
In Oklahoma we use a blitz tiebreak for individual first place ties in most rated scholastic events. If there are two tied, they play a match. If that ends in a tie, they play a 3rd game where they draw for color choice in a game where white has 6 minutes and black wins a draw. There are usually no spectators, aside from TDs.
In the case of a 3-way or larger tie, we play a single round robin blitz where players draw for color in each game. Players in the round robin are not allowed to watch the tiebreak games of the others. If there is a tie between more than 2 after the round robin, we would have a single round robin among those still tied (this has never happened). If there is a tie between two players after the round robin, we revert to the match method above (this has happened once or maybe twice).
Before the blitz tiebreak begins, the players have the option of mutually agreeing to acceptance of the machine tiebreaks, without knowing what results they produced (order is usually modified median, Solkoff, Cumulative). Otherwise, we proceed with the blitz tiebreak, and try to do so as soon as possible, often while other games not involved with the top spot are still under way.
We like the blitz tiebreak because the 1st place award determination is based on actual player performance. Tiebreak “fairness” complaints have virtually disappeared. We do still call all in the top score group Co-Champions as shown on our recently updated champions page at
okschess.org/news/champions.htm
Cheers,
Mike Swatek
I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this topic! Last year my tournament, a couple of months earlier, drew about 110 kids in primary section in a five round. I am believing now though that this weekend I will not have over 40-50 kids in this section, currently have 27. Last year I accelerated with 1/6 but this year a standard acceleration should take care of the problem of insufficient rounds.
We always awards here based on tie breaks but I wanted to make the champion a clear “sole” champion for this end of year championship. In hindsight the blitz playoff was perhaps not the best idea or necessary. I’ll let you know how it turns out. You’re right, we could end up with 3 tied for 1st and then it makes less sense. I got the idea of this type of blitz playoff from the HB challenge rules in Minnesota (2005). Having 800-rated players in a blitz playoff might be a little dubious.
Actually, if I don’t have over 32 kids I won’t need to accelerate at all.
Yes and you won’t have more than one clear come through. That is the big issue - is having more than 1 perfect score and no opportunity for them to play. When I TD schoalstic events most of the organizers I work with, or when I am the organizer, don’t want the extra time trouble and logistics issues. We jsut don’t see it as an issue to have kids tied - but I do liek to accelerate if I need to to make sure there aren’t multiple clear perfects at the end.
I am usually running different sections on different timetables so adding the blitz is either disruptive or makes a group wait until the end. Our parents like getting out as soon as they can. I often start a 5 round SS game 30 with first round at 9am and have the younger sections done by 2 usually - and I mean with trophies presented and all- 2:30 at the latest. Starting each round ASAP.
These tournaments operate on a schedule with my first game at 0930 and the last one at 3:45. This guarantees that people will know when the next round will start if they take a bye and provides time for lunch. Of course, I can see the value of starting each round as soon as possible after the previous one ends, and have been in some of those tournaments run by another organization here. Since I’m personally a very slow player it usually means I don’t have time to do much after my round.
I think many of the parents would like to get done early instead of waiting around all day. Food for thought!
I buy a few extra first place trophies. If people tie for first everyone gets a first place trophy.
If no one ties for first I have the extra first place trophies replated for the next event.
Interesting concept. If you had 2 kids tie for first, would you still issue a 2nd place trophy, or would you save it and issue a 3rd place?
I’ve offered up the following idea in my area which has been well received but not implemented:
-Get your normal distribution of trophies plus a few extra of the smallest size in case of ties at the bottom of your prize group.
-Make sure they don’t have the “place” plaque, i.e. 1st, 2nd, …, mounted on the trophies. They usually have an adhesive backing and can be added anytime.
-Get a large quantity of each of the “place” plaques, more for the lower places, and you can have multiple 1st places, 4th places, etc. You can use the tie breaks to decide who gets the larger trophies for the tied places.
This way you can have a 1st, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 7th, 7th, etc.
I always hate to have to explain to a kid who has tied for 2nd why he/she is getting a 5th place trophy. By keeping an on-hand supply of “place” plaques, you’ll have many more smiling faces. I know they’d much rather have a 2nd place trophy than a 5th place trophy! 
Ken you may be a slower player but young scholastic players generally are not. Especially in the K-1, K-3 and K-5 sections is it not uncommon for eveyone to be done before the scheduled times runs out. Our approach has been that it is better to get those kids back on the board as soon as possible so that they are not running around the facility.
We have more complaints about waiting than we do for the one game that hangs on and has trouble getting lunch.
Of course we are prtty tight on getting clocks on the remaining games that are palying without one so that the games don’t drag on. The killer is the lower board game wher neither beginning player knows how to finish and they are just moving around the board. Getting a clock on that game usually gets it to a resultion fairly quickly.
That is a good point, Allen. Usually we have middle school and high school sections in the same tournament but this one we have just a few in an open scholastic section, that one slows us down. But I am thinking of suggesting to our scholastic umbrella group that we adopt that approach or a hybrid if I can think of one.
The two kids tied for first both get first place trophies. The next kid down (#3) is second place, player #4 gets 3rd place and etc.
The trick is that the extra first place trophies are generic in the sense that they have the tournament name and “First Place” on them but no section id. I bring three generic first place trophies to each of my tournaments which have four sections.
The top scorer on tiebreaks gets the “regular” first place trophy with section id. The others tied for first place get the “generic” first place trophies. I’ve never had anyone complain about their “generic” first place trophy but I supposed it will happen one day.
I often give two first place trophies in a section and giving three first place in section happens from time to time. If I have a four way tie, I revert to one first place trophy and tie-break order.
If there is a 10 way tie for first place, do they get 10 first place trophies and the one who finished 11th gets second place? To go back to your more rational scenario, if two players tie for 1st, the third place finisher should not get higher than a third place trophy. Just my opinion, but that is how we do it in GA. And we only award the extra first place trophy for a perfect score, otherwise tiebreaks are used.
I never go higher than a 3 way tie. If there is a 4 way tie, then it reverts back to 1st 2nd 3rd 4th.
And a child only wins a 1st place trophy in our non-rated 4-6th grade one time. After you recieve a first place trophy in that section, you are “promoted” and must play in the K-6 USCF rated section.
Our announcer makes a Big Fuss about what a Honor it is to be promoted to Rated play.
FWIW, our sections are K-3 Non-rated, 4-6 Non-rated, K-6 Rated, and 7-12 Rated. We draw from 150 to 225 to our tournaments.