What method of tiebreaks do you prefer for teams? To clarify, I’m asking about an individual event with team trophies (i.e. many scholastic events)? What tiebreaks are used at the national events?
Standard per the rulebook is Mod Median, Solkoff, Cumulative, and Opp Cumulative.
Because there are often accelerated pairings in at least one section of a scholastic national, the tie-break for those replace cumulative with Sonnenborn-Berger.
What’s wrong with cumulative when there are accelerated pairings? All you need to do is not include the first round score in the cumulative. Just add the scores after rounds 2, 3, 4, etc.
Bill Smythe
USCF scholastics don’t use Modified Median for team tie breaks since it throws out high scores for players at even or below.
Why would you use a tie-break designed for Round Robin tournaments just because your Swiss System tournament uses accelerated pairings?
For my local events I do use cumulative before S-B, even when accelerating.
Under acceleration, the second quarter is paired up in round one and the third quarter is paired down, with second half round one winners playing first have round one losers. That means a second half 2-0 faced a significantly weaker pair of opponents compared to a top half 2-0 (or even a top half 1-1) and thus undercuts using cumulative to show that a stronger field was faced. Changing that would have to go through the scholastic counsel and committee.
Correction noted. Even though it was in the heading, I overlooked the word “team”.
Thanks Jeff (and others). I am asking about Team tiebreaks. I gather from Tom Doan (btw I bought WinTD last night) and others that for team tiebreaks at national events, the preferred tiebreak order is Solkoff, Cumulative (unless using accelerated pairings in which case SB and then Cumulative), and finally Opp? Is that correct?
The 2017 National Scholastic regulations list the following team tie-breaks:
When team scores are equal, the following order of tie-break systems will be used to designate team awards:
- Total Individual Median
- Total Solkoff
- Total Sonneborn-Berger
- Total Cumulative
- Coin flip
Note that #1 is median (which throws out high and low opponent scores for all players), not modified median (which throws out low opponents for plus scores, high for minus scores and both high and low for even scores and is the primary tie break for individuals). Yes, S-B isn’t really for Swisses, and probably isn’t much better than a coin flip. However, when you are looking at team tie breaks, there are a lot more possible scores for teams than there are for individuals and and a lot fewer teams than individuals, so while you can easily have 40-50 way ties for individuals at scores like 5-2 in big sections, even a 4-5 way tie in raw score is rare for teams (at least for the teams near the top), and similarly the tie breaks themselves are sums of many more scores and thus produce many more possible values than the same tie breaks do when applied to individuals. Thus, it’s pretty rare to ever need more than those first two for teams.
Thanks. Feeling embarrassed that I didn’t think to just go read the scholastic regs.
Aren’t there two types of team tournaments? And aren’t there two types of Sonneborn-Berger? And aren’t these two questions related? And is everybody talking about the same types of each? And why am I asking so many questions?
There are team-vs-team tournaments, where each team consists of (for example) four players. The pairings are by teams, with the four members of one team playing the four members of the other.
The other kind is individual-and-team. There can be few or many players on a team. Pairings are made individually, player vs player. Different players on the same team will, in all probability, be playing players from several different teams. At the end of the tournament, the scores of the four (for example) highest-scoring players on a team are added to determine the team’s total score.
As for Sonneborn-Berger, the original version is used in individual round-robin tournaments, not team events. S-B is used because, for example, Solkoff doesn’t break ties in a round robin. Two players with the same score will also have the same Solkoff tiebreak points.
The team version of Sonneborn-Berger, as I understand it, is for team-vs-team events, not for individual-and-team events. Team S-B simply multiplies your team’s game score (e.g. 2.5 out of 4) times your opposing team’s match score, round by round, and adds them up. It’s a measure of how strong your opponent teams are and how well your team did against them.
I’m just trying to make sure everybody is on the same page. It’s quite likely not the case.
Bill Smythe
Everyone but you, Bill. From the OP (emphasis mine)
Nowadays those are call USAT tie-breaks.
I understand fully why the Cumulative system would be a poor choice of tie-breakers when accelerated pairings are used. But I ask again, why would you use a tie-break designed for Round Robin tournaments just because your Swiss System tournament uses accelerated pairings? If you want to stick a square peg into a round hole you can always force it in, but it wasn’t designed for the use you’re trying to put it to.
I like the term “medley” events - which is what many people use.