Swiss Tournaments
It is not unusual for Swiss tournaments to end up with several players tied with the same number of points. To establish a finish order, the following tie-break formulas are applied in order:
- Direct encounter
- Number of wins with black
- Buchholz cut 1
There is no perfect tie-break system; each has its faults. The tie-break systems used by the SCC are the ones commonly recommended by chess federations around the world. Here is a brief description of each of the tie-break criteria:
Direct encounter
If any players are still tied at this point, and all tied players have played against each other in the tournament, then the player with the most points out of those games is the winner. If the tied players have not all played each other, or there is a tie for points within those games, then it is still a tie.
Number of wins with black
The player with the highest number of wins with the black pieces breaks the tie.
Buchholz cut 1
Your Buchholz score is calculated by adding together the tournament scores of each player you played against, except the one with the lowest score (this is the 'cut 1'). The final number is your Buchholz tie-break score.
Round Robin Tournaments
Ties in Round Robin tournaments (like our club championship) are resolved using the Sonneborn-Berger system. For each player in the tie, add the final scores of all the opponents the player defeated and half the final scores of all the opponents with whom the player drew. If a tie remains after applying the Sonneborn-Berger test, we look at the number of won games and finally the result of direct encounters.