Why did I not advance?

[xorsyst_uk]

In this game: https://boardgamearena.com/6/arknova?table=508652835
My opponent and I scored the same, and the same tie-breaker.
I had more time remaining.

Why did they advance instead of me? I couldn't find an answer in the FAQ as to how BGA decides.

[mrdoctor]

See the "how to play" section on the game page or in the game rulebook - in case of a tie, it's decided on who has most conservation points.

EDIT: conservation projects, not conservation points.

[cheval_raye]

See the "how to play" section on the game page or in the game rulebook - in case of a tie, it's decided on who has most conservation points.

You're wrong, tie-breaker in Ark Nova is the highest number of conservation projects. And it was a perfect tie here, since they both had 4.

I'm not familiar with tournaments, so I don't know how it works in this case

[xorsyst_uk]

If it was conservation points I'd have won the tie-breaker, I had 26 to 25

[Mathew5000]

Tournament standings: https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?i ... ge_display

Under Match 2, game #18, xorsyst_uk (player #87,850,895) and AbCdEfGhIj12345
384 (player #92,900,255) tied, both awarded 1st on the game page: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table= ... 35&nr=true

So OP's question is very good, why did AbCdEfGhIj12345 advance to Match 3, game #9: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table= ... 22&nr=true

I assume that the player id's are conferred sequentially by account creation date, so xorsyst_uk has the earlier creation date. We can say for certain that the rule here is not that the older account advances.

In this thread from February 2023, a player was told was told by BGA support that the tie-breaker for a round-robin tournament (in a game with no scores) is random selection:

viewtopic.php?t=29137#p136657

The OP here (xorsyst_uk) is asking about a single-elimination tournament (not round-robin) but it does appear quite possible that the determiner of who advances was made by random selection between xorsyst_uk and AbCdEfGhIj12345.

See also this thread, and particularly the post by radicarian: viewtopic.php?t=17794
And here's another thread on the same topic: viewtopic.php?t=29618 referring to this table: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table= ... 77&nr=true

[xorsyst_uk]

Thanks for the great summary.

I assume that the player id's are conferred sequentially by account creation date, so xorsyst_uk has the earlier creation date. We can say for certain that the rule here is not that the older account advances.

Also, there is "member since" if you click on the player profile, so we can be sure of that.

Perhaps a condition is that they have a premium account and I only have a free one? That seems unlikely, but entirely possible.

[RobertBr]

I assume that the player id's are conferred sequentially by account creation date, so xorsyst_uk has the earlier creation date. We can say for certain that the rule here is not that the older account advances.

That has always been a very popular conspiracy people but most people have assumed that in these rare cases it is a coin toss, which would be completely logical.

[Cheery Dog]

I believe in single elimination it has to do with elos, or original seedings which are ELO based.
Might still be random though.

Join dates causing advancement are true for multiplayer elimination though, which tend to not be seeded.

[Mathew5000]

Here's another example: https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=337488

See "Match 5", game 2, MattiasD vs Kaisvap. The game resulted in a tie ( https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=597644193&nr ) and Kaisvap advanced. Kaisvap has the newer account (by many years!), higher Elo (by a wide margin), and used more thinking time. Kaisvap has a standard account, MattiasD has a premium account.

So this game does seem to be evidence against several of the popular theories about what BGA's tiebreaker is, in single-elimination tournaments.

The player posted about it on the tournament main page and in the Sushi Go forum: viewtopic.php?t=39948

Some other threads discussing tiebreakers in single-elimination tournaments on BGA:
viewtopic.php?t=11936 (2017)
viewtopic.php?t=17794 (2020)
viewtopic.php?t=18386 (2020)
viewtopic.php?t=26483 (2022)
viewtopic.php?t=29624 (2023)

and here are some relevant proposals that can be upvoted:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=26098 (27 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=26541 (8 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=33628 (28 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=47796 (3 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=61176 (66 upvotes)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=80158 (7 upvotes)

[Andrew Davidson]

I just tied in a single-elimination tournament for Ark Nova and was wondering how it worked. In this case, I advanced and it appears that my opponent didn't. He had a higher ELO and younger account.