Board Game Arena

What are the tiebreakers for tournaments where players finish on the same points?

Ackter wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 00:40 What are the tiebreakers for tournaments where players finish on the same points?

I can explain it for Swiss tournaments. I don't play round robin, so someone else can handle that one.

Go to the bottom just below where it says "Swiss System," then click the > symbol to expand the columns. The first tiebreaker is the total number of points scored by everyone you played. The second tiebreaker is the average ELO of everyone you played. Basically, the tiebreakers are based on "strength of schedule." The first tiebreaker looks at how strongly your opponents played in the current tournament. The second tiebreaker looks at how strong they are in general.

Ackter wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 00:40 What are the tiebreakers for tournaments where players finish on the same points?

In round-robins, the first tiebreaker is cumulative score differential, which you can see on the tournament page, by clicking the ">" symbol. If a further tiebreaker is needed, age of account is used. See the following thread from 2022, and the links therein: viewtopic.php?p=125457

In Swiss, still click the button Matthew mentioned.


For ​ https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=390126 , ​ it's Bucholz:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchholz_system
​

Gulchen wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 08:05 In Swiss, still click the button Matthew mentioned.​

What about the button I mentioned?

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 08:25

Gulchen wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 08:05 In Swiss, still click the button Matthew mentioned.​

What about the button I mentioned?

that too ​

Ok cheers for the explanation. Bit daft though Surely it should be results against each other first.

If you finish on the same points as someone but you beat them in your game, you should be on top.

Ackter wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 14:07 If you finish on the same points as someone but you beat them in your game, you should be on top.

But what about three-way ties with non-transitive results (e.g. A won against B, who won against C, who won against A)?

When it is clear what if any effect the head-to-head tiebreaker would have -
I believe ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0 loses ​ , ​ 1 win ​ ​ ​ vs ​ ​ ​ 1 loss ​ , ​ 3 wins ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ and the corresponding
1,0 vs 3,1 ​ are the simplest examples where this is not clear
- the preferable order comes down to elo-like models vs potential ​ rock-paper-scissors - esque ​ relations among the players:

Head-to-head better handles such ​ rock-paper-scissors - esque ​ relations, but for elo-like models,
who one's opponents were ​ ​ ​ is usually more important than ​ ​ ​ which results were against which of those players ​ .

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 17:08

Ackter wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 14:07 If you finish on the same points as someone but you beat them in your game, you should be on top.

But what about three-way ties with non-transitive results (e.g. A won against B, who won against C, who won against A)?

that's when other tiebreaker criteria are used.