USCF Standard Tiebreak Systems

Used in this tournament, in order of priority.

1) Modified Median (not used for team tiebreaks)

Of the two median tiebreaks, this is the more standard now. It evaluates the strength of a player's opposition by summing the final scores of his or her opponents and then discarding either the highest of these scores, the lowest, or both, depending on the tied player's score.

For players who tie with even scores (that is, their number of wins and losses is the same), both high and low are discarded. For tied players with plus scores (more win than losses), only the lowest is discarded, and for players with minus scores only the highest is discarded.

For tournaments of nine or more rounds, the top two scores are discarded (or the bottom two scores, or all four, as determined by the same even/plus/minus criteria above).

These scores are adjusted for any unplayed games, which count a half point each. If the player involved in the tie has any unplayed games, they count as opponents with adjusted scores of 0.

2) Solkoff

The sum of all opponents' final scores.

3) Cumulative score

This is easy to calculate by hand, and has been popular for that reason. To get this value just add up the cumulative (running) score for each round. The theory is that players who win their games in the early rounds (and therefore end up with higher cumulative scores than players with the same score who win later rounds) have had to face tougher opposition throughout the tournament.

4) Cumulative scores of opposition

This uses the cumulative scores calculated as above, but for the tied players' opponents rather than for the tied players themselves.