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Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?

Posted By: sebalotek
Date: Sunday, 3 April 2016, at 2:58 p.m.

I was in a tournament recently which started off with 8 groups of 9 players.

These 8 groups played round-robin matches to determine who would go forward into the knockout stage.

The top 3 players from each group were to progress.

At the end of this phase, a tie-breaker was required to decide who went through in the the final (3rd) qualifying place for 6 of the 8 groups.

75% the of groups requiring a tie-breaker feels like a large proportion to me. A fairly large number of people were eliminated by this narrow margin. In some cases, 4 people were tied for the important 3rd place.

I know some systems use Head-to-Head outcomes, others the use sum of defeated opponents points (i.e. FIBS), some use the cumulative balance of the match scores (i.e. ABG) etc. There are many different systems.

I was wondering, what is the general consensus (if any) within the backgammon community of the fairest tie-break criteria and ordering of such in these situations?

N.B. This is not a criticism of the tournament in question; it was fun, and very well run.

Full disclosure: yes I was one of those eliminated. I doubt I would have given it much thought if I wasn't, but the question is interesting to me anyway :)

Messages In This Thread

• Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
  sebalotek -- Sunday, 3 April 2016, at 2:58 p.m.
  • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
    Casper Van der Tak -- Sunday, 3 April 2016, at 3:05 p.m.
    • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
      phil simborg -- Sunday, 3 April 2016, at 4:03 p.m.
      • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
        niuniuch -- Sunday, 3 April 2016, at 4:48 p.m.
        • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
          phil simborg -- Monday, 4 April 2016, at 2:35 a.m.
          • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
            garyo -- Monday, 4 April 2016, at 7:02 a.m.
            • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
              sebalotek -- Thursday, 7 April 2016, at 3:57 p.m.
      • Fairest order of tie-breakers for backgammon round-robin tournaments?
        Casper Van der Tak -- Sunday, 3 April 2016, at 7:12 p.m.