TMS "Secret Tiebreaker"

[WeileMom]

Hi,
I know this was asked before, and I saw this answer in a post by Bulbasnore:

The tie breaks are in this order:
1. Strength of schedule. Add up the opponent's points for tied players; the one with the highest totals advances.
2. If still tied, then look at the head to head matchup. The player who wins the head to head advances.
3. If still tied, look at the time of first loss. The player who loses lost first does not advance. If first loss is the same, go to second, etc.

#1 is called resistance in TMS & DCI reporter (the calc is different but the result the same).
#2 & #3 I think are sometimes referred to as the 'hidden tiebreak' in TMS.


Hope that helps answer your question!!

 

[Professor_Chris]

I don't the TMS software goes past TieBreak% I think it just lists tied participants alphabetically. I'm not sure. And as I understood it: The third step is only used if there was no head to head match (as obviously there couldn't have been a tie) and it is lastest loss, not latest first loss. Thats just how I remember/understood it last time I read it. I may be wrong.

 

[DaytonGymLeader]

6. Tiebreakers:
a. Strength of Schedule: Add up the final point scores of each tied player’s opponents. The players with the highest Strength of Schedule score receive preference to advance.
b. Head to Head: If players with tied records and Strength of Schedule scores outnumber the number of available seats in the finals, and those players played during the Swiss rounds, advance the one that one that game.
c. Time of Loss: If players are still tied at this point and the previous tiebreakers did not select a player to advance, give preference to the player whose first loss was later than the other tied players. If the first loss of all tied players happened in the same round, look at the second and subsequent losses.

TMS does not handle 2 & 3 correctly. If you do run into this, doublecheck the math/match results.

DCI Reporter uses a very different calculation for this, called Opponent's Match Win Percentage. The result is nowhere near the same.

 

[meganium45]

Right.

Which is why...

You SHOULD NOT RELY on the program for the major events.

When the program does things WRONG...why should it be relied upon, especially for tiebreakers.

This was not as big an issue for Cities with just medals on the line...but for States, with $300 +++ on the line, and other larger events...until the program gets fixed, it is WRONG to rely on it or any of its results...

Just my opinion, but a strong one at that.

Vince

 

[SteveP]

I somewhat agree with M45 about not using the strength-of-schedule (SOS) tiebreaker, from TMS or any tournament software (including my own) at major events. That's why we're strongly considering using playoff byes at our CO States. IMO, head-to-head is more important than the SOS tiebreaker.

For our CO States (were $300 of traveler's checks are on the line), we'll probably cut to the playoffs bases solely on W-L record. If that means adding 1-2 extra players (and giving 1st round playoff byes), then so be it. IMO, that's better than using a flawed tiebreaker system.

Hey Vince, are you going to calculate the SOS tiebreaker on paper? If so, how are you going to handle byes? Just curious. IMO, I DO think players should get full credit for ALL their opponents' wins, regardless of whether they're byes or not. However, a player that had a bye, the SOS for that bye opponent should NOT be 0, but rather a 0.333 minimum. Plus, it would be nice to use a 0.333 minimum for any opponent you played. JMO.

 

[annisarich]

We discovered this at a CC last week.
three players tied for the 3 and 4th Finalist spot with the same record.
TMS did its "tie breaker" (Stregnth of schedule) and three were tied.
we checked (good thing a player asked) and it had just randomly listed the players 3,4,5
we looked at the wins streak from the begining of the tournament. Only one player won the first round so he was in as 3rd seed.
the other two players had the exact W L pattern
we looked at head to head...nope didnt play.
So we had a playoff game for the last spot.....which went into a sudden death OT Ugh

 

[TheDarkTwins]

what happens if they are still tied after 1,2, and 3??
Drew

 

[eauxmar]

The 2 people play a game to break the tie.