{"id":1111,"date":"2018-07-26T00:08:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T00:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2018-07-26T00:08:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T00:08:34","slug":"action-swiss-and-a-tale-of-four-tiebreaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/action-swiss-and-a-tale-of-four-tiebreaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Swiss and a tale of four tiebreaks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ten players competed in the dual-rated (G\/30 + 10 sec delay) Action Swiss. While the playing area at Vassar was hotter than a Native American sweat lodge, the action at the boards was even hotter. Well, at least that&#8217;s what I imagine a professional journalist writing. I&#8217;ll keep the hyperbole to a minimum from here on out.<\/p>\n<p>When the dust and humidity had settled, two players shared the top spot with 3 out of 4 points: Mark Courtney and Scott Strattner.<\/p>\n<p>Shared? What do you mean? This is chess, there is no sharing, there must be a winner!<\/p>\n<p>When I created the event in the tournament software (vegachess.com), I configured it to use three tiebreaks, the type and order specified by USCF. Specifically:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Modified Median (also known as Bulchholz Median)<\/li>\n<li>Solkoff (also known as Bulcholz)<\/li>\n<li>Cumulative<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unfortunately, the application of these tiebreaks did not determine a winner:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1112\" src=\"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ActionSwiss2018.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"930\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ActionSwiss2018.png 930w, http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ActionSwiss2018-300x158.png 300w, http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ActionSwiss2018-768x405.png 768w, http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ActionSwiss2018-500x263.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There is a fourth tiebreak &#8211; Cumulative of the opponents scores. This tiebreak is not listed in Vega (hey, it is free, what can you expect). And calculating it is a pain in the neck. You have to take each person&#8217;s opponent, and calculate their round-by-round score, then adding them all together. With 1\/2 point subtracted from the sum for each 1\/2 point bye taken by the player. So let&#8217;s do the math together:<\/p>\n<p>Mark&#8217;s opponents:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Mendez: 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 = 1<\/li>\n<li>Strattner: 1 + 1.5 + 2.5 + 3 = 8<\/li>\n<li>Leo: .5 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 2.5 = 6<\/li>\n<li>Johnson: .5 + 1 + 2 + 2.5 = 6 &#8211; 1\u00a0 = 5<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Total: 1 + 8 + 6 + 5 =<strong> 20<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Scott&#8217;s opponents:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Ferrier: 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 2<\/li>\n<li>Courtney: 1 + 1.5 + 2.5 + 3 = 8<\/li>\n<li>Evans: .5 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 2.5 = 6<\/li>\n<li>Fisher: .5 + 1 + 2 + 2.5 = 6 &#8211; 1 = 5<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Total: 2 + 8 + 6 + 5 = <strong>21<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So, there we have it. Scott edges out Mark in the 4th tiebreak, 21 &#8211; 20. Writing this post was more grueling than facing Craig&#8217;s French defense (and that was grueling!).<\/p>\n<p>As listed in the event schedule, a trophy is also given to the top Booster (best score in bottom half of participants by rating).<\/p>\n<p>So who is the top player in the bottom half? Although it is close, the answer is Ken Evans!<\/p>\n<p>Craig Fisher (2.5): Regular = 1810, Quick = 1805<\/p>\n<p>Ken Evans (2.5): Regular = 1800, Quick = 1731<\/p>\n<p>Finally, while appreciative, the winner and TD will not accept a trophy, thus providing more money to the club (and getting us that much closer to hosting another GM simul, hopefully).<\/p>\n<p>References (for those who wish to learn more about tiebreaks and do not have access to the USCF rulebook):<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Buchholz_system<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tie-breaking_in_Swiss-system_tournaments<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten players competed in the dual-rated (G\/30 + 10 sec delay) Action Swiss. While the playing area at Vassar was hotter than a Native American sweat lodge, the action at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1115,"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions\/1115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vassar-chadwick.com\/club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}