I have looked on the forums and I can't find anything on tie-breaks in tournaments. Can someone explain this to me.

I am currently in a tournament (trials of the best). I have a record of 11-3-1, and the player ahead of me has a record of 11-4-1. We each have a score of 11.5. We split our two games with a win apice. The only thing I can see different is he has a tie-break score of 80.25 and I have a tie-break score of 75.25.

With a better record it seems like I would be in first place and he would be in 2d.

According to http://www.chess.com/tournaments/help.html#tiebreak:

A player's tiebreak score is calculated by adding the sum of the player's points they have defeated to half the sum of the player's points they have drawn against.

Bob won two games against John and one game against Mary. So Bob gets 2x1.5 points from John and 1.5 points from Mary, which sums up to 4.5 tiebreak points.

John won one game and drew one game against Mary. So John gets 1.5x1.5 points from Mary, which sums up to 2.25 tiebreak points.

Mary won one game against Bob and drew one game against John. So Mary gets 1x3.0 points from Bob and 0.5x1.5 points from John, which sums up to 3.75 tiebreak points.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply, but I still do not understand. Iwent to the web link you listed but that did not help either.  I have the same number of wins as the other player (11). We each have one draw and he has one more loss (4 to my 3). How can he have a higher tie break score?

If you lost two games to someone, and he won those games to that some person, that may be why. Im not sure, but that may be why

The method is clearly stated.

"A player's tiebreak score is calculated by adding the sum of the player's points they have defeated to half the sum of the player's points they have drawn against."

At this point the higgo has beaten the third place player twice and you have done so once so far. The difference is 11 tie break points in higgo's favour.

You have beaten the eighth place player twice and higgo has done so once. The difference is 5 tie break points in your favour.

The difference is 6 tie break points in higgo's favour. This is borne out in the current tie break calculations. higgo has 82.25 tie break points and you have 76.25.

Thanks TadDude I see it now.

This thread should be stickied or bumped.  This question gets asked a lot and it's good to know the answer!

Yep, I decond that. Took me ages to find this info. Thanks for the help...