at present playing in my first tournament can someone please explain what is meant with points and tie breaks or where they lead to, happy chessing all

points are for wins (+1) and ties (+1/2), the tiebreaks are the sum of the wins of your defeated opponents. if you have a higher tiebreak score, it is indicative that you have defeated players with more wins than someone with a lower tiebreak score. not all tournaments use a tiebreak. cheers and good luck!

do these points get added to your rating?

no, there are rating points for winning your games because the tournament games are rated and you also get tournament points for placement but these are not rating points

For more information on the tournament tie-break system:

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

Again another head ache, follow the above advice, for it's not easy to explain in simple words!

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