This article originally appeared in the March 2013 USBF Western Sector Newsletter.

Most bocce players in Western Sector tournaments have experienced competition in the round robin format.  Even our leagues are based on the round robin concept where each team in a group plays every other team in the group once.  It was not always this way.  Many of our tournaments used to be double elimination where the first loss places a team in the consolation, elimination or “loser’s” bracket.  The second loss results in elimination from the tournament.

There are pros and cons to both tournament formats.  The double elimination tournament guarantees a team only two games, but teams can advance and keep playing as long as they keep winning.  There is always a clear-cut winner and tiebreakers and playoffs are not required.  Over time, the round robin format became more popular because teams are guaranteed more games and usually are still playing when it is time to break for lunch.  This makes an enjoyable half-day spent playing bocce for teams that do not advance to the playoff rounds.

The biggest problem with the round robin format is the need for tiebreakers.  Many times in a four or five team bracket the situation occurs where three teams have identical records and only two teams will be advancing to the playoffs or elimination rounds.  This is where the tiebreaker enters the discussion.  A simple “Google” search for “round robin tiebreaker rules” will yield over 700,000 results!  Most tiebreaker rules always look at head to head results first.  With two teams tied it is very simple.  The winning team advances to the playoffs or is the higher ranked team in the group. In a three-way tie, if one team beat the other two that team is the higher ranked team.

It sounds simple up to this point.  Now it gets a little more complicated.  If the three teams have identical records with one win each against the other tied teams there is no head to head winner and some method must be used to break the tie.  It is fascinating to look at the “Google” results to see how other sports handle this situation. The United States Bocce Federation faced this problem in 1999 at the national championships when a group of seven teams ended up in a multi-team tie.  The tie was broken after a lengthy meeting of the tournament directors and some USBF board members.  Some questioned the final decision and wondered how the decision was made.  It was not an easy situation and the federation did some research after the tournament and came up with a comprehensive way to break simple and complicated ties in the future.  The result of their work can be seen on the USBF web site at:

http://www.bocce.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Tiebreaker.pdf

These tiebreaker rules have been used at USBF tournaments since 2000.  In all cases head to head results are used after each tie is broken.   By far, the most common application of these rules is found in example three in the USBF tiebreaker rules with no head to head winner among the three tied teams.

Example three states:

RESULT:  During the preliminary rounds A beat B, B beat C, and C beat A, so after looking at head to head results a tie still exists.  Points scored are now used to break the tie. A, with the most points gets the top seed.  Head to head results are now used to break the tie between B and C.  B beat C head to head, so B gets the remaining seed, even though C had more points.  C is eliminated.

Over the years many teams have advanced under this rule and just as many have been eliminated by this rule.  As an observer of human nature and a veteran tournament director, I have seen the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” when this rule is applied.  The eliminated teams just don’t understand why they have to go home even though they had more points or had beaten an advancing team.  The advancing teams seem to understand the rule and are happy to advance until some future tournament when they are eliminated by the rule and question its validity.  I have even seen some USBF directors throw fits when the rule works against them.

The main point of this article is that we do have a rule and it has been used for over thirteen years.  It is consistent and every tournament player is somewhat familiar with the rule.  They advance or are eliminated, but the rule is constant and provides a level playing field so that there is no manipulation of the results and all teams are treated fairly.  It is very important that the tiebreaker rules are posted at each tournament so that all teams know the rules in advance!  In other sports there are slightly different variations of this tiebreaker.  In some sports in the three-way tie example, the team with the least amount of points is eliminated and head to head is used to select the top two teams.  Other sports use point differential to break the tie and then revert to head to head.  When teams are being seeded from different brackets, point differential is a valid way of seeding because there is no possibility of a head to head result.

An interesting situation happened at the USBF nationals in 2011. Point differential only was used as an experiment to break the tie in the women’s raffa and open A and B tournaments.  In the open A division two teams were tied with identical records and identical points scored and points scored against.  Even though one team had a head to head advantage in the preliminary round it was not taken into consideration and a one-frame playoff was held.  The team that lost in the preliminary round won the playoff frame and by virtue of a head to head win became the higher seeded team!  The lesson to be learned from this experiment is that there is no perfect solution to the tiebreaker problem.

In conclusion, remember that there are over 700,000 results for round robin tiebreaker searches.  It is very informative to see how many different ways there are to break a tie!  If you study the issue a little, many different types of tiebreaker rules make sense.  The main thing is that the rules must be consistent and followed at all tournaments.  I am sure that if the readers have comments or suggestions about tiebreakers, members of the USBF board would be interested in hearing from you.  Perhaps there is a better way of breaking ties, but in the meantime we have a system that has worked for thirteen years and is still in use and widely accepted today.