12.C.3. Round Robin. All players or teams play each other. Games may use any of the approved tournament scoring options. (See Rule 12.B.) The winner is determined based on the number of matches won. If two or more teams are tied:

NEW 12.C.3.a. Teams that have withdrawn from the bracket are not eligible to be considered when going to a tie-breaker. Any team that has withdrawn from the bracket shall only have their record of matches won considered. (e.g., Team A has 3 wins, Team B has 3 wins and Team C has 3 wins. However, Team C withdrew from their last match. Because Team C has withdrawn from a match in their bracket, only their 3 wins will be considered in their finishing placement and they will NOT be considered for any additional tiebreaker. Team A beat Team B in their heads-up match, therefore Team A is awarded first place, Team B is awarded second place and Team C is awarded third place.)

Edit 12.C.3.b. First tie-breaker: head-to-head matches won among the tied teams.

Edit 12.C.3.c. Second tie-breaker: point differential of all games played. (e.g., Team A won Match 1 11-8, 11-4, so they would have a point differential of +10. Team A then wins the second match 11-9, 2-11, 11-6. For this round, they would have a point differential of -2. This would give them a total for the day of +8.)

Edit 12.C.3.d. Third tie-breaker: head-to-head point differential.

Edit 12.C.3.e. Fourth tie-breaker: point differential against next-highest team. (e.g., If the teams are tied for second, use point differentials against the first-place team.)

NEW 12.C.3.f. Once a tie has been broken, any subsequent ties in the bracket shall be broken by going back to 12.C.3.a. and continuing through each successive tie-breaker until a winner is determined.

Add to 12.C.3.

Once a tie is broken and the winner is determined, the winner is excluded from the remaining tied teams, and the tie-breaking process is started from the beginning with the remaining tied players or teams until all ties are resolved.

12.C.3.  Round Robin. All players or teams play each other. Games may use any of the approved tournament scoring options. (See Rule 12.B.) The winner is determined based on number of matches won. If two or more teams are tied:

12.C.3.a.   First tie-breaker: head-to-head matches won.

12.C.3.b.   Second tie-breaker: point differential of all games played. (e.g., Team A won Match 1 11-8, 11-4, so they would have a point differential of +10. Team A then wins the second match 11-9, 2-11, 11-6. For this round, they would have a point differential of -2. This would give them a total for the day of +8.)

12.C.3.c.   Third tie-breaker: head-to-head point differential.

12.C.3.d. Fourth tie-breaker: point differential against next-highest team. (e.g., If the teams are tied for second, use point differentials against the first-place team.)

There is some confusion how Rule 12.C.3 is applied when there are three or more tied teams/players which might be eliminated if the proposed rule change sentence is added at the end of Rule 12.C.3.

In the following simplistic example, teams A, B, C have a three-way tie.  They all won the same number of matches and remained tied after the head-to-head tie-breaker rule. This is a somewhat frequent occurrence at tournaments. However, there are less frequent cases this proposed change resolves.

Matches    Score

A & B         15 to 4

B & C         15 to 6

C & A         15 to 7

Currently:

Team  Wins  Hd-to-Hd  Pt Diff  Without repeating the process

A          1          1                   3           Team A wins on point differential

B          1          1                   -2          Team B is third on point differential

C          1          1                   -1           Team C is second on point differential

If the tie-breaking rules were applied to all three tied teams at once, Team C would have placed second based on point differential even though they were beaten by Team B which took third place.  The final order would be Team A, Team C, and then Team B - even though Team B beat Team C in their head-to-head.

Proposed change:

Team A still wins based on point differential from the initial tie-breaking process.  Then, the remaining teams (B and C) go through the tie-breaking process starting with 12.C.3.a.

Team  Wins  Hd-to-Hd  Pt Diff  Repeating the process

B          1          1                  N/A      Team B is second because of its head-to-head win against Team C

C          1          0                 N/A       Team C is third because of its head-to-head loss to Team B.

If Team A was excluded from the remaining tied teams and the tie-breaking rules were used on Teams B and C, they both have still won the same number of matches but Team B beat Team C in their head-to-head match.  Since the tie between Teams B and C is now resolved, point differential is immaterial. The final order would be Team A, Team B, then Team C.  Team A would have won based on point differential with all three teams, while Team B would have won based on its heat-to-head win over Team C.