In a group tournament, unlike a knockout tournament, there is no scheduled decisive final match. Instead, all the competitors are ranked by examining the results of all the matches played in the tournament. Typically, points are awarded for each match,[n 1] with competitors ranked based either on total number of points or average points per match. A special type of group tournament is the Round-robin tournament, in which each player plays against every other player.
Usually each competitor finishes with an equal number of matches, in which case rankings by total points and by average points are equivalent at the end of the tournament, though not necessarily while it is in progress. Examples with unequal numbers of matches include the 1895 County Championship in English cricket, and the U.S. National Football League prior to 1972, when tie games were excluded from the winning percentage used for regular-season standings.
In two-competitor games where ties are rare or impossible, competitors are typically ranked by number of wins, with ties counting half; each competitor's listings are usually ordered wins–losses(–ties). Giving a half-point for a draw in chess was introduced in 1868 by the British Chess Association; previously, drawn games in chess tournaments were replayed.[1] Where draws are more common, the award may be 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw, which is mathematically equivalent but avoids having half-points in the listings. These are usually ordered wins–draws–losses. If there are more than two competitors per match, points may be ordinal—for example, 3 for first, 2 for second, 1 for third. An extreme example of this is Formula One, where the top ten racers in each Grand Prix are given 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 respectively.
Some games may have more complex ranking criteria. For example, in rugby union, bonus points may be awarded for scoring a certain number of tries in a match, usually four, or for losing by a relatively small margin, usually 7 (the value of a converted try) or less.
Additionally in many leagues, the governing body is able to penalize a competitor who has broken the league's rules (for instance by allowing an ineligible player to play) by deducting points from that competitor's total. Sometimes this deduction may be carried over to a following season, particularly if the infraction occurs during the off-season, meaning that the competitor will start the following season with a negative points total rather than zero.
Official listings while a tournament is in progress may need to take account of competitors having played differing fractions of their schedules. Some use average points (such as the "points percentage" of the National Hockey League[2]) and others total points (such as the English Premier League, although comparisons between teams typically mention where one has "games in hand" on the other). The games behind figure used unofficially in Major League Baseball occasionally gives a different ordering from the official "winning percentage".
Inassociation football, where draws are relatively common, many leagues give 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw in an attempt to encourage attacking play. Besides the traditional 2–1–0 points and newer 3–1–0 points systems for win-draw-loss, various other systems have been used to try to encourage attractive play. Some examples:
Some leagues have used penalty shootouts after drawn games, in which case points will vary for regulation win — penalties win — penalties loss — regulation loss:
InFIBA (basketball)-sanctioned tournaments, where ties are impossible (a game goes into as many extra periods, or overtimes, as necessary to determine a winner), the following method is used:
For an example, see 2006 FIBA World Championship.
In the National Hockey League (and various minor hockey leagues), where regular season games tied after three periods go into a five-minute sudden-death overtime period and then a shootout if needed, the following method is used:
Most European ice hockey leagues including the KHL use an alteration to the NHL method that does not encourage regulation draws by awarding more combined points than regulation decisions. This system was also used at the 2010 Winter Olympics in the preliminary round-robin games:[17]
| League/organizer | Full-time win | Overtime win | Draw | Overtime loss | Full-time loss | Forfeit loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Association football | 3 | — | 1 | — | 0 | — |
| Australian Football League | 4 | — | 2 | — | 0 | — |
| Camogie | 3 | — | 1 | — | 0 | 0 |
| Chess | 1 | — | ½ | — | 0 | 0 |
| Cricket (limited overs) | 2 | 2 | 1 (NR) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FIBA basketball | 2 | 2 | — | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Field hockey | 3 | — | 1 | — | 0 | — |
| Gaelic football | 2 | — | 1 | — | 0 | 0 |
| Go | 2 | — | 1 | — | 0 | 0 |
| Handball | 2 | — | 1 | — | 0 | 0 |
| Hurling | 2 | — | 1 | — | 0 | — |
| IIHF ice hockey | 3 | 2 | — | 1 | 0 | — |
| Ladies' Gaelic football | 3 | — | 1 | — | 0 | -3 |
| National Hockey League | 2 | 2 | — | 1 | 0 | — |
| Rugby league | 2 | — | 1 | — | 0 | — |
| Rugby union | 4 | — | 2 | — | 0 | — |
| Volleyball | 3 (3 or 4 sets) | 2 (5 sets) | — | 1 (5 sets) | 0 (3 or 4 sets) | — |
When competitors are level on points, there is usually some tiebreaker criterion.
Sometimes, however, ranking ties may stand: prior to 1994, the Five Nations Championship in rugby union could result in joint champions; likewise for the British Home Championshipinassociation football until 1978. In college football in the United States, many conferences permit joint champions (though in the top-level NCAA Division I FBS, every conference has held a single championship game since 2018). However, if ranking within the conference determines eligibility for a conference championship game or postseason bowl game, tiebreak criteria will be required to separate the potential participants. Similarly, U.S. college conferences in other sports, notably basketball, use tiebreak criteria as needed to determine seeding in postseason conference tournaments.
A tiebreaker may be a play-off, with extra matches between the tied competitors. This may be a full match or a reduced format such as a penalty shootoutorspeed chess. If there are more than two tied competitors in a 2-competitor game, the play-off may be a round-robin or knockout tournament, as in the 1992–93 League of Ireland.
Instead of a playoff, the original matches may provide the tie-breaker criteria:
Swiss-system tournaments and variants thereof use a variety of tie-breaking criteria not found in other types of tournament which exploit features specific to the Swiss system: see tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments. Chess and some Go tournaments use Swiss pairing.[24]
Often, multiple criteria are specified in a fixed order; if all competitors are still tied under one criterion, the next one is applied. For example, in the 2008 Big 12 South division, the top three teams were tied on the default ranking and the first four tiebreakers, being separated by the fifth (BCS rankings).[25] On the other hand, if one criterion reduces the number of tied competitors but leaves some still tied, then the entire set of criteria may be re-applied to the smaller set of tied teams, beginning with the default ranking method and proceeding through the tiebreakers. For example, in the 2006–07 Super League Greece, part of the final table was:[26]
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Xanthi | 30 | 8 | 12 | 10 | 36 |
| 12–14 | Iraklis | 30 | 10 | 5 | 15 | 35 |
| Apollon Kalamarias | 30 | 9 | 8 | 13 | 35 | |
| Kerkira | 30 | 8 | 11 | 11 | 35 | |
| 15 | Egaleo | 30 | 7 | 7 | 16 | 28 |
The three teams tied on 35 points were separated by considering only matches between any two of them...:
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Apollon Kalamarias | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| 13–14 | Iraklis | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Kerkira | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
...and then again for the two teams still tied:
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Iraklis | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| 14 | Kerkira | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
