Some Thoughts on Tie-Breaks

Going into the last week of the season, Barrington, Prospect, and Palatine were all tied at 8-1. Barrington had beaten Palatine. Palatine had beaten Prospect. Prospect had beaten Barrington. In the last week, Palatine and Barrington won their matches while Prospect lost to Conant leaving Barrington and Palatine tied at 9-1.

Not surprisingly, Barrington felt that they should have been declared MSL Champion by virtue of their head to head victory over Palatine. The Illinois High School Association tie-break rules gave the nod to Palatine, however, as they had the better margin of victory over the schools with the better records such as Prospect, Conant, and Buffalo Grove. http://www.phs.d211.org/activities/ChessTeam/

My own view is that the tie-break system is pretty reasonable. Had it been Palatine that lost in the last week instead of Prospect, the title would have gone to Barrington rather than Prospect. Even though Prospect beat Barrington, Barrington was the more dominant team against the rest of the league. It would probably seem wrong to Barrington (as it would to me), that the title should turn entirely on Rishi’s minor oversight in an otherwise very well played game rather his team’s consistently strong performance throughout the entire season.

My hope would be that this might be an opportunity to teach the players a valuable lesson about sportsmanship in the case of a close call. Some times in life, there are decisions that could go either way. There are two well qualified candidates for a job, but only one can be hired. Two talented performers audition for a single role. A closely played basketball game turns on a ref’s call as time is running out. In these cases, the final result is always going to be somewhat arbitrary.

There is always a temptation to feel screwed when you wind up on the short side of a close call, but I think it is the coach’s job to set an example for the players. I think the coach does his players a disservice if he does not teach them that no system for resolving close calls is perfect and that a result is not unfair simply because it is not the one you think is best.

JUST FOR THE RECORD: I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the sportsmanship of the Barrington team or coach. My remarks were motivated by a tournament several years ago in which a coach encouraged his team to believe it had gotten screwed because the tie-breaks favored another team that had lost to the coach’s team.