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.
Points calculation
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".
In association 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:
3–2–1 as in the Greek League 1959–73;[3] or 4–2–1. Giving 1 point extra in each case for losing may be simply cosmetic, but does allow for awarding 0 points for forfeiting a match. (The FIFA standard is to count a forfeit as a 3–0 defeat.)
The USL W-League in 2002 gave 4–1–0 with a bonus point for scoring three goals.[4]
Some leagues have used penalty shootouts after drawn games, in which case points will vary for regulation win— penalties win— penalties loss— regulation loss:
In FIBA (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:
Win = 2 points
Loss = 1 point
Loss by forfeit (team fails to appear for a scheduled game, or withdraws from the court before the end of the game) = 0 points[16]
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:
Win: 2 points
Loss in regulation time: 0 points
Loss in overtime or shootout: 1 point
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]
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 shootout or speed 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:
head-to-head
considering only results of matches between the deadlocked competitors. If more than a single match is involved, a subtable may be used recursively for the ranking.
subset or superset of matches
commonly in a North American regular season, a team plays all others in its division, plus a subset of teams in other divisions of the same conference and/or teams outside the conference. This provides separate rankings by considering only division games, or all conference games, or all games, with one of these three being the default ranking and the other two being tiebreakers.[18]
irrespective of goals/points/etc. scored. A lower concession rate is sometimes used in American youth sports in preference to a higher scoring rate, because running up the score against weak teams is considered unsporting; indeed, there may be a mercy rule which limits the scoring rate of strong teams.[19]
the sum of defeated opponents' scores plus half the sum of drawn opponents' scores; this method is especially common in round-robin chess tournaments; in chess or GoSwiss-system tournaments (which use Swiss pairing) it is used as a secondary tie-break criterion. Ties remaining after one of these criteria may be resolved by resorting to one of the other available options. Where a group is the qualifying phase of a larger tournament, such that ties are not admissible, it may be necessary as a last resort to use drawing of lots as a tiebreaker (as was used in Group F of the 1990 FIFA World Cup to separate second and third place).
sum of defeated opponents' scores (SODOS)
suffices if draws cannot occur,[dubious–discuss] such as in Go when komi is set to 6.5 or another half-point value.
sum of opponents' scores (SOS)
While SODOS works well, SOS fails as tie-breaker in tournaments with Swiss-system pairing or that have all players play all others. But SOS makes more sense than SODOS does as tie-breaker in tournaments with McMahon pairing.[22][23]
drawing of lots
This may be the last resort when all other tiebreakers fail. It was used to separate second and third in 1990 FIFA World Cup Group F.
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]
↑ A match for the purposes of a tournament (also called a tie, fixture, or rubber) may comprise multiple individual matches in the sport or game concerned (also called rubbers or legs).
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
A penalty shoot-out is a tie-breaking method in association football to determine which team is awarded victory in a match that cannot end in a draw, when the score is tied after the normal time as well as extra time have expired. In a penalty shoot-out, each team takes turns shooting at goal from the penalty mark, with the goal defended only by the opposing team's goalkeeper. Each team has five shots which must be taken by different players; the team that makes more successful kicks is declared the victor. Shoot-outs finish as soon as one team has an insurmountable lead. If scores are level after five pairs of shots, the shootout progresses into additional "sudden-death" rounds. Balls successfully kicked into the goal during a shoot-out do not count as goals for the individual kickers or the team, and are tallied separately from the goals scored during normal play. Although the procedure for each individual kick in the shoot-out resembles that of a penalty kick, there are some differences. Most notably, neither the kicker nor any player other than the goalkeeper may play the ball again once it has been kicked.
A draw or tie occurs in a competitive sport when the results are identical or inconclusive. Ties or draws are possible in some, but not all, sports and games. Such an outcome, sometimes referred to as deadlock, can also occur in other areas of life such as politics, business, and wherever there are different factions regarding an issue.
In a sport or game, sudden death is a form of competition where play ends as soon as one competitor is ahead of the others, with that competitor becoming the winner. Sudden death is typically used as a tiebreaker when a contest is tied at the end of regulation (normal) playing time or the completion of the normal playing task.
Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required to have a clear winner, as in single-elimination tournaments where only one team or players can advance to the next round or win the tournament and replays are not allowed.
The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to penalty shots in that a single player takes one shot on goal from a specified spot, the only defender being the goalkeeper. If the result is still tied, the shootout usually continues on a "goal-for-goal" basis, with the teams taking shots alternately, and the one that scores a goal unmatched by the other team is declared the winner. This may continue until every player has taken a shot, after which players may take extra shots, until the tie is broken, and is also known as "sudden death".
A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn. A round-robin contrasts with an elimination tournament, wherein participants are eliminated after a certain number of wins or losses.
The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that has scored more goals "away from home" win the tiebreaker. This is sometimes expressed by saying that away goals "count double" in the event of a tie, though in practice the team with more away goals is simply recorded as the victor, rather than having additional or 'double' goals added to their total.
A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor does not play all the other competitors. Competitors meet one-on-one in each round and are paired using a set of rules designed to ensure that each competitor plays opponents with a similar running score, but does not play the same opponent more than once. The winner is the competitor with the highest aggregate points earned in all rounds. With an even number of participants, all competitors play in each round.
In sports, a winning percentage or Copeland score is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of matches played. A draw counts as a 1⁄2 win.
In games and sport, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams when their scores are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests. In some sports, it is known as a countback.
Three points for a win is a standard used in many sports leagues and group tournaments, especially in association football, in which three points are awarded to the team winning a match, with no points awarded to the losing team. If the game is drawn, each team receives one point. Many leagues and competitions originally awarded two points for a win and one point for a draw, before switching to the three points for a win system. The change is significant in league tables, where teams typically play 30–40 games per season. The system places additional value on wins compared to draws so that teams with a higher number of wins may rank higher in tables than teams with a lower number of wins but more draws.
Swiss system tournaments, a type of group tournament common in chess and other board games, use various criteria to break ties between players who have the same total number of points after the last round. This is needed when prizes are indivisible, such as titles, trophies, or qualification for another tournament. Otherwise players often share the tied spots, with cash prizes being divided equally among the tied players.
The MLS Cup Playoffs is the annual postseason elimination tournament of Major League Soccer. The MLS Cup, the league's championship game, is the final match of the tournament. Under the current format adopted for the 2023 season, 18 teams qualify for the tournament based on regular-season point totals — the nine highest-placed teams from each the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Audi is the title sponsor of this tournament.
The 2015 CAF Confederation Cup was the 12th edition of the CAF Confederation Cup, Africa's secondary club football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The winner earned the right to play in the 2016 CAF Super Cup.
The group stage of the 2014–15 Champions Hockey League was played from 21 August to 8 October 2014. A total of 44 teams competed in the group stage.
The 2015–16 Champions Hockey League was the second season of the Champions Hockey League, a European ice hockey tournament launched by 26 founding clubs, six leagues and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
The 2016–17 Champions Hockey League was the third season of the Champions Hockey League, a European ice hockey tournament launched by 26 founding clubs, six leagues and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The season started on 16 August 2016 with the group stage and ended with the final game on 7 February 2017 with Frölunda defeating HC Sparta Praha, 4–3 in overtime.
The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympics took place in Beijing, China between 9 and 20 February 2022. Twelve countries qualified for the tournament; eight of them did so automatically by virtue of their ranking by the International Ice Hockey Federation, one, China, automatically qualified as hosts, while the three others took part in a qualification tournament.
The women's tournament in ice hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held in Beijing, China between 3 and 17 February 2022. Ten countries qualified for the tournament; six of them did so automatically by virtue of their ranking by the International Ice Hockey Federation, one, China, automatically qualified as hosts, while the three others took part in a qualification tournament.
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