Consistency of Tie-Breaking Methods ?

[John Upham]

This could be my dullest post ever...

is there any consistency at all up and down the land in the sequence of methods use to resolve ties in Swiss paired events ?

Are there any guidelines from FIDE or the ECF or the CCA ?

Thanks for any help.

[Michael Flatt]

See FIDE Handbook, Standards of Chess Equipment,venue for FIDE Tournaments, rate of play and tie-break regulations:
https://handbook.fide.com/files/handboo ... ndards.pdf

[Alex Holowczak]

See FIDE Handbook, Standards of Chess Equipment,venue for FIDE Tournaments, rate of play and tie-break regulations:
https://handbook.fide.com/files/handboo ... ndards.pdf

Large parts of the document are recommendations posing as "regulations". There are parts that don't make sense to me. For example, in the tie-break regulations where it recommends playoffs:

13.2.3. All eventualities must be covered in the regulations.

What does that mean?

And later on

13.2.12. The right is reserved to make necessary changes.

To what?

11.3.3. is wonderful. Is that a regulation? Apparently "These guidelines shall be observed for all school tournaments played under FIDE auspices or that are to be FIDE rated and ideally should also be followed by national and regional school tournaments, especially those that may be nationally rated." Has any organiser ever done what was "required" by these guidelines in their national schools events? Are swathes of organisers around the world cutting table legs the day before the event to make them the right size to comply with this? Or are they, as I suspect, just getting the ones that come out of the storage faclility at their venue of choice?

Regarding tie-breaks, I don't see why the regulations don't just describe what the tie-breaks are and how they should be calculated, and then say it's up to organisers to choose which ones they want, and say that people should refer to the regulations of specific FIDE tournaments if they want to find out their tie-breaks. Several of FIDE's own competitions ignore the advice given by its Technical Commission in this document regarding tie-breaks, so if isn't good for the goose, why should the gander follow it?