I should have been celebrating. That’s the weirdest part.
We’d just wrapped up the school tournament, and technically I finished third, which—on paper—is amazing for someone who still gets shaky hands setting up their clock. But I walked home like I’d been mugged. Emotionally mugged. The kind where you replay things in your head a hundred times, like some kind of low-budget sports documentary, only without the slow motion or epic music.
It wasn’t just that I lost in the final round. It was what came after—the spreadsheet, the algorithm, the final pairings—and suddenly I was no longer second. Or even tied-second. I dropped to third because of something called Buchholz, which, to me at the time, sounded like the name of a creepy German detective in a cold war drama. I didn’t get it. I still kind of don’t.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So here we are.
The part where I try to explain tiebreaks without losing you (or myself)
Here’s the thing. In a Swiss System tournament, players don’t all play each other like in a round robin. So you often get two or three players finishing with the same number of points. That’s where tiebreaks come in—they’re like little invisible deciders hiding behind your score.
There are loads of them, but the three I kept hearing about (and cursing under my breath) were:
1. Buchholz
It adds up the total scores of your opponents.
So, if you beat a bunch of strong players who did well, you get a higher Buchholz.
If your opponents ended up doing badly—even if you beat them—you’re punished. Basically: your worth is tied to the success of people you’ve already taken down. Cool, right?
I lost the final round to Javier, who had a rough tournament. That loss hurt, but it also tanked my Buchholz because he tanked.
2. Sonneborn-Berger
Even worse. This one is like Buchholz but gives more weight to the players you beat.
So beating strong players = better score. Drawing with strong players = half credit. Losing = nothing.
It’s like chess karma, but with a spreadsheet and passive-aggression.
Don Emilio said the only people who like Sonneborn-Berger are those who’ve won something because of it. I laughed. He didn’t.
3. Progressive Score (Cumulative)
This one actually makes sense.
You total your points round-by-round. So if you win early rounds, it helps more than winning later.
Why? Because it shows “momentum.” Apparently.
It’s like saying “early success is more impressive than late success,” which honestly sounds like something my dad would say after watching one TED Talk.
The moment I realized I’m not mad, just stubborn
I went home that day, pulled up Swiss Perfect, and tried inputting random match outcomes to see how the rankings shifted with each tiebreaker. Not to win anything. Just to understand what the hell just happened to me.
And yeah, I made an Excel sheet. And yeah, I wrote angry notes in the margins. (“Why does Buchholz HATE me?” was one.)
But somewhere in the middle of that mess, something weird happened:
I started to get it.
Not all of it. Some parts still feel like algebra dressed as chess. But I understood that none of these systems are perfect. They’re all just ways of trying to be fair in a world where everyone’s taking different paths through the same bracket.
And also, it’s not personal. Buchholz doesn’t hate me. Javier didn’t lose on purpose. And Swiss Perfect didn’t glitch.
It’s just… chess.
So what now?
I still placed third. I still hate that I got there through math instead of wins. But I’ve decided to own it. And learn it. And maybe next time, I’ll try to win early, play stronger opponents, and say thank you to every 12-year-old prodigy who goes on to wreck the rest of the field after I lose to them.
Because apparently, that’s good for me.
Chess is wild.
[Up next: I try to figure out why Swiss Perfect lets you override pairings manually—and what happens when you do.]
Or maybe I just rage-install Lichess and play bullet games until my fingers hurt. Who knows.