3. 7 Tie-breaks
If the top two or more players score the same points, the tie will be decided by the following criteria, in order of priority:
a) The results of the games between the players involved in the tie.
If they are still tied:
b) The total number of wins in the tournament of every player involved in the tie.
If they are still tied:
c) Sonneborn – Berger System.
3.7.1.a If there is no clear winner with the above 3 criteria, there will be a special competition between the players who still remain tied after using the 3rd criteria (Sonneborn – Berger): after a new drawing of colors, each tied player will play two (2) tie-break games with the other tied opponent(s). The games shall be played using the electronic clock starting with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move.
Therefore, if Karjakin and Caruana tie for 1st, Karjakin would win because he has one extra win. However, if Karjakin, Caruana, and Anand tie for first, Caruana would win because he is +1 against Anand and ties 1-1 against Karjakin, while Anand is -1 against Caruana and ties 1-1 against Karjakin, and Karjakin ties 1-1 against both Anand and Caruana.
This is assuming that the final 2 games are all drawn for these 3. Of course with 2 games left, anything can still happen.
Doesn’t sound very complicated.
And what happens if there’s a multi-way tie that is broken by most wins? Do they go back to head-to-head for the remaining guys? For comparison, the NBA tiebreak rules are much more intricate, many times longer than the short FIDE rules, and cover every case, with no lack of clarity. Same with the NFL. Yet these long-winded tie formulas never occur in practice (at worst, 2-way tie)! The lawyers just have them there as a precaution. But in FIDE, where ties are a fact of life every time, no one takes the time to make the rules clear? Pretty telling of “professional” chess.
It is really sad that such trivial and poorly justified rules might decide who
will enter chess history to play for the champion title. It should be at least
a short match to decide. In the past, candidates had to play matches of 12
games to prove who is really better. Now at least 2 or 4 games should
show a clear victor, not some arbitrary procedural details. It’s a pity.
Very stupid situation. Caruana and Karjakin must watch Anand’s game to decide how to play, for the draw or risky. Probably Karjakin is in better position, but who knows, maybe Anand could spoil his calculation? 😀