The FIDE Council has approved a new edition of the rules for ranking players on equal points, and it already applies to every rated tournament. There are not many changes, but one of them alters the numbers in the standings, and several familiar wordings in tournament regulations have become invalid. Below: an article-by-article walk-through and a list of things worth checking in your own documents.
Not a single tie-break has disappeared from the list - the edition only adds and clarifies. But the clarifications affect the calculations.
Standard points, the starting rank and the rating have been added. The first is for tournaments with an unusual points system, the other two always give an unambiguous answer, so the list can end with them instead of a drawing of lots.
Previously this followed from the logic: in a round robin everyone faces the same opponents, so the sums are identical. Now the ban is written on a separate line and extends to every Buchholz derivative.
The main substantive change. Previously, when a round was missed, the virtual opponent received the participant's full final score. Now that score is capped, and the tie-breaks of everyone who took a bye have gone down.
The wording has been clarified: the next tie-break is applied to every remaining group of players on equal values, not only when the previous one separated nobody at all.
In round robins and other events where the pairings are known in advance, no-shows are no longer counted as ordinary games in the opponents' tie-breaks, and forfeit losses are excluded from the player's own-results tie-breaks as well.
Two of them solve the same problem: to end the list in a way that guarantees the players are separated and no drawing of lots is needed.
The number of rounds in which a participant scores more points than their scheduled opponent, or obtains, without playing, more points than those awarded for a draw, plus half the number of rounds in which the participant scores the same number of points as their scheduled opponent.
The number of rounds in which the player scored more points than the opponent he was paired with, plus half the number of rounds in which the result was equal.
The tie-break restores the classic points scale where a tournament counts them differently - for instance under a three-points-for-a-win, one-for-a-draw system. Inside the tie-break a win is worth one again and a draw a half, and the players can be compared in the usual way.
Players are sorted according to their (final) tournament pairing number in ascending order. Alternatively, they can be sorted in reverse order.
Players are ordered by the starting number assigned at the drawing of lots, ascending or descending.
The number is unique, so the tie-break is guaranteed to separate any two players. It is put last so that it never comes down to lots.
Players are sorted according to their rating, from highest to lowest. Alternatively, they can be sorted in reverse order.
Players are ordered by rating, from highest to lowest or the other way round.
The same idea: an almost always unambiguous criterion at the end of the list. The regulations warn separately that rating tie-breaks are not recommended when a player may acquire several ratings during the event.
When a player misses a round - takes a bye, receives a point because the opponent did not turn up, or fails to turn up himself - there is no game, yet the tie-break still has to be calculated. The regulations substitute a virtual opponent for the missing one, with a result corresponding to the points awarded. The only question is how many points to give that virtual opponent.
The rule has been rewritten four times in three years, and in the current edition it has acquired an upper limit.
A missed round counted as a game against a virtual opponent who had the same number of points as the player at the moment of the omission and then drew all the remaining rounds. A separate formula for the calculation was given in the regulations.
The formula was removed. A missed round became a game against a virtual opponent with the same number of points as the participant himself.
A clarification was added that what is taken is the participant's final score at the end of the tournament, not the running score at the moment of the omission.
The virtual opponent still receives the participant's final score, but no higher than a limit. For no-shows the limit is the adjusted score of the opponent the game was scheduled against. For all other omissions it is the points for a draw multiplied by the number of rounds, that is, half the tournament maximum.
Take a five-round Swiss. A player scored three points and missed one round by taking a bye. The limit for such an omission is the points for a draw multiplied by the number of rounds, that is, half of five: two and a half points.
The virtual opponent received the player's full three points.
The virtual opponent is capped at two and a half points.
Half a point of difference - and that is for a single missed round. The point of the amendment is clear: previously a leader who took a bye in the last round added his own high score to his tie-break and ended up better off than those who played the tournament out to the end.
The article on managing unplayed rounds is explicitly stated to apply to the Swiss system. Round robins and any other event with a schedule known in advance are covered by a separate, shorter rule - and it changed in this edition too.
The wordings below have been travelling through tournament regulations for years and have gone out of date. If you find one in yours, fix it before your next event.
“When a round is missed, the tie-break is calculated using a virtual opponent on the same score who drew the remaining rounds”
This wording describes a rule abolished back in 2023. What applies now is a virtual opponent with a ceiling under article 16.4.
“The virtual opponent receives the participant's final score”
True until 1 March 2026. A qualification about the limit is now needed: for a voluntary omission it equals half the tournament maximum.
Buchholz in the regulations of a round-robin event
Explicitly banned by the note to article 8. What remains for round robins is Sonneborn-Berger, the Koya system, head-to-head, the number of wins and own-results tie-breaks.
A reference to article 14.6
There is no such number in the current edition. The provision that all modifiers are subject to the rules on unplayed rounds remains as text in article 14, but without a number of its own.
“Cut Sonneborn-Berger excludes the opponent with the lowest score”
Since August 2024 what is excluded is the lowest contribution, that is, the product, not the opponent himself. When several opponents are equally weak, this produces different numbers.
“Drawing of lots” as the last item on the list
It can be replaced with the starting rank or the rating, giving a fully predictable outcome. For events with prizes this removes the main reason for protests.
The term “Games one Elected to Play” and the abbreviation GE
The tie-break has been renamed Rounds one Elected to Play, abbreviated REP.
“No-shows count as ordinary games” in a round robin
Under the updated article 15.2 no-shows are not counted in the opponents' tie-breaks, and forfeit losses are excluded from the own-results tie-breaks as well.
A ready-made template for the document, with all its sections, is in the article on chess tournament regulations, and the list of tie-breaks with formulas is in the guide to chess tie-breaks.
The regulations divide the roles more strictly than common practice does. The list of tie-breaks is chosen by the chief organiser of the event - either from the general list or by describing his own in the regulations. The chief arbiter may add to the list if it is incomplete, and must publish it before the tournament starts.
For the case where the regulations say nothing at all about ranking, there is a safeguard: the calculated tie-breaks apply and the arbiter draws up the list. And if the list is exhausted and the players are still level, the places are decided by lot - though the regulations may explicitly allow the places to be left shared.
In Russian practice the list is more often written by the arbiter than by the organiser. Formally that is permissible only as an addition to an incomplete list, so it is simpler to approve a finished list in the regulations themselves and close the question.
The FIDE regulations are mandatory for rated events, while for a club evening they are more of a reference. In the Vibe Chess app the tie-break is chosen to fit the system automatically: a Swiss uses Buchholz, a round robin uses Sonneborn-Berger, which is exactly what the regulations prescribe. A finished tournament exports as a TRF report, and arbiter software will calculate the remaining tie-breaks from it.
From 1 March 2026. The FIDE Council approved the document on 2 February 2026, and the public reminder to organisers and arbiters went out after it had already taken effect, at the end of March. The document is called the Play-Off and Tie-Break Regulations and appears in the FIDE Handbook under index C.07.
Events that are rated by FIDE. For a club tournament without rating they are not mandatory, but they make a convenient model: it is easier to take ready-made wording than to invent your own.
It is a new tie-break for tournaments where points are not awarded on the classic scale, for example three for a win and one for a draw. Inside the tie-break the results are converted back into the familiar one, half and zero, so that players can be compared by the number of games won and drawn.
Yes, in the current edition this is stated in a direct note to the article on Buchholz and its derivatives. Previously the ban followed from the logic: in a round robin everyone faces the same opponents, so the sums of their scores coincide and distinguish nothing.
A missed round counts as a game against a virtual opponent whose result corresponds to the points awarded. That opponent's score equals the participant's own final score, but no higher than a limit: for no-shows it is the adjusted score of the scheduled opponent, for all other omissions it is half the tournament maximum.
Noticeably. In a five-round event the limit is two and a half points. A player who scored three points and took one bye used to add three points to his Buchholz for that round, and now adds only two and a half - so the tie-break drops by half a point.
No. It is called the management of unplayed rounds in Swiss tournaments and applies to those only. Round robins and any event with a schedule known in advance are covered by a separate, shorter article.
The chief organiser. The arbiter may add tie-breaks from the general list and must publish it before the tournament starts. If the regulations say nothing at all about ranking, there is a safeguard: the calculated tie-breaks apply and the arbiter draws up the list.
Yes, the regulations allow an alternative to be written into your own document in advance for three articles: the score adjustment, the virtual opponent and the order of cuts. What may not be changed is the definitions and the classification of omissions.
Check which edition it implements and, if it differs, either update the program or use your right to write alternative provisions into the tournament regulations. Otherwise the discrepancy is a breach by the organiser, not a bug in the program.
No. Nothing was removed in the 2026 edition, only added and clarified. All the familiar tie-breaks are in place, including head-to-head, Buchholz, Sonneborn-Berger, the Koya system, the progressive score and the rating ones.
A walk-through of the whole list, with notes on what suits which system, is in our tie-break guide. There are separate articles on Buchholz, on Sonneborn-Berger and on the Koya system.
