For individual Swiss System tournaments, the USCF recommends that you use the following tie-breaks in the order shown:

1. Modified Median
2. Solkoff
3. Cumulative

(If any order other than this is used in a USCF-rated tournament, that information is supposed to be posted, USCF Rule 34E). On the prize lists, WinTD will rank players first based upon score. Within each score group, they will be ranked based upon the first tie-break you select. In any groups which are still tied, the second tie-break will be applied, etc. Players who are still tied (that is, their scores and first and second tie-breaks are all identical) will be ranked by the third tie-break, etc.

The most common fourth tie break is Opponents Cumulative. If you have two players who are tied through the first three major tie breaks, any further tie breaks are scarcely better than a coin flip. Opponents Cumulative as a final tie break gives you a good chance of breaking the tie without resorting to that.

Details on the tie break methods

A player's Solkoff is the sum of his or her opponents' scores. The Modified Median and the Median are similar to the Solkoff, but the "least meaningful" results are left out. For all scores for Median, and for even scores for the Modified Median, both the highest and lowest (two highest and two lowest for tournaments with nine or more rounds) are discarded. Modified Median differs from Median in its handling of plus and minus scores. For players with plus scores, the lowest opponent's score is discarded (lowest two scores for nine or more rounds). For players with minus scores, the highest score (two scores for nine or more) is discarded. For instance, suppose two players with 4-1 scores met players who ended with the following scores:

Player A: 0,3,3,4,5
Player B: 3,2,5,3,3

Player A's Solkoff tie-break is 0+3+3+4+5=15, Player B's is 3+2+5+3+3=16. Player A's Modified Median is 3+3+4+5=15 (discard the 0) and Player B's is 3+5+3+3=14 (discard the 2). Player A's Median is 3+3+4=10, Player B's is 3+3+3=9. If we use Modified Median or Median first, A ranks higher than B; if we use Solkoff first, B ranks higher than A.

A player's Cumulative is the sum of his or her scores at the ends of each round. If Player A won his first four and lost the last round, and Player B won two, lost the third round, and won the last two, the players scores at the ends of the rounds are:

Player A: 1,2,3,4,4
Player B: 1,2,2,3,4

Player A's cumulative is 1+2+3+4+4=14, Player B's is 1+2+2+3+4=12. The cumulative tie break measures strength of schedule indirectly. By Swiss System pairing rules, players who do not lose until later rounds (and thus have high cumulatives) will usually face tougher opponents than players who lose in early rounds (and thus have low cumulatives).

Opponents Cumulative is the sum of the cumulatives of a player's opponents.

As it is reported in WinTD, a player's Sonneborn-Berger is the sum of 2x(scores of opponents defeated) + 1x(scores of opponents drawn). This is twice the usual S-B. We do this so that the it can be shown with just one decimal like the other tie breaks.

A player's Kashdan is 2 x wins + 1 x draws. In effect, this makes a win and a loss worth more, for tie break purposes, than two draws.

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