Circle of death

A common tournament result in which three teams finish with the same record, each being 1-1 within the circle. Occasionally you can get a five-way tie, where everyone is 2-2 among the tied teams. The latter has happened during a Penn Bowl and a David Scott Hamilton Invitational Tournament (Maryland juniorbird).

A variety of tie-breaker methods have been proposed. It is considered good quizbowl to avoid paper tiebreakers like head-to-head, PPG, or bonus conversion when possible. But when time or the number of questions is limited, they are used. The current ACF rules provide for the use of PPG and then bonus conversion if there are not enough packets to play off the tie.