Statistical tiebreakers

Statistical tiebreakers (or paper tiebreakers) are used to break ties in record, usually for final placement or advancement into playoff pools. Their use is generally frowned upon because it would be better to break the tie by additional gameplay, but sometimes limitations on time, available questions, team interest, or other resources require it. When tiebreaker games are used for a tie involving more than two teams, statistics are used to seed the teams for the tiebreaker games.

When statistical tiebreakers are used, the specific statistic used is usually points per tossup heard, although some untimed tournaments use the mostly equivalent points per game (or, for ease of computation, total points). When breaking ties between teams who have played different opponents, some people prefer to use points per bonus.

Although it is commonly agreed upon that points per tossup heard should be the tiebreaker used assuming common opponents, some have criticized points per tossup heard for rewarding blowout games against weaker teams and punishing neg or interrupt prone teams who are nevertheless elite. For points per bonus, many point to its lack of tossup-conversion inclusion as its main drawback.

A thread started by Mike Sorice, along with data compiled and analyzed by Dwight Wynne and Brian Lindquist, found that points per bonus was the best statistical tiebreaker in terms of predictive power..