History Main / GoldenSnitch

** From 1979 to 1991, the NHL had 21 teams, 16 of whom made the playoffs. That means only the bottom quarter of the league lost their chance at a championship. In the 1987-88 season, the Toronto Maple Leafs made the playoffs with a record of 21 wins, 49 losses, and 10 ties. This was the worst playoff-worthy record of the period, but not by much. Thankfully, such teams were too [[PerfectlyCromulentWord blowful]] to make it very far into the playoffs. However, with the current format (top 3 teams from each division + 2 wildcard spots per conference), situations like this are, while still possible (especially if one of the top teams steamrolled their way through the regular season), far less likely.

** There is a slight advantage to having the second leg of a home-and-away game at home; extra time will be at home, so you could play 90 minutes away and 120 minutes at home, which helps.
** Showing how the playoff discrepancy is high, none of the best regular seasons ever in the Big Four were champions: they were the 2007 New England Patriots ([[Memes/{{Sports}} the infamous "18-1"]], a perfect regular season and two playoff wins that go on to fall short to the Giants in the Super Bowl), the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings (62 wins, 7 ties, 13 losses; fell in the conference finals to the Colorado Avalanche, who became the Wings' ArchEnemy for a while; on the bright side, the team finally won UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup the next season),[[note]]The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning had the same 62 wins, though with three points less as they only had 4 overtime losses, which replaced ties; they fared even worse, being ''[[EpicFail swept in round one]]'' by the Columbus Blue Jackets, who had never won a playoff round before![[/note]] the 2001 Seattle Mariners (116 wins, lost the ALCS to the Yankees), and the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (73 wins, 9 losses; managed to climb back from 1-3 in the Conference Finals only to give in a 3-1 lead to the Cavaliers in the decision)[[note]]In an ironic twist, the Warriors also ensured all the four best regular seasons never won; the previous best record was of the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (72-10), who had managed to win it all.[[/note]].
** In the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague, the particular way that playoffs are determined means that it's not necessarily the top 14 (previously 12) teams in the league. First of all, the league is split into conferences, with 7 spots per conference, so if you're not among the top 7 teams in your conference, it doesn't matter that your record is better than other teams that made the playoffs[[note]]see for instance the 2020 playoffs, where the 8-8 Chicago Bears snagged the final playoff spot in the NFC while the 10-6 Dolphins missed out in the AFC due to there being too many teams with 11-5 records or better ahead of them[[/note]]. Secondly, the top four playoff spots in each conference are awarded to the division winners, regardless of overall rankings within the conference, so a very weak division can mean that a team with a poor record -- in some cases even a ''losing'' record -- can make the playoffs even if they rank below other teams in the division. (However, no team without a winning record has ever made it past the divisional round, let alone to a Super Bowl, so in this case it's more about the playoff spot itself than the championship.)

** There is a rules patch in that you can't just win the first race of the season and then decide that since you're already in the Playoffs, you don't need to race again until the first round of the Playoffs. Besides, the more stages and races you win, the better your "seed" in the Playoffs. Also, you can't just show up for race 26, win that and qualify for the Playoffs, either. Case in point: In 2015, Kyle Busch missed several races after suffering a [[{{GameBreakingInjury}} broken leg]] in the Xfinity Series opener at Daytona. NASCAR ruled that even if he won a race when he returned, he'd have to compete in a certain number of races and accumulate a certain number of points before qualifying for the Chase (as the postseason was still known at the time). Busch came back and won ''several'' races to qualify with ease despite the restrictions. He then managed to survive all the way to the Championship Four at Homestead on points alone (no small feat), and ended up winning the Championship by 3 seconds over defending champion Kevin Harvick.

** The Scream Fortress maps Carnival of Carnage and Helltower have a bonus round which decides the winner, making the main match redundant. In Carnival of Carnage, both teams play one of the three bumper car themed minigames[[note]]A spleef-type minigame, collecting 200 ducks, and bumper car soccer[[/note]] while in Helltower, you need to reach the top of the hill with the skull head and activate the Bombinomicon. Managing to eliminate everyone on the other team will also count. And winning the round gives bonus experience to your Casual rank.

* In golf tournaments the actual number of strokes is apparently irrelevant. It's what the scorecard says. If the golfer signs a scorecard with more strokes than he actually took, that's his score and if it causes him to lose - tough! [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akrz447IG4A&pp=ygUeMTk2OCBNYXN0ZXJzIFJvYmVydG8gRGVWaWNlbnpv This is how Roberto DeVicenzo lost in the 1968 Masters to Bob Goalby; his playing partner Tommy Aaron put a 4 (the 18th hole was a par 4) on his card, instead of the birdie-3 he actually made (Roberto didn't see the error, and signed; he instantly regretted it, and would for years afterwards, calling himself, quite famously, "a stupid" [he was, to his credit, gracious in defeat, which would make him one of the most sportsmanlike players of the game of golf]).]] If the other player in the group puts down ''less'' strokes and the golfer signs for it, the golfer is '''disqualified'''.[[note]]Let's be honest here, though. Why would a player intentionally give their opponent a '''''BETTER''''' score? That would set off the collusion alarm.[[/note]] A golfer's honesty is SeriousBusiness.

* In golf tournaments the actual number of strokes is apparently irrelevant. It's what the scorecard says. If the golfer signs a scorecard with more strokes than he actually took, that's his score and if it causes him to lose - tough! If the other player in the group puts down ''less'' strokes and the golfer signs for it, the golfer is '''disqualified'''.[[note]]Let's be honest here, though. Why would a player intentionally give their opponent a '''''BETTER''''' score? That would set off the collusion alarm.[[/note]] A golfer's honesty is SeriousBusiness.

* Multistage Payload Race maps in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' (including Pipeline and Nightfall) work this way; if a team wins both of the first two rounds, they can still lose the third round and the game. While they are given a significant edge (their bomb starts up further in the last round), whether this is worth the effort to win those first two rounds is debatable. At one point Pipeline was changed so that winning both of the first two rounds placed the winning team's cart at the checkpoint in the middle of the track, giving them a significant advantage but still allowing determined opponents to have a chance, especially given how quickly rounds of Payload Race can turn around. Then they changed it back for some reason.

* The WizardMode in Creator/{{Capcom}}'s ''Pinball/{{Breakshot}}'', "Cutthroat Countdown", can easily become this -- a decent round of Cutthroat Countdown can easily break ten million and roll the score, while the ScoreMultiplier and consecutive Countdowns could theoretically be worth over ''200 million.''

* Inn the earlier days of the Japanese show ''[[Series/DasshutsuGameDERO DERO!]]'' the maximum possible prize in the Beam Room round usually accounted for around half the total money up for grabs in each episode, and it was also usually played ''first''. Although it was also NintendoHard, so a win of more than half the maximum was rare. After it switched to a winner-take-all points battle format the Beam Room was moved to the last round before the BonusRound, where the team with the last player remaining will earn two points per player. Under the new format, a CurbStompBattle in the Beam Room (as highly improbable as it would be) would guarantee a win regardless of previous score.

* Played with in ''Series/BeatTheGeeks'' with the "Geequalizer". Each contestant is given rapid-fire questions worth 10 points each, but one wrong answer ends the round for them. There are ''just enough'' questions that if one contestant got every single point possible and the other contestant had zero, that contestant could come back from behind, but only if they finished the entire Geequalizer (pretty much unheard of), and the other contestant missed the very first question.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' we have phase one of the Chunin exams, a written test, where the tenth and final question is the most important, as the proctor mentions that trying and failing to answer it correctly ensures that you -- and your teammmates -- are unable to enter the Chunin exams for the rest of their lives. The trick is that ''this'' is the final question -- as accepting it shows that you're willing to face unknown risks, automatically passing the test by doing so. And while the first nine questions of the exam highlight the importance of information gathering (cheating without being caught), ultimately it is possible to pass without answering ''any'' of these questions, like Naruto did.

->''"At your feet is a little ball called the Buall'dib. You get a hold of this, and everything everyone else has done is null and void. You snag this...''and we win."''\\