Tiebreaker Round

In sports, Game Shows and Video Games, an end-of-match tie may be broken by playing an extra round. In some cases, there may be unique traits that set this round apart from prior rounds, such the victory conditions being highly abbreviated (often with the first to score winning the match).

In video games in particular, a common way to achieve this is to put all participants into critical health so that everyone kills and gets killed by each other at the poke of a finger.

Compare Stalked by the Bell, which is a way video games can put extra pressure on players who take too long.

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Examples:

Film

• Cars invokes this after retiring veteran Strip 'The King' Weathers, perennial runner-up Chick Hicks, and hotshot rookie Lightning McQueen simultaneously win the scheduled season finale while they're already tied on points. Hicks ends up winning the tiebreaker after intentionally wrecking Weathers and Lightning opts to help Weathers finish his final race despite being in the lead.

Game Shows

• Family Feud: Since 2003, if neither team reaches 300 points by the end of the triple-score round, a Sudden Death round is played. Triple score is active, and only the #1 answer is on the board, for a question for which typically about 70 or more of the 100 surveyed gave the #1 answer; thus, the first to ring in and give said answer gets the 210+ points and will win the game.
• Card Sharks:
  • Sudden Death is active in every round should it reach the last question and no one has finished their cards. The contestant who wins the question can choose to play (with the option of changing his/her card) or pass (the opponent must play and cannot change cards); whoever plays must complete their row and one mis-guess means the opponent automatically wins.
  • Also, if the match was tied, there was a 3-card, 3-question rubber game played to determine the match winner; it was this way with Jim Perry, Bill Rafferty and Bob Eubanks, until the later Eubanks run as described below.
  • In the later part of the Eubanks era if both contestants won one game each, the "tiebreaker round" went from 3 questions to just 1 Sudden Death one; both contestants then got to see their base card but only the one who won the question got to determine who would play. The same above rules applied.
• Double Dare (1986), If both teams are tied at the end of round 2, they would do a Tie-Breaker Challenge.
• Legends of the Hidden Temple If both teams were tied on final temple game, they would bring in the Tie-Breaker Gongs (Similar to the ones used in Crossing a Moat). Olmec will ask the teams a question. When 1 team rings in the gong and gives out the correct answer will advance to Olmec's temple. Originally, if they get an incorrect answer, their opponents automatically win. Starting in Season 2, the opponents would have to give the correct answer to go to the temple.
• Jeopardy!: If there is a tie after Final Jeopardy!, a single tiebreaker clue is played. The first player to buzz in with the correct response wins. If no one answers correctly, additional tiebreakers are used until someone does. Prior to November 2014, contestants who finished tied were declared co-champions and played against each other on the following show.
• Blackout had a tiebreaker word that was played if both teams were tied after two rounds. The team that had correctly guessed more words during the first two rounds (or the winner of a backstage coin toss if there was a tie) chose to either play the word or pass to the opponents. The contestant giving clues had 10 seconds to describe the word for his/her partner, and the opposing contestant had three seconds of blackout time, with the same repetition penalty as in the one first two rounds. A correct guess won the game, while a miss gave the win to the opposing team.
• On Pyramid, ties were broken by playing another round of seven words. The team who caused the tie was given the choice of two letters, each of which would be the first letter of every correct response in the tiebreaker round. Originally, they were just played until one team finally outscored the other, but after many instances of both teams going 7/7 in tiebreaker rounds, it was changed in The '80s so that whichever team got their 7 words faster was declared the winner. (However, on at least one episode, they had to play three tiebreakers in the first half due to both teams only getting 6 words right on their first two attempts, while another had to do a double-tiebreaker due to both teams getting the seventh word in the first tiebreaker round on the buzzer.) Since 2016, the tiebreaker is only used in the event that both teams took the same amount of time to provide all of their correct responses.
• Duel: On the American version, if both contestants answered a question incorrectly or, during the show's second season, there was no winner after 10 question, a sudden-death tiebreaker question was played. Contestants received four chips and the winner is the first to have the correct answer while using the fewest amount of chips. If both contestants got the correct answer while using the same amount of chips, the procedure was repeated until there was a winner. If no one answered the question correctly, both contestants were eliminated.
• Wheel of Fortune: While it's extremely rare, ties have happened a few times. Originally on the nighttime version, ties were broken by a Speed-Up round played only between the two tied contestants. The introduction of the Toss-Up puzzles in 2000 means that ties are now broken by a fourth Toss-Up puzzle between the tied contestants.
• Lingo: On the Chuck Woolery-hosted era, ties were broken by a seven-letter word being revealed one letter at a time until a team rang in with the right answer.
• Taskmaster sometimes has a sudden death round if two contestants are tied in first place. Generally these are pre-recorded tasks (a selection of which will be recorded alongside the regular tasks and chosen by the production team as and when they're needed, with only the tied contestants' attempts being shown), but sometimes they will be done live with an arbitrary tie-break question (such as guessing Frank Skinner's age in minutes).
• From Series 2 onward on They Think It's All Over, games which finished level after the usual final round, "The Name Game", would proceed to a tiebreak which usually took the form of a Call-Back to an earlier round. If the two team captains won equal numbers of episodes in a series, they would also play a tiebreak for the series. Examples included musical chairs, mechanical bull-riding, breath holding, answering trivia questions (from books allegedly written by the team captains), and launching football boots at cardboard cutouts of David Beckham.
• The Weakest Link had a three or five-question Bonus Round at the end of each show between two contestants. If they were tied at the end of this round, then it would go into sudden death where the round would end if one contestant got a question right and the other got it wrong. Going into sudden death would give host Anne Robinson the chance to dramatically say "Then let's play... Sudden Death!"
• Finders Keepers: If the game ended in a tie, a third Hidden Pictures round was played with the first to find two items going to the Room-to-Room Romp.
• In Match Game, at least in the '70s, there would be one or two additional rounds serving as tiebreakers. If there was still a tie after that, they would go into a sudden death round, in which the first player to match a celebrity was the winner.
• Season 3 of the 2021 revival of Name That Tune revealed what happens if the game is tied at the end of the Bid-a-Note round. Rather than doing another round of this, instead a song is played with lyrics. If one of the contestants thinks they know the correct answer, they can buzz in. If they get it right, they win. However, if they either get it wrong or don't answer, then it's an automatic win for their opponent, without the opponent having to even attempt to answer.
• Tic-Tac-Dough had this in three ways during its run:
  • First, on the CBS summer version in 1978, a tie game necessitated one final jump-in question; whoever buzzed in and got it right won the game.
  • Secondly (most common, from the syndicated version), tie games necessitated an entirely new game with nine new categories, with the pot continuing to increase from where it was (on the first season in 1978-79, there was no bonus to the losing player for any ties, while starting with the second season [1979-80] and continuing to the end of the run in 1986 w/Jim Caldwell, a $250 consolation was awarded to the challenger times the number of ties the challenger caused before the champion won [provided that the challenger did indeed lose; if the challenger became the new champion, this did not apply]; Pete Cooper, one of Thom McKee's challengers, had four of these, and received $1000 for the four ties).
  • Finally, on the abortive 1990 version w/Patrick Wayne, on a tie, not only was the board cleared, but the pot was cleared and started over as well, with dollar values doubling per box; this meant that if you had a large pot on a tie, you could end up winning less than you had before in the pot (these changes, among other unpopular ones, were the main reason why the 1990 Tic-Tac-Dough didn't last very long, and was widely derided).
• Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak broke ties at the end by having one final word, with the captain of the champion side deciding whether his/her team would play or pass that word; whoever played had to be perfect with no violations (get a Hot Streak, in other words); else, the opposing side won.
• Panel Quiz Attack 25: If there is a tie for the win, a single tiebreaker question is played. A correct answer must be given; there is no win by default.
• On Only Connect, if there is a tie at the end of the Missing Vowels round, one more missing-vowels clue is given to the team captains only; other team members may not buzz in. No category is given, although the answer usually has something to do with the fact that it's a tiebreaker puzzle, and buzzing in with a right or wrong answer wins or loses the match.
• Super Pay Cards! had at least one tiebreaker. If the contestants are tied after the Wild Card round, they take turns selecting one card each from the cards still on the board. The player who draws the higher card wins the game; an ace is considered higher than a king.

Live-Action TV

• Friends: When the Guys vs Girls trivia game in "TOW The Embryos" ends in a tie, Ross reveals he prepared a "Lightning Round" for this exact outcome. Each team gets 30 seconds to answer as many questions as they can, whoever gets the most right answers wins. Monica and Rachel end up losing because neither of them can remember what Chandler's job is.
• In the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode ChardeeMacDennis, the eponymous game has a "black card" which serves as a tiebreaker. Given how long ago the gang created the game and how drunk they apparently were while doing so, they've all forgotten what the tie breaker is. They look on nervously as Frank opens the black card and reveals that they are to flip a coin.
• That Mitchell and Webb Look:
  • In one Numberwang sketch, after three days with nobody getting Numberwang, they go to Sudden Death, in which the first person to die from the deadly Numbergas wins.
  • The Quiz Broadcast (remain indoors) has a sudden death round, but the third contestant, Unknown Male 282, promptly screams and drops dead before it even begins. Evidently, the show does not operate under the same rules as Numberwang.

Pinball

• If two or more players are tied in score at the end, and a winner is required, the standard is to play one more game, except with just one ball instead of the usual 3 or 5. Whoever's score is higher is the winner. If they're still tied, more one-ball games are played until their scores are different. The Pinburgh 2016 Finals is one case of this, with the three tied players on Iron Man (Stern) going again with a one-ball game.

Professional Wrestling

• AAA's Lucha Libre World Cup has gained an association with them since 2015 when they had seven matches on the card with one special sudden death match for third place. Due to multiple time limit draws, there ended up being seven sudden death matches and not because there was one for every match so much as the only planned sudden death match itself went into sudden death and the final went into sudden death three times.
• Iron Man matches can be decided by Sudden Death if both competitors end the time limit on an equal number of falls but this only occurs if both parties agree to it (or are forced to by someone with authority; i.e. it is not a requirement of such a match). The first WWE Iron Man match between Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart ended without a single fall and was pushed to an overtime where Shawn pinned Bret. However in a 30-minute match between Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle, they ended with a 2-2 and Kurt just blew Shawn off when he begged to have the match settled in Sudden Death.

Sports

• Association Football has several rules tied to breaking tied scores:
  • The "golden goal"^note named as such due to being more politically correct than "sudden death" rule was implemented in 1993. If a match's score ends tied, and one of the requirements of the match is deciding which team qualifies to the next phase, two halves of 15 minutes each, with a 5-minute recess, are played. Whichever team scores a goal first during this extra time period wins.
  • Should both teams keep the tied score at the end of the aggregate time, or if there's no aggregated time at all, a penalty shootout takes place. It consists of five penalties for both teams at first, if they're tied in the penalty shootout, series of one per each team are kicked until one team gets a goal in while the other does not.
  • In major tournaments like the FIFA World Cup, this replaced the original rule where the full 30 minutes would be played regardless of how many goals either side scored, with penalties if the score was still tied. A lesser form, silver goal, was later implemented in 2002, where a team that led after the first half of extra time won. Both were scrapped in 2004 due to leading to very defensive play, among other reasons.
• In professional American Football (the NFL), if the teams are tied at the end of the game they go into overtime, where the first team to score points wins.
  • The NFL adopted new overtime rules for postseason games starting in 2010, and extended them to regular season games starting in 2012. If a team receives the opening kickoff and only scores a field goal, the game doesn't end until after the ensuing drive. A touchdown ends the game instantly, as does a safety. The game ends on the second possession with any result that is not still a tie. If the game is still tied after the first two possessions (either due to no scoring or matched field goals), the game goes to sudden death, usually labeled as "next score wins". This rule was first used in the playoff game on Jan. 8, 2012 between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos, in which Denver scored on an 80-yard touchdown pass-and-run on the first play in overtime, meaning it took longer to announce the new overtime rules than to play it.
  • The first regular-season game under these rules in the regular season was played in week one of the 2012 season. The Minnesota Vikings made the first score on a field goal. The Jacksonville Jaguars then got possession but were unable to convert a fourth down, making this the first NFL overtime game to end on a play that didn't result in a score. Two weeks later, the Tennessee Titans scored a field goal first. Then the Detroit Lions failed to convert a fourth down on a play in which they were actually trying to draw the Titans offside, thus ending that game on a play that didn't result in a score.
  • The idea of a second chance comes from other leagues. Instead of a kickoff format, high school, college, and Canadian Football League games use what's called the "Kansas Playoff",^note named because it was first developed for high school football in that state where after a coin toss to decide possession, a team starts a drive directly from a designated position in the opposing side of the field. In the Kansas format, each team gets a chance to score. A touchdown, field goal, or turnover ends that possession, allowing the other team to try from the other end unless the turnover results in a defensive score^note Only in the NCAA and CFL; in high school except in Texas (which follows NCAA rules), a turnover during overtime results in the play being whistled dead. The process repeats if both teams match scores for that round; in high school and college, procedures are repeated until the tie is broken while the CFL limits overtime to two procedures during the regular season. Prior to 2021, after two rounds, the point-after kick is removed, forcing teams to attempt the riskier two-point conversion instead; in the CFL since the 2010 season, a two-point conversion must be attempted after every touchdown. In 2019, the NCAA turned fifth and any subsequent possessions into a single two-point conversion play, and overtime rules were further revised in 2021, with the mandatory two-point conversion moved to the second possession and the two-point shootout starting with the third overtime possession.
  • The 2020 incarnation of the XFL used a series of five two-point conversion plays, similar to penalty kicks in soccer or the shootout in hockey. However, the line of scrimmage was the defending team's 5-yard line, instead of the 2-yard line in the NFL or 3-yard line in college. If the score remained tied after each team took five turns, the procedure was repeated until the tie was broken. The 2022 incarnation of the USFL also used a series of conversion plays; however, "sudden death" began after each team took three turns, and the line of scrimmage was the 2. When the two leagues merged after their 2023 seasons to create the current United Football League, the new league adopted the XFL's overtime rules, including the 5-yard line of scrimmage.
• The now-defunct Arena Football League's overtime rules guaranteed that each team had one offensive opportunity unless the first team to possess yielded a defensive score, whether by touchdown or safety. If the score was still level after each team had a possession, true sudden death applied. The defunct NFL Europa and United Football League also used nearly identical overtime rules to Arena Football; however, overtime was limited to 10 minutes rather than the full 15 in NFL Europa. In 2022, the NFL adopted this version of sudden death for postseason games only; regular season games can still end on the opening possession if the first team scores a touchdown.
• If the score is tied after 60 minutes of regulation play during the regular season, the NHL uses a five-minute sudden-death overtime period. Beginning with the 1998–99 season, the teams played four-on-four hockey (normally it's five-on-five, not counting goalies); starting in 2015–16, it changed to three-on-three. Should the game still be tied, teams go to a shootout (before 2005 it was just left as a tie). In the playoffs, though, teams skate five a side for an unlimited number of twenty-minute periods until someone scores, which can take a while - the record is six overtime periods before someone scored.
• In tennis, the US Open between 1970 and 1974 implemented a sudden-death tiebreaker in which the first player to reach 5 points won the set. During that time, most tournaments other than the Grand Slams moved to a "lingering death" tiebreaker at 6–6 in which the first to score at least 7 points, and with at least a 2-point lead, winning the set. The US Open adopted this format in 1975. Note that many tournaments won't use the tiebreaker for the final set, requiring a clear winner by at least 2 games. From 2019–2021, the Australian Open used a tiebreaker to 10 points instead of the standard 7 (but still with a 2-point lead needed to win), and Wimbledon used the standard 7-point tiebreaker for the final set if it reached 12–12 instead of 6–6. The French Open was the last remaining Grand Slam event to not use a tiebreaker for the final set. In 2022, all four Grand Slams adopted the 10-point final-set tiebreaker, implemented at 6–6.
• If a baseball game is tied at the end of nine innings, the teams continue to play more innings until one team has the lead at the end of an inning. In some leagues, each team starts with an automatic runner on second base to encourage scoring in these extra innings. There is no upper limit to the number of innings that can be played. The game does not end until someone wins.

Tabletop Games

• 22: While the game normally ends when all but one player hits 22 points or greater, with ties being broken by having the lowest score, in the event there is a tie for lowest score, standard tie breaking procedure is to run one last hand between the tied players — winner takes all.
• Love Letter may have multiple players getting the quota of hearts. In the 4-player version, they share victory. If there are more players (as with the premium edition), leading players perform a tie-breaker round.
• Spades: In the unlikely event both teams reach the target score on the same hand and end with a tied score, one last hand is played, following standard rules, to determine the overall winner.

Web Video

• Jet Lag: The Game: Because season six had the possibility of a 3-3 tie, there existed the possibility of a tiebreaker round, scattering seven flags around Tokyo, with the first team to return four winning the competition.
• Battle for Dream Island has had tiebreaker challenges twice. They both involved literally breaking a team necktie.

Video Games

• In Team Fortress 2, if a round ends with neither side winning, servers have the option of then going to Sudden Death, where all health packs are removed from the level and respawning is disabled. Teams can win either by accomplishing the objective or eliminating the other team. Time running out in sudden death results in a stalemate where neither side wins.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • In the event of a tie, rankings are decided by a round in which everybody starts with 300% damage and only one stock. Last one to get knocked off the stage wins. If a Sudden Death match goes on for too long, Bob-ombs start raining from the sky. Additionally, in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, flames appear on the sides of the screen and it starts zooming in, making the "blast zones" closer and closer until it stops. If by some freak occurrence another tie manages to occur, the player with the lowest controller port number is declared the winner.
  • In Tournament Play, the built-in Sudden Death is ignored due to how it works severely tilting the balance in favor of certain characters^note Most notably Fox, who is a Lightning Bruiser and thus has a much easier time getting in the first fatal attack, while also thwarting many other characters' best tools for hitting first with his Attack Reflector. In later games, characters who get a Critical Status Buff at high damage such as Lucario or Sephiroth exacerbate it even further. Instead, a separate tie-breaker round is played, with the same character and stage choice, but only one stock and a much shorter time limit.
• In the Swordplay duels of Wii Sports Resort, if neither combatant wins best of three, it goes to "Sudden Death" where the arena is reduced to the center circle, and one good hit can easily knock the opponent off. Interestingly, even this can be tied, awarding the player with an Achievement ("Stamp") for the round.
• Boss battles in Guitar Hero used to initiate a "death drain" that would sap your Rock Meter if both combatants made it to the last part of the song. This was later replaced and now the song just repeats, but on Hyperspeed. And it gets faster each time both players make it to the end.
• In Halo games, Sudden Death only started from the second game onwards. It typically only occurs in objective gametypes like CTF or Assault. In Halo 2, when the time would run out, if a player was still holding the flag or bomb, the game would continue endlessly until a player scored or if no one was holding the flag or bomb for a set amount of time. After some time, Bungie released an update that removed Sudden Death from certain gametypes on Matchmaking because players were holding up games by hiding during Sudden Death. In Halo 3 and onward, Sudden Death usually has a time-limit (typically from 30 seconds to one minute), but the game still ends if the flag/bomb isn't being held.
• In multiplayer modes other than Turf War and Clam Blitz in Splatoon 2, sudden death, called Overtime, Pinch!, or Extra Time depending on the region, will kick in after the end of the allotted time if the team behind on progress towards the objective has control of the objective when time's up. At that point, victory is either achieved should the team currently behind surpass the other team's progress (hold the zone for longer in Splat Zones; advance the payload further than the other team did in Tower Control or Rainmaker), or should the team behind lose control of the objective. Clam Blitz, on the other hand, will have sudden death via the potential for scoring: In this mode, points are scored by tossing Power Clams into the goal on the opponents' side. If the losing team has any Power Clams, Overtime will begin and will only end when one of a number of conditions occur, one of them being that the losing team lose all of their Power Clams.
• In Fortnite's Battle Royale mode, the Storm gradually covers more and more of the island, and anyone who gets caught in it continously takes damage, thus forcing players into a smaller play area and thus becoming more likely to encounter each other and engage in combat with one another. However, after the Storm pauses in its encroachment a certain number of times (i.e. if a match goes on significantly longer than usual), the Storm will just straight up cover the map completely, causing everyone to rapidly lose health no matter where they are, at which point the end of the match will certainly end in a matter of seconds.
• In the first season of Overwatch's Competitive Mode, if four rounds of Assault, Escort, or Hybrid^note Each pair of rounds corresponds to one round of team A attacking and then one round of team B attacking. To borrow from baseball or cricket terminology, it's basically two "innings" passed without a winner being declared, the game would go into Sudden Death: a coin was flipped, and the side it landed on determined which team would get 1 minute to fulfill a quick objective (such as capturing the first objective of two or escorting the payload to its first checkpoint); if they succeeded, they won, and if they couldn't, the defending team won without having to play another attacking round. However, this created balancing issues, since some maps are shown to favor one side or the other effectively making Sudden Death a Luck-Based Mission, so Season 2 scrapped it in favor of simply declaring a draw if neither team has won after four rounds.
• In the Head Sports series, if a match ends in a tie after the time is up, the Power Shot gauges will freeze as the game enters "Sudden Death" or "Double KO" (in Head Boxing), which ends as soon as one point is scored.
• Street Fighter II: The fourth round (tenth in The World Warrior) is designated the Final Round. The player who wins the Final Round doesn't get a point bonus. In solo play, the computer player wins the battle should the Final Round end in a draw or a double knockout. If this happens in two-player mode, both players get a game over.
• Unreal series: In the Tournament games, there are set tiebreakers for all the gamemodes.
  • In point-based teammodes, usually whenever one or more players/teams are tied, a sudden death round ("Sudden death overtime" in Tournament, simply "Overtime" in the rest) takes place, with the player that scores the advantage point being declared the winner.
  • In Capture the Flag and derivate modes such as 2003 and 2004's Bombing Run mode, whoever makes the first capture or the first goal in Overtime is the winner.
  • In 2004's Onslaught and III's Warfare modes, during Overtime, both teams' Power Cores start draining until one of them reaches zero, the surviving core's team is then declared the winner.
• The blitzball game of Final Fantasy X uses the golden goal rule — if the score is tied at the end of normal play, first to score in overtime is the winner.

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