Fore Buchholz

Fore Buchholz, abbreviated FB, is a tie-break. A tie-break is a published rule used to order participants who finish on the same score. Ordinary Buchholz adds the scores of all a participant's opponents and uses that total as a measure of schedule strength.

Fore Buchholz makes the same calculation but treats every paired game in the final round as a draw. Its value therefore does not depend on who actually wins those games. It is not predicting the results; it deliberately applies one neutral assumption to everyone.

The practical benefit is that the value can be calculated before the last round is complete, such as when another criterion needs a schedule-strength measure that is already known. The rules of FIDE, the International Chess Federation, also state that Buchholz-family tie-breaks must not be used in round-robin events, where every participant plays every other participant.