Board Count

Board Count, abbreviated BC, is a tie-break designed especially for team knockouts, formats in which one match determines which team advances. Team competitions may report two scores: match points, awarded for winning or drawing the overall match, and game points, the sum of the individual results on all boards.

BC is used when the tied teams have equal match points and equal game points. For every board, its number is multiplied by all game points the team scored on that board during the competition. The products are then added. Board one has a multiplier of 1, board two a multiplier of 2, and so on.

The lower sum ranks higher. A point earned on a higher board therefore adds less to the sum than the same point earned on a lower board. The calculation follows the board number, not the identity of the player who occupied that board.

The criterion can be used only when all tied teams have the same total game points. A related procedure is Bottom Board Elimination, which compares totals after progressively removing the lowest boards.