What’s the difference between victory points and the detailed score in a Swiss round robin?

What is the detailed score?

The detailed score corresponds to the gross result of a game, i.e. the performance measured directly during the match.

  • Badminton: the detailed score corresponds to the points in each set (e.g. 21-18 / 18-21 / 21-17).
  • Chess: the detailed score is limited to 1-0 (win), 0-1 (loss) or 0.5-0.5 (draw).
    Adding a detailed score makes no sense here, as there is no information finer than the final result.

What are victory points?

Victory points translate the result into a uniform score which is used to establish the Swiss tournament ranking. You can choose which points are awarded for victory or defeat. Here are two typical examples:

  • Badminton:
    • Victory = 3 victory points
    • Draw = 1 victory point each
    • Defeat = 0 victory points
  • Chess:
    • Victory = 1 victory point
    • Draw = 0.5 victory points each
    • Defeat = 0 victory points

In a nutshell:

  • The detailed score describes the exact performance in the game and can be used as a relevant tie-breaking criterion in certain games such as badminton.
  • Victory points simplify the result to build the main Swiss round ranking.
  • In chess, the detailed score adds nothing: only the result (win, loss, draw) counts.

In our tool, you can choose whether or not to activate the detailed score, in the settings. If you don’t activate the detailed score, then you’ll use victory points to decide between players.

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