2015 World Cup Tiebreak

In the most recent post on my World Chess Championship Blog, 2015 World Cup Results, I noted an action:-

Add an explanation of the tiebreaks used. For the 2013 World Cup, I simply pointed to the page for the 2011 event. I plan to do the same for the 2015 event, but I should first confirm that the tiebreak systems were the same for all three events.

In fact, the same tiebreak system has been used for three consecutive World Cups: 2011, 2013, and 2015. The 'Regulations for the FIDE World Chess Cup 2015' restructured the tiebreak section, moving the more technical rules to an annex -- 'Annex 2 : World Championship Technical Regulations For Tie Breaks' -- but the rules were the same as in 2013.

The following table shows how many tiebreak games were played in each round ('Rd') of the 2015 Baku event. Columns headed '1' and '2' (plus '3' and '4' for Rd.7) count the number of games at standard time control ('90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one'). The other columns count tiebreak games.

After the standard games, the time controls for each subsequent pair of tiebreak games were:-

• 25 minutes for each player with an addition of 10 seconds after each move
• 10 minutes plus 10 seconds increment after each move
• 5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment after each move

These were followed, if necessary, by a so-called 'Armageddon' game:-

A single decisive sudden death game. The player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the color. The player with the white pieces shall receive 5 minutes, the opponent with the black pieces shall receive 4 minutes whereupon, after the 60th move, both players shall receive an increment of 3 seconds for each move from move 61. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.

The table shows that Armageddon games were needed in the first three rounds.