David Kane wrote:
Don't you think that its noteworthy that in most sports ties are
either impossible or fairly rare, and in those sports where they are
possible, most of them have taken some steps to reduce their number?
(tiebreaks, OTs, scoring incentives etc.)

Soccer is one of the most popular sports on the planet and ties are
common. Cricket is more popular in India alone than most sports are
worldwide: draws[1] are common. Tie-breaks are only used in knock-
out competitions in both sports.

Ties are impossile or extremely rare in most sports either because the
goal is to be the fastest or `furthest' or because there is a vast
range of likely scores. The chance of two people running, swimming,
driving or riding some distance in exactly the same time or jumping or
throwing something exactly the same distance is negligible. The
chance of two basketball teams making the same score is low, just
because the scores are so large; rugby and American football scores
are relatively large numbers. Cricket scores are huge numbers and
there are almost no ties (as distinct from draws). Golf scores are
large numbers.

I'd be curious if you could name a single sport that has gone the
other direction -where rules which produced decisive results were
amended in order to produce more "well-played" ties?

I don't see the relevance of this. Nobody is proposing to change the
rules of chess to increase the number of draws.

I can't, and I think the reason is obvious. Most people see
an important *purpose* of a contest being producing a winner.

``I think an important purpose of a contest is to produce a winner and
I think that everyone else thinks like me.''


Dave.

[1] Not technically the same as ties and probably even worse from your
perspective: a draw means `Well, we've been playing for five days
and we still haven't figured out who won so let's just call it
quits. Maybe next time, eh?'

--
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