Basic Trope: A player loses at the end of a competition, only to be declared the winner when the original leader gets disqualified.
- Straight: Alice places second to Bob in a golf tournament. However, it's later discovered that Bob forgot to sign his scorecard. Bob is disqualified, and Alice wins.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob falsifies every number on his golf scorecard, getting him suspended from participating in tournaments. Alice wins that tournament and every other one until Bob's reinstatement.
- Literally everybody who participated in the golf tournament is either cheating in some shape or form or screwed up in some rule-breaking fashion, making them all disqualified from the tournament, except for Alice, who wins by default despite otherwise finishing last due to being the only one who didn't cheat.
- Bob faints from a very bad flu as he is swinging in the final hole, all of the other players are unable to play because they are similarly indisposed and Alice is given the prize by virtue of being the only player who was not infected.
- Downplayed:
- Bob beats Alice by one stroke, but he forgot to include two one-stroke penalties. After doing the math, the official result has Alice beating Bob by one stroke.
- Alice loses the first round of the tournament, but advances anyway after her opponent turns out to have not signed his scorecard. She then wins the rest of her rounds outright.
- Bob ties Alice, and right as the tiebreaker is being chosen, it turns out to be moot as Bob didn't sign his scorecard.
- Justified:
- Bob is a new golfer and doesn't grasp all the rules of tournament play.
- Bob has been golfing for 20 years and is so keen on the rules that even the simplest ones don't come to him.
- The board in charge of the tournament keeps a close watch over its players.
- Inverted: Alice, who is at the very bottom of the standings, becomes disqualified anyway for failing to sign her scorecard.
- Subverted:
- Bob wins the tournament despite no one noticing that he didn't sign his scorecard.
- Alice assumes she will win after Bob is exposed, but instead they just schedule another round.
- Double Subverted:
- But then a picture of him holding the unsigned scorecard goes viral. Bob is retroactively stripped of his title, which is then given to Alice.
- Bob throws a tantrum over this and gets disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct, handing the victory to Alice.
- Parodied:
- Alice finishes the tournament dead last. It turns out all the other golfers failed to sign their scorecards, leaving Alice as the sole participant and winner.
- Alice herself does something that should disqualify her, but that isn't officially forbidden by the rules, so she's credited with the victory but an Obvious Rule Patch is installed for the next tournament.
- Bob drops dead of a sudden heart attack as he is swinging at the last hole and Alice is given the prize by virtue of still being alive.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice places tenth after the last round ends. When a few players ahead of her become disqualified or have their scores corrected, she finishes sixth. Two players then appeal and she moves to eighth when they are successful.
- Averted:
- Bob wins the tournament while remembering to sign his scorecard.
- Bob is disqualified, but the tournament judges refuse to name any other contestant the winner, leaving the spot (and the prize) untouched.
- Enforced:
- The writers of the Tournament Arc decided that it would be funny (or magnanimous) to give Alice a victory.
- This trope is used to promote an anti-cheating message.
- Letting Bob (or Alice) win would break the Status Quo, so the writers use this to justify background character Charlie winning.
- Lampshaded:
- "Son of a bitch! I should'a signed that scorecard, then I wouldn't have been disqualified. Oh well, it's an honest mistake. I won't forget next time..."
- "So you won because your opponent got disqualified? Kind of unsatisfying. "Hey, a win's a win!"
- Invoked: Alice struggles for the last few holes while Bob pulls ahead. Feeling bad, Bob gets himself disqualified so Alice can win.
- Exploited: Alice takes advantage of Bob's forgetfulness and points out to the board that he forgot to sign his scorecard. She also warns them that he has cheated in the past.
- Defied:
- Bob checks his scorecard constantly and double-checks the space where he's supposed to sign before handing it over.
- The judge refuses to disqualify Bob, especially if it was a very minor infraction that can be proven didn't affect his performance (for example, even though he didn't sign his scorecard, there are extensive video records of his every move that can verify that his scores for each hole are exactly what he wrote).
- Discussed: "Do you want to lose the tournament, Bob? Remember your scorecard!"
- Conversed: "That's a stupid rule. Bob beat Alice fair and square."
- Implied: Alice looks at Bob's scorecard, which has several corrections and no signature, during the post-game celebration.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's golf game takes a serious nosedive after his disqualification, to the point where he considers retiring.
- Since Alice only won by a technicality, she may not actually have the skills to beat Bob in a fair competition. As a result, when she goes up against Charlie, he utterly trounces her. This eventually ruins her confidence and she never plays golf again.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice helps Bob practice for the next tournament, familiarizing him with the rules again.
- Alice learns her lesson and practices, so that she can beat Bob on her own merits and not rely on him getting disqualified.
- Played for Laughs:
- When it's discovered that Bob forgot to sign his scorecard, Bob throws a fit. He steals the trophy from Alice and runs before getting tackled by security.
- Bob signs his scorecard with a fake name.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob, who is retiring and wants to go out with a bang, has a heart attack when he learns that he's been disqualified.
- Both sides of this conflict end up being humiliated: Bob because of such an Epic Fail and Alice because people (most of them fans of Bob) jeer her as a "cheater" and being unworthy of the prize.
- Played for Horror:
- Bob, or some Loony Fan of his, take umbrage at how that Alice won in such a "cheap" fashion (ignoring that it wasn't Alice's fault at all) and decide to punish her...violently.
- Alice orchestrated Bob's defeat, and the method she used to induce that "disqualification" is, shall we say, a little more brutal than "sweeping the leg".
The back button got disqualified. Go to Disqualification-Induced Victory instead.
