RANK vs ROW_NUMBER on ties

Question

Accepted Answer

RANK assigns the same rank to tied rows and then skips the next rank(s). Alice and Bob both score 90 - they share rank 1. Because two rows share rank 1, rank 2 is skipped and Carol gets rank 3. DENSE_RANK would give Carol rank 2 instead (no gap). ROW_NUMBER would arbitrarily assign 1 to one of them and 2 to the other.