Processing may be performed in accordance with a policy to assign roles of winner and loser between two nodes. The roles may be used in connection with deadlock resolution processing. A deadlock or potential deadlock may be detected between the two nodes performing processing for two transactions In response to detecting the deadlock or potential deadlock, using a current state may be used to determine whether to perform the deadlock resolution processing to resolve the deadlock or potential deadlock. The current state may indicate whether assignment of the winner and loser roles between the two nodes is in progress. Responsive to the current state indicating that processing is not in progress to assign roles of winner and loser between the two nodes, the current state may be used perform deadlock resolution processing to resolve the deadlock or potential deadlock. The current state may denote which node is the current winner.