The thing about Tendershipping, in comparison with many, many other Yu-Gi-Oh pairings is their concept of Yin and Yang... There's the light, and the dark... Law and chaos.
Take for instance... Yami/Yuugi. They're both on the law and justice side of the spectrum. Next you have Malik/Marik, who are on the Chaos side of the spectrum (This is ignoring the fact that Marik is actually born of Malik's hate, we'll just consider him a yami for now). But with Ryou and Bakura, there's a very distinct difference between them, which makes them interesting to predict and manipulate.
Many people go with the Bakura-beats-on-Ryou route. Others say

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Myself, in the only fanfiction I've written for Yu-Gi-Oh, go both routes. ^^ Perhaps I'll post what's been written of it so far here at some point or another.
I love Tendershipping because of their delicate balance. =3