KO / Bracketed Swiss

[runewell]

Given the popularity of KOs at regional tournaments, you would think there would be a place for them in cyberspace. The limiting factor is that KO's are typically multiple-session events and might require a bit of administration - but I think they would be popular.

 

I can't see this happening over the course of twelve boards though. That's only a reasonable time for one good match or two short swiss matches. Two short swiss matches would only be enough to accomodate a field of 4 teams. I have no idea what the masterpoint awards would be as a result either, having no experience here.

 

Perhaps the entry fee should be increased to $2 and the tourney to 24 boards. Then you can arrange four rounds of six boards or perhaps three rounds of eight.

 

It occurs to me that what I'm really asking for is a bracketed Swiss, where teams are grouped in 4's and 5's according to total masterpoints and play every other team, because if you have a KO then what do you do with the people that get knocked out? A bracketed Swiss eliminates this. All you would have to do is write a program to break out the number of teams into 4-5 team groups and then have the program record all the victory points. There would also be some miniscule per match award.

 

The other thing is that 4-person events would need to be entered, getting confirmation from all teammates. Suppose 31 teams enter. The computer splits them into teams of something like 4/4/4/4/5/5/5. The top 16 teams play three rounds of eight. The bottom 15 teams play four rounds of six. Then you would need to know what to awards to give out.

 

I was trying to imagine if multiple-session KOs were feasible but that just seems to be asking a lot from the internet.

 

Thoughts anyone?

[Gerardo]

Nitpicking here. If every team plays every other team is not a Swiss, is a Round Robin.

[TimG]

I don't think you're going to have much success in generating interest in an online event that will last more than 12-15 boards. Or, that will require advance coordination from a team of four.

 

On the other hand, I think it would be great if there were some sort of "league night" where teams could show up any Monday at 8:00 to play a match or two against opponents that could be considered reliable.

 

I just don't think that online play is much of a priority for most. If a co-worker invited you out for drinks or your kid needed help with homework, you wouldn't decline because you had an online bridge date. Well, maybe you would if your team was counting on you, but you probably wouldn't agree to play in a format that did not allow for such flexibility.

[runewell]

Nitpicking here. If every team plays every other team is not a Swiss, is a Round Robin.

 

Well, you'd better alert the ACBL. Here's an instance where they had eight teams play seven matches against each other and mistakenly called it a Swiss. Come to think of it, the ACBL made another mistake. In a "Swiss" where there were more teams than matches, they put us in something called a "round robin". They even put an RR on the scoresheet for the first round. Funny thing is, I only played two other teams in this "round robin".

 

Flt A/X Swiss Teams Both Session November 11, 2007

Scores after 7 rounds

Team Wins Score O/All Rank MPs

3 5.00 96.00 X 1 1 5.50(OA) Gary Larson - Barbara Larson - Evelyn Chien - Dixie Hart

4 5.00 78.00 A 2 4.13(OA) Robert Otto - James Carbaugh - Frank Hellenthal - Mark Patton

5 4.00 76.00 A 3 3.09(OA) J Hughes - Paulette Koontz - Bill Kent - Gary Mehlin

2 4.00 75.00 X 2 2.92(OX) Doug Schlosser - Martha Schlosser - Paula Crabbs - Terry Crabbs

8 3.00 69.00 X 0.78(SA) Maureen Garlich - Arnold Adelberg - Leroy Knutson - M Tibbetts

7 3.00 58.00 X 0.78(SA) Carol Whiteis - William Whiteis - Dennis Affholter - Albion Young

6 3.00 57.00 X 0.78(SA) Larry Delfs - Betty Tomanka - Charles Woodruff - Virginia Krueger

1 1.00 51.00 X 0.26(SA) Jim Callison - James Carey - Marlys Barby - Charlotte Klatt

[TimG]

Well, you'd better alert the ACBL.

The ACBL in error? Shocking.

[barmar]

When there are an odd number of teams in a Swiss Teams event, you can't have everyone playing in head-to-head matches. So three teams (usually the bottom 3 in the standings) play a three-way match over two segments. This is a round robin within this group of 3 teams, since all 3 teams play the other 2 teams.

 

I've also seen Swiss Team events where there were few enough teams in flight A that it didn't make sense to do Swiss pairing for them -- everyone was going to play everyone else eventually, and it doesn't really matter the order. But the event as a whole was still called Swiss Teams because B and C had too many teams for a round robin and they didn't want to bracket them.

[mycroft]

I've seen advertisements for "Bracketed Swiss Teams", where they bung everyone up into groups of 8 by MP, and run 7x8board round robins in each bracket. But they still call it Swiss Teams, because, of course, Swiss == "short team match held on Sunday".

 

Yeah, if you're a bit anal-retentive (please note, I work support for a Security company, and have <mumble> years of experience writing code. I'm more than a bit anal-retentive), it grates when you hear imprecision like that.