Tournaments divided into Sections

[jandrew]

I have run fairly small tournaments for a while but this is something new to me -

 

I have had two recent tourneys - one with 16 the other with 17 tables - divide into 2 sections of about 8 tables each.

 

This has not happened to me before (and I am sure that I have had tournaments with more tables). And I dont want this to happen now.

 

These tournaments are IMP Pairs (not swiss) clocked to 14 minutes per round of 2 hands.

 

Is this something new? Am I setting up the tourney wrong? How can I stop this division - or, at least, postpone it until I have at least 40 or more tables?

 

jandrew

 

PS I do not want this tourney to be an Indy, nor MP%, nor swiss, nor unclocked.

[uday]

Host can't control this.

 

If you run unclocked Ts, you'll see that you'll get sections of up to 50 tables before the split.

Clocked Ts always split evenly, tho.

 

Why, as a TD, do you care one way or another ?

 

U

[jandrew]

Thanks Uday for such a prompt and authorative answer.

 

A small group of us run Ts for the Acol Players' Club. There is a Swiss IMPs Pairs on Thursday, an MP% Indy on Friday and an IMPs Pairs on Sunday with a Mitchell movement (this is the one which divided into sections).

 

The first reason that I care is that each of the Ts is part of a 3-month league. Each player scores according to his place in the T (the T winner taking most points). The point are accumulated over the 13 weeks of the 3-month period. (The details, if you want to look, are at www.acolatbbo.org.uk )

 

With the Indy, there is usually only one clear winner - that is fine.

With the Swiss Pairs, there are two clear winners (each member of the pair) - that is fine.

With the Mitchell Pairs, there are 4 winners (each member of the NS and EW winning pairs) - that is fine.

 

But when the Mitchell Pairs splits into sections the number of winners doubles (NS & EW in both sections). That is too many and I have to reconstruct a single list (based in IMPs) to score from - this seems to be an unneccessary waste of time.

 

The second reason that I care is that we urge on slow players by announcing the time left in each round (and, where necessary, adjusting unfinished hands). That is much more difficult when there are two sections which are out of sync.

 

But I dont expect you to change the splitting arrangement just to suit me. I shall experiment to see what T parameters do not result in a division at such a low number of tables.

 

Does the split happen at a different number of tables, for example -

In Swiss / Indy / Mitchell movements;

or Clocked / Unclocked.

 

Is there anywhere that I can find this information?

 

Many thanks

jandrew

[mink]

Splits in very small sections occur only in clocked non-swiss plair events. In all other events, the sections are much bigger.

 

Karl