2 or 3 Day Swiss

[Phil]

The Palm Springs regional has become the 2nd largest in the US behind Gatlinberg.

 

This year, the calendar included a 2 day "Super Swiss" on the final weekend. While the level of play was very strong, only 19 teams entered and 12 teams made the Sunday final.

 

As I mentioned in my other post, all of the top teams played themselves early and were matched based on the previous day's carry-over. As a result, in order to get in 7 matches, the top teams end up playing teams that have little chance of placing.

 

It seems like a better format would be to ignore the carryover from Day 1. Frankly, in a 7 match final, I can even see either randomizing the first three matches, and then matching on totals, at least in a small field.

 

How do other NBO's handle this dilemma?

[gnasher]

With such a small field relative to the number of rounds, I think they should have allowed rematches, or had an all-play-all final.

 

In the the longest Swiss Teams event in England, there's a 14-round Swiss, then on the final day the top 8 go into a round-robin, the next 8 go into a secondary final, and everyone else continues in the Swiss.

 

In the WBF's Swiss events, they have a Swiss followed by a knockout for the top n.

Edited December 17, 2012 by gnasher

[JLOGIC]

You can't have no carryover in a Swiss, it is just asking for easy dumping spots

[MickyB]

Round-robin or swiss with longer matches [4 matches per day] imo.

[wyman]

You can't have no carryover in a Swiss, it is just asking for easy dumping spots

 

I think he just meant to not include the carryover when doing pairings for the next morning. I.e., you keep the carryover, but you play d2 just as you did d1 -- a new swiss -- and then add the carryover at the end.

 

But I don't want to put words in his mouth.

[billw55]

For a multi-session swiss with qualifying, I would prefer to see a full round robin final. If that means limiting to eight qualifiers, so be it.

 

In such a case, qualifying position would not matter, so maybe carryover from day one could be omitted.

[WellSpyder]

You can't have no carryover in a Swiss, it is just asking for easy dumping spots

In the English event referred to, there is indeed no carry over from the first 10 rounds of Swiss to the 8-team all-play-all A and B finals. There is little scope for dumping, though, since the margins for qualifying in the top 8 or 16 in a field of, say, 150-200 teams are so tight. Half a match can easily make the difference between qualifying for the A final and not qualifying for either final.

[mycroft]

Unless the CoC demanded it, I would look at 19 entries and say that there are going to be 10 qualifiers, and we're playing 9 sixes tomorrow, and advertise it as such to the event at least by the end of the first session. Have carryover, sure, but if the final can be a RR, it should be. 19-to-8 seems like a drastic cut.

 

Having brought in 12, you have the standard overswissing problem where as long as you survive the competitors (definitely allow playbacks from the qualifier!), it's a matter of how well you beat up the also-rans in rounds 5, 6, 7. Good for generating the top 6; not so good for generating the winners. *For the second day* I could go with "random matches first three rounds", or even seeded matches the first round - at least that would get the beat-em-ups in early rather than late; the last qualifiers would probably be okay with that (would probably enjoy it!) I would never do that for a "sunday swiss" that everyone knew would be overswissed, though; the also-rans understand the "we ran out of big players to put them against, sorry" (they don't like it, but they understand); they *won't* understand "why did we draw three big teams to start?"

 

Of course, out in Palm Beach they use the "W/L w/tie breaks for the TDs" 30-point scale, don't they? Maybe different then.

[Phil]

...at least that would get the beat-em-ups in early rather than late; the last qualifiers would probably be okay with that (would probably enjoy it!)

 

It was so pathetic. When the last round matchups were posted, there was a team that needed a big win to place in the overalls and they drew a top team. They were complaining (actually one member was crying) about how 'unfair' the process was. The director did a nice job explaining how the computer did the pairings.

[JLOGIC]

Unless the CoC demanded it, I would look at 19 entries and say that there are going to be 10 qualifiers, and we're playing 9 sixes tomorrow, and advertise it as such to the event at least by the end of the first session. Have carryover, sure, but if the final can be a RR, it should be. 19-to-8 seems like a drastic cut.

 

Having brought in 12, you have the standard overswissing problem where as long as you survive the competitors (definitely allow playbacks from the qualifier!), it's a matter of how well you beat up the also-rans in rounds 5, 6, 7. Good for generating the top 6; not so good for generating the winners. *For the second day* I could go with "random matches first three rounds", or even seeded matches the first round - at least that would get the beat-em-ups in early rather than late; the last qualifiers would probably be okay with that (would probably enjoy it!) I would never do that for a "sunday swiss" that everyone knew would be overswissed, though; the also-rans understand the "we ran out of big players to put them against, sorry" (they don't like it, but they understand); they *won't* understand "why did we draw three big teams to start?"

 

Of course, out in Palm Beach they use the "W/L w/tie breaks for the TDs" 30-point scale, don't they? Maybe different then.

 

Nine sizes is not possible on the last day of the tournament...even with no break starting at ten am no one would be able to get to the airport and get home. I was in Tampa instead of palm springs last week and probably only got home because they made it six eights instead of seven sevens. Playing three extra matches and 5 extra boards would make it an hour and a half longer

[JLOGIC]

In the English event referred to, there is indeed no carry over from the first 10 rounds of Swiss to the 8-team all-play-all A and B finals. There is little scope for dumping, though, since the margins for qualifying in the top 8 or 16 in a field of, say, 150-200 teams are so tight. Half a match can easily make the difference between qualifying for the A final and not qualifying for either final.

 

Lol yeah 150 teams is a lot different than 19 teams thanks.

[pigpenz]

almost could do a full round robin where everyone plays everyone else.

thats what would have been best in my mind

[JLOGIC]

Round-robin or swiss with longer matches [4 matches per day] imo.

 

Then you have teams who are completely out of the event playing on day two, not only can they dump to their friends since they're out of it, they simply won't try as hard if they are out of it since they're human. On top of that, it's a regional, if a team cannot win points since they are out of it theyd rather play a new event. This is not some major tournament.

 

Personally I think the event was a bad idea and that is why so few teams entered. I am glad regional organizers are trying new things though.

[Phil]

 

Personally I think the event was a bad idea and that is why so few teams entered. I am glad regional organizers are trying new things though.

 

The participants seemed to like it. The room was set up similar to the Reisinger final with the tables cordoned off with dividers to keep the noise down, although they didn't use the screens (they had some for the KO finals) :(.

 

Also, because the compacts and stratified swiss were used in the table counts, it paid 57 to the winners which is pretty high for a regional. This is almost as much as a Bracket I KO at Gatlinburg.

 

Just need to fix the format. I have faith :)

[wyman]

The participants seemed to like it.

 

I liked it a lot, but part of that is that I usually don't get the opportunity to sit down against Levin-Weinstein, let alone twice in two days.

 

I think the final should have been an 8 team RR though so that r5-7 is not just the top guys trying to punish the little guys as much as possible when the little guys are already down-and-out.

[ArtK78]

The last time my unit ran a 2-day Swiss Sectional tournament it was a playthrough (not qualifying and final) with 6 9-board matches each day. Since this was a playthrough, all scores counted (or, to put it another way, there was full carryover from day 1 to day 2). Playbacks were permitted in the last 3 rounds.

 

Given that this was a regional, I suppose the play-through format is not ideal. However, whether there are 6, 7 or 8 matches in the finals, it would make sense to allow playbacks in the final 2 or 3 rounds.

 

Many years ago in the Summer Nationals (back when the tournament was called the Summer Nationals) there was a Regional 2-day win-loss swiss with 6 9-board matches each day. While it was a qualifying and final, all of the teams that qualified took full carryover into day 2. I don't remember if the non-qualifiers had a consolation swiss the next day. This was back in the days when there were not 40 events running simultaneously. I remember winning 5 of our 6 matches on the first day and only 1 on the second day to finish absolutely nowhere. Of course, overall awards didn't go nearly as many places back then as they do now. In a 100 team event (and this event had more than 100 teams) you had to finish in the top 8 or 9 to place.

 

I may go back and dig out an old Bridge Bulletin and look it up if I get a chance. These events were held in the 70s.

[mycroft]

Nine sizes is not possible on the last day of the tournament...even with no break starting at ten am no one would be able to get to the airport and get home. I was in Tampa instead of palm springs last week and probably only got home because they made it six eights instead of seven sevens. Playing three extra matches and 5 extra boards would make it an hour and a half longer

We always do 8 sevens in our swisses in D18. Nine sixes would be longer - but a round robin would be shorter, as there's no time wasted pairing. I don't think it would keep up to 7 sevens, but I think I could do nine sixes in the time it takes eight sevens with on-round pairing, especially if lunch was onsite and wafting in 30 minutes into the fifth round :-).

 

Soon, with Bridgemate scoring for swiss teams available, it would take even less time, as we wouldn't have to score, complain, not get up and confirm, wait while they finish complaining and get to the scoring, and so on...

[MickyB]

Then you have teams who are completely out of the event playing on day two

 

That wasn't what I intended to suggest, I still meant qualifier Saturday, final Sunday

[Vampyr]

Also, because the compacts and stratified swiss were used in the table counts, it paid 57 to the winners which is pretty high for a regional. This is almost as much as a Bracket I KO at Gatlinburg.

 

$57, even if it were per person, is not enough money to cry about. (If by "paid" you meant awarded masterpoints, even more so).

[JLOGIC]

What is your point in hating on master points in every threads? We get it, USA sucks, acbl sucks, master points suck, convention cards rule. Many people love masterpoints and that's why they exist. You are clearly a better person than everyone else. To many people who play bridge tournaments like me 57 points is meaningful and a reason for them to play an event.

 

If what you care about is playing bridge events against great players then you should love this event. You get to play against levin weinstein hampson etc. and why do they play these events? Because their clients like winning 57 masterpoints. So even for an enlightened soul like yourself it might occur to you that masterpoints are good, and bridge in USA is not that bad.

 

But you know, no doubt england and the rest of Europe is far superior for bridge players.

[Vampyr]

No need to get your knickers in a twist; it wasn't clear to me whether the earlier post referred to prize money or masterpoints. What I said was that whichever it was, crying about it seemed pretty extreme. I did not say that either money or masterpoints were bad.

 

Now, breathe deeply and try to relax.

[bidule5]

The number of rounds in a swiss should alway be less than half the numbers teams

(and more than the square root of it).

 

With 12 teams you can play either 4 rounds accelerated swiss (1 vs. 2 in first round)

or 5 rounds with last round danish (1 vs. 2, even if it is a rematch).

 

yvan

[Vampyr]

Obviously you can do more with a 3-day Swiss than with a 2-day. For three days you could:

 

1. Day 1: Have a normal Swiss teams (obviously you could do the same with Swiss Pairs)

2. Continue Swiss, with replays if necessary, with the field split into two:some number of the top field advancing to the A final, and a smaller number advancing to the B final, with the converse in the lower field.

3. Have 2 all-play-all finals, with the rest in a consolation event. This could consist of a multiple teams, or it could be done as I have often seen in Europe -- the field is split up into many mini-fields of the same number (according to rank), and these mini-fields play a Swiss. This way a winner will emerge from each mini-field, and everyone still has an interest in the event no matter how abysmally they played in the first two days.

 

Or do it the way it is done in England, which Andy described above -- this two-stage method can easily be adapted for the number of sessions desired.

[Mbodell]

The Palm Springs regional has become the 2nd largest in the US behind Gatlinberg.

 

Is there a good place to get table count information? I've heard a couple of different tournaments claim this, but not sure how to look it up in one place at ACBL.

 

This year, the calendar included a 2 day "Super Swiss" on the final weekend. While the level of play was very strong, only 19 teams entered and 12 teams made the Sunday final.

 

Sounds like a fun event. I hope you at least were playing preduplicated hands even if no screens were in use. The 2-day championship swiss at the Sacramento regional gets more than enough teams for the second day to be no problem of over-swissing.

 

I agree with others that if you are almost at a RR you ought to play a RR (you could do 11 5 board rounds of a RR faster than 7 8 board matches; probably almost as fast as you could do 7 7 board matches since the RR has the next round posted immediately with no waiting). But if you can't I think it would make sense to do pairings more similar to how chess pairings get done in swiss matches (and ignore the carryover for pairing purposes at least at the start of day 2). In chess tournaments when everyone starts at 0 people are ranked by rating. But the 1 seed neither plays the 2 seed nor the bottom seed, instead the field is divided in 2 halves (top half and bottom half) and the top seed in the top half plays the top seed in the bottom half. In the second round same thing except there are now 4 halfs (ignoring ties for a minute) the top half of the winners, and the bottom half of the winners who are paired like the first round, and then the top half of the losers and the bottom half of the losers who are also paired like the first round. And so on. If you tried to do the same rough thing in your 12 team final you could imagine the first four rounds might be something like:

 

1 vs 7; 2 vs 8; 3 vs 9; 4 vs 10; 5 vs 11; 6 vs 12;

 

1 vs 4; 2 vs 5; 3 vs 6; 7 vs 10; 8 vs 11; 9 vs 12;

 

1 vs 3; 2 vs 4; 5 vs 7; 6 vs 8; 9 vs 11; 10 vs 12;

 

1 vs 2; 3 vs 4; 5 vs 6; 7 vs 8; 9 vs 10; 11 vs 12;

 

It doesn't totally stop the problem of the best teams still avoiding the bad teams, but it at least delays it a little where the 4th round is the normal 1st round of the swiss, and every team at least plays at least one team on the "other half" of the results early instead of late (you'd adjust who is 1 or 2 or 3 depending on results, so you might have to switch teams if an upset happens, but the point is the teams should stay in the same position for the first round because each favorite is "equally" favorite - then 4,5,6 should come back towards 7,8,9 because 4,5,6 go W then L while 7,8,9 go L then W assuming no upsets again).

 

With 12 teams you could also do a swiss into a KO where you swiss the 12 teams for 5 rounds and then do 3 4-way KO (1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 for top 4 spots, 5 vs 8 and 6 vs 7 for middle 4 spots, etc.). Or do swiss for 4 rounds and then do 3 4 team RR (again top 4 teams for top 4 spots, next 4 for the next 4 spots, etc.).

[Cyberyeti]

I'd forget the swiss format and play a 7 team and 2 6 team all play alls on the first day (seeding if I could sensibly do so) with the top 2 from each group qualifying for the A final, the next 2 for the B final and the rest for the C final.