Tournament system

[phoenix214]

I was wondering why in bridge, compared to chess tournaments, where both use Swiss, in chess you cannot get paired against the same player, while in bridge team events, there is the use of Danish/Italian systems in the last round, where you could face again the same opponent twice. Does this somehow make it the competition fairer or is it just a custom?

[Vampyr]

I was wondering why in bridge, compared to chess tournaments, where both use Swiss, in chess you cannot get paired against the same player, while in bridge team events, there is the use of Danish/Italian systems in the last round, where you could face again the same opponent twice. Does this somehow make it the competition fairer or is it just a custom?

 

I don't like this system; it is not normally used in the EBU. I think the idea is that it is "fairer", because the team in 1st place may not, say, have played the team in 3rd, but the 2nd place team may have played everyone down to 10th place, so they will face a weaker team in the last round and can pull ahead more easily. Thus some people prefer that teams at the top play other teams at the top in the last round. Whether it's actually fairer is hard to say, because in my little scenario team 1 have already played weaker teams on their way to the top, so team 2 will end up having played against a stronger field if they face team 1 again.

[aguahombre]

The OP asks why this is done, not our opinion about whether it should be done. But, that rarely stops me :D

 

IMO, in a Swiss team movement, a team regardless of its position going into the sacred last round has "made its bones" if it has played all of the top place teams...and it is actually unfair to both teams that they (and only they) play a repeat match.

 

Playing the same team again in a later K.O. phase is obviously different.

[Cyberyeti]

I was wondering why in bridge, compared to chess tournaments, where both use Swiss, in chess you cannot get paired against the same player, while in bridge team events, there is the use of Danish/Italian systems in the last round, where you could face again the same opponent twice. Does this somehow make it the competition fairer or is it just a custom?

 

Chess also suffers from the issue of colours, there is a much bigger chance of unfairness due to this:

 

Imagine the scenario where numbers 1 and 2 have already drawn with 1 as white, but 1 has only had 3 more whites, 2 has had 6, who gets white ? this can be unfair either way depending on the choice.

 

This is not a problem in bridge.

 

That said, I have seen it done in (lower level) chess where numbers 1 and 2 are well clear so that they are going to finish 1 and 2 regardless, but not as a planned part of the system.

[phoenix214]

Well K.O is different, and sure you can complain about it. The reason for my post is actually, that during the last team tournament we had(12 teams, 6 rounds 1-4 Swiss, 5-6 Danish) We got blitzed by the winning team on round 3, and then by some "Miracle" we were 2nd after round 5 by some 0.XX VP, and got blitzed by them again. They got to play the same team in rounds 4 and 5, and won them 2 times. The teams in places 2 and 3 never even got to play that team as well.

 

Well maybe the underdogs like it because it easier to get past the stronger teams, but i am not too convinced that it reflects the results better

[Vampyr]

Two rounds Danish out of six seems truly excessive. I guess with only 12 teams they felt that the number of strong teams was limited, so they had to keep playing against each other? Better then, IMO, to divide the field in the first half or third of the event with a multiple teams or something, and then have either all-play all or a shorter Swiss in each if the two groups.

[Zelandakh]

Imagine the scenario where numbers 1 and 2 have already drawn with 1 as white, but 1 has only had 3 more whites, 2 has had 6, who gets white ? this can be unfair either way depending on the choice.

Chess pairings in Swiss events are done to even out the numbers of whites and blacks. It would be a very unusual event in which a player got 6 whites.

[Cyberyeti]

Chess pairings in Swiss events are done to even out the numbers of whites and blacks. It would be a very unusual event in which a player got 6 whites.

 

Not at all impossible in a 10 or 11 round event.

[Zelandakh]

Not at all impossible in a 10 or 11 round event.

Chess Swiss events are typically 5-7 rounds, or they were within the UK when I was playing. In an 11 round Swiss, 6 whites would be normal and 3 would be unusual.

[Cthulhu D]

After playing other games in a Swiss format with a cut to the top 8 or similar for the finals, I miss

 

A) Elimination finals

 

B) The ability to agree to intentionally draw with your opponent.

[Finch]

I was wondering why in bridge, compared to chess tournaments, where both use Swiss, in chess you cannot get paired against the same player, while in bridge team events, there is the use of Danish/Italian systems in the last round, where you could face again the same opponent twice. Does this somehow make it the competition fairer or is it just a custom?

 

As far as I can tell, it's generally used when there are too many rounds i.e. the event is 'over-swissed'

[nige1]

In the past, the main teams and pairs events, at the EBU Brighton Summer Congress, followed a bizarre Swiss format: Each session consists of 3 or 4 Swiss matches, played in sections. After the first session, your current ranking determines the next section to which you are allocated. Boards are duplicated but scored separately within each section. However well or badly you perform, you stay in the same section for the duration of that session. If a good pair/team has a few unlucky results in the 1st (3-match) session, they may find themselves at the top of the bottom section, for the 2nd (4-match) session. That is a great opportunity. They are likely to get 4 massive wins before popping out into the top section, for the 3rd session. Whatever its shortcomings, it's a great event :)

[rhm]

I was wondering why in bridge, compared to chess tournaments, where both use Swiss, in chess you cannot get paired against the same player, while in bridge team events, there is the use of Danish/Italian systems in the last round, where you could face again the same opponent twice. Does this somehow make it the competition fairer or is it just a custom?

This is largely a matter of the number of participants and the number of rounds played.

In a Swiss chess tournament there are usually few rounds played compared to the number of players in the tournament.

In a Bridge tournament there may be many players, but what counts are the number of teams.

So in Bridge there are usually fewer teams compared to the total number of rounds played in comparison to chess.

This makes Danish / Italian more sensible.

In the last round it may be simply impossible to pit team played against another one, which it has not played yet, while at the same time trying to pit the most successful ones against each other.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[billw55]

Chess Swiss events are typically 5-7 rounds, or they were within the UK when I was playing. In an 11 round Swiss, 6 whites would be normal and 3 would be unusual.

3 whites in 11 rounds seems downright absurd, I can hardly imagine this ever happening with pairing software and a decent director.