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Swiss not Danish

#1 User is offline   pilun 

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Posted 2020-December-26, 05:09

I'm not a programmer.

I'm surprised that BBO code hasn't been written to run a proper Swiss Pairs or Teams.
Must be hard to check for repeats before doing the draw.

Today I ran a 12 table "Swiss" Pairs (6 x 8 bds) on BBO with pre-entry. One pair didn't make it, so I filled in with robots.
(Better than human subs for a 6 hour event)
Anyway, the pair who played the bots in round 1, played them again in round 5. They didn't much like that. Many find the instantaneous play off-putting.
That was one of four repeats in the event.
The bot-replaying pair had a midfield draw in round 5 and - lo and behold - had to play them again in round 6! Fed up, they were about to leave.
Luckily I was able to scrounge some human players.

Every scoring program can handle a Swiss. Can somebody explain why it is so hard for BBO?
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#2 User is offline   kenjay 

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Posted 2020-December-26, 08:20

View Postpilun, on 2020-December-26, 05:09, said:

I'm not a programmer.

I'm surprised that BBO code hasn't been written to run a proper Swiss Pairs or Teams.
Must be hard to check for repeats before doing the draw.

Today I ran a 12 table "Swiss" Pairs (6 x 8 bds) on BBO with pre-entry. One pair didn't make it, so I filled in with robots.
(Better than human subs for a 6 hour event)
Anyway, the pair who played the bots in round 1, played them again in round 5. They didn't much like that. Many find the instantaneous play off-putting.
That was one of four repeats in the event.
The bot-replaying pair had a midfield draw in round 5 and - lo and behold - had to play them again in round 6! Fed up, they were about to leave.
Luckily I was able to scrounge some human players.

Every scoring program can handle a Swiss. Can somebody explain why it is so hard for BBO?


What we consider normal Swiss may be different from other parts of the world. I have often used a Danish draw for the last round of a “normal” Swiss in the case of a smallish number of tables.
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#3 User is online   mycroft 

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Posted 2020-December-27, 17:57

Full, required swisses are awful (as someone who runs them a fair bit), except maybe for the top teams. As soon as you get into overswissing, the matches get awful.

12 teams with more than 4 rounds is definitely overswissing. The fifth round seems okay, it helps to settle things past first place nicely. The sixth round definitely is going to be "which A team can beat up mid-field fish best", especially if it's a victory pointed event.

Even though they're the teams that love it, I think ACBL standard swiss events (that haven't become bracketed round robins) are awful for the second/third strat. Almost invariably, the team that wins X/C (or B/C, depending) is the team that best survives the thrashing they get against the teams trying to win A (who have played all of each other already). Whether that's the 6th round of 15 teams, or the 8th round of 40, doesn't matter much.

I would expect that last-round rematches would be welcomed by many (after the first couple of experiences griping about "but we've already played them" until they notice how it works) - the top teams know they're not in a fish-shooting contest, but have to win against one of their actual competitors; the X tops get to play against their opponents rather than be the fish; the bottom teams don't have to play the lower midfield when they could rematch against someone they have a chance of beating. But I can hear Tevye's fiddle from here...
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#4 User is offline   pilun 

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Posted 2020-December-28, 15:40

View Postmycroft, on 2020-December-27, 17:57, said:

Full, required swisses are awful (as someone who runs them a fair bit), except maybe for the top teams. As soon as you get into overswissing, the matches get awful.

12 teams with more than 4 rounds is definitely overswissing. The fifth round seems okay, it helps to settle things past first place nicely. The sixth round definitely is going to be "which A team can beat up mid-field fish best", especially if it's a victory pointed event.

Even though they're the teams that love it, I think ACBL standard swiss events (that haven't become bracketed round robins) are awful for the second/third strat. Almost invariably, the team that wins X/C (or B/C, depending) is the team that best survives the thrashing they get against the teams trying to win A (who have played all of each other already). Whether that's the 6th round of 15 teams, or the 8th round of 40, doesn't matter much.

I would expect that last-round rematches would be welcomed by many (after the first couple of experiences griping about "but we've already played them" until they notice how it works) - the top teams know they're not in a fish-shooting contest, but have to win against one of their actual competitors; the X tops get to play against their opponents rather than be the fish; the bottom teams don't have to play the lower midfield when they could rematch against someone they have a chance of beating. But I can hear Tevye's fiddle from here...


Perhaps BBO can add a Danish option for people like you. A Swiss is a Swiss.
I quite like a Danish last round, provided it's just for 3rd vs 4th place, etc. What you want to avoid is the top two replaying a hard fought draw, only to see the third placed team cruise past them with a big win against a weak team coming off a lucky win. Those two teams should be battling for 3rd & 4th only.

Shooting fish in a barrel is part of the game. Often, that is what decides who qualifies in world championships, where you have a round-robin to knockouts.
Round robins are the ultimate Swiss events. Take the trivial example of four teams, three good ones and one to make up the numbers. I see no reason why the event should not be decided by which team beats up team D by the most. Much better than having some team play team D twice.
Really, deep-diving in the last round is a reward for having done the hard yards against the other tough teams early on.

Agree that some events are over-swissed. The issue of number of rounds is a thorny one, not solved by resorting to a Danish.
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#5 User is online   mycroft 

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Posted 2020-December-29, 14:07

The issue is that the last round isn't what you said, it's the top 4 teams playing the 7th-10th teams they haven't played yet, and the winner is who can pull off the 20-0. Meanwhile, the 7th-10th teams are competing for first in the second strat, and their winner is either the one that gets to miss the top 4 altogether and play 6th, or catch the 1-4 team who can only win 13-7. Who, exactly, is that fair to?

I think allowing rematches in the last round is an acceptable compromise, not necessarily full replays allowed.

Having said that, a Round Robin is not a Swiss in any sense of the word</terminology SB>.
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#6 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2021-January-03, 17:34

IIRC, many years ago hrothgar reported some results of analyzing Swiss Teams tournaments. The gist of it was that Swiss movements are good at finding the top team, but poor at ranking the runners up, for the reasons give here.

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