I think cross-round pairings are a great idea for scholastic tournaments. The lower-rated younger players generally finish their games very quickly and it’s easy to fit in a cross-round pairing to get rid of the bye. (Unless, of course, the tournament is very large and/or under-staffed).
I’m not crazy about using a house-man or cross-section pairings. In both cases I’d prefer to award a full point bye and let the players have an extra rated game if they want. That way you know that both players really want to play and that you won’t get any funny results. Plus, I think a player should only HAVE to play others in his own section – that’s what he paid and signed up for, right?
We used cross-round pairings for a number of years in the various scholastic tournaments in Northeastern Illinois, but when individual sections of the multi-section tournaments started exceeding 100 players and the player/TD ratio was over 125 I opted to stop doing so. I preferred either simply awarding the bye or doing extra games, though I still do an occasional cross-round pairing if the circumstances warrant it.
If there are an odd number of players then a cross-round pairing eliminates two byes (from successive rounds) in a single game. You start by having the odd player in round one play the first bottom-half round one loser and have it count as that other player’s round two game. That leaves you with an even number of players who have yet to play round two. The round three cross-round then evens out round four. WinTD handles that just fine and so did Swiss-Sys when I was using that. The tournament report upload also handles it just fine (with a warning).
One problem with cross-round pairings occurs if it is due to a player (in a section with an even number) taking a half-point bye in one round and then returning (things would be so much easier if scholastic players didn’t have to temporarily leave to play in a basketball game against another school). If you had simply let the odd player have a bye then you would have had a problem in one round. Doing cross-round pairings in that situation gives you a problem in every round.
A second problem occurs if coaches get upset that a player went back almost immediately to play a second game and lost that one too. The general argument used is that the player was tired, but that kind of overlooks that the cross-round pairing should be done with the first available eligible opponent (assuming the opponent is willing) and thus there wasn’t that much time spent on the game anyway.
In the later rounds, there are not as many eligible opponents, so finding one becomes more difficult (especially if it’s an individual/team event and you thus need to avoid teammate pairings). If you opt to do cross-round pairings then you may want to take as your “bye” the person who has the most eligible opponents in the bottom score group(s).
That’s true. Adding one player to the other player’s wall chart may work well only if the higher-rated wins (which happens most of the time). If the lower-rated wins or draws, a separate extra-games wall chart may be the only answer.
Either way, BOTH players get a full point in the tournament, plus an extra rated game. If the higher-rated wins and the result is posted on the winner’s wall chart, the winner is showing up as a (played) win, while the loser is showing up as a full-point bye.
Often the players (at least the winner) prefer that their result show up on a posted wall chart, rather than on a “secret” extra-games wall chart that nobody ever sees except the TD.
In practice they probably would have. The TD would be inclined to get the majority of the games started as quickly as possible, rather than delaying the start of the round while the two players are asked whether they would prefer to play or have byes. So temporary byes would be assigned, then after the other games start, the two players would be pulled aside and asked if they would prefer to play each other.
Typically, the (temporarily) byed player is listed on the pairing sheet as “please wait” or “see TD” rather than “bye”. Then he is asked if he would prefer to play if an opponent can be found. If he says yes, he is asked to wait a short time. Then, when one of the round 1 games finishes, the loser is asked if he would like to play his round 2 game early. If he agrees, he is immediately paired against the byed player, counting it as one player’s round 1 game and the other’s round 2 game. Write it on the wall chart this way also – under round 1 for one player, round 2 for the other. Then, in round 2, the player who has already played 2 games is not paired, since he has already played his second game.
I don’t think it matters either way if the game counts for one player in one section, but not the player in the other section who’s receiving the bye point. For the most part byes are being assigned to players who are either lowest rated in their section, and not going to be in contention anyway, or somebody who is just simply having a bad tournament and is not going to be in contention.
Rating points are still on the line, and I think no matter which section the win goes in both players are going to play normally. It’s also possible that someone who is playing up, or having a bad tournament may decide brush off that wild gambit and give it a shot, because at that point there is nothing to lose. In any game we have to be prepared for the unexpected.
The one merit of giving both players their bye point and putting the rated game in another section is that both players now have byes and won’t be subjected to another bye. There have been times in later rounds that the bye ends out being assigned to someone who has a point because all the zero scorers have dropped out. In this type situation the person who won the cross section game in their section could find themselves in line for a bye again if that ends out being the only game they won, because it does not appear that they received a bye.
Some may argue that this is okay becaue the player didn’t really get a bye because they played a game that round and won. But since the player they played in that cross section game most like isnt someone they would have played under normal circumstances it doesnt seem fair to subject them to another bye, or another cross section pairing.
Funny you should mention this. In the particular example I used, my “extra game” opponent ended up winning the Expert section. I think this sort of thing happens more often than you’d expect because of players “playing up” when they know they’ve improved significantly.
Smythe and jweiwel thanks for your responses/explanations regarding cross round pairings, and thank you Tim for the rule book reference.
I think I get it now. If I had a 9 player tournament where the 1st round pairings are 1-5, 6-2, 3-7 and 8-4, and if 8 lost quickly and agreed to play a cross-rounder with 9, 8 would not be paired when the other players (including 9) are paired for their 2nd round game.
I almost understand now, except for this: In tournaments with an odd number of rounds, with no withdrawals or late entrants, would one player end up getting in one rated game more than the other players? (You may have stated this already, but I’m too excited to check the backthread).
Yes. It’s not always possible to avoid a bye, by crossround pairings or any other method. Still, this reduces the number of byes to one from three or five or whatever.
I guess I was speaking from my own experience where I’m never in contention, but frequently getting byes. I always want the rated game, and don’t care where they put it.
In your case the player would have gotten the point either way. Bye or winning against you and having result count in his section. It shouldnt impact how either of you play.
A player whose game doesn’t count, may try something he wouldn’t in an ordinary game. Just by luck, he might give the player from the higher section an unusually tough game.
A player whose game doesn’t count may play without real effort. The player from the higher section might get an unusually easy win.
Neither of these are ideal situations. The real problem is one of perceived fairness if one player from the higher section gets a game like #1 and the other gets one like #2 and they end up in competition for the same prize. This is a problem you wouldn’t have using the same house player for both games or awarding a 1 point bye to both players (and let them play extra games if they want). This is possibly more a problem of PERCEPTION than reality – it doesn’t matter if both lower-section opponents really tried to play normally, if there is a perception that one put forth a greater effort than the other.
Why give yourself (as TD) any unneeded problems? Nobody will object to getting a 1 point bye and being offered a chance at an extra game. Nobody will feel this is unfair as long as you follow the pairing rules from the rulebook. Even if problems aren’t expected by counting the higher-rated players’ games, why take a chance for no expected benefit?
Sure – or one less. But 1 bye in 5 rounds is better than 5 byes in 5 rounds, so it ALMOST solves the bye problem.
Also, because of drop-outs, late entrants, requested half-point byes, etc, in practice the one extra bye is almost as likely to occur in an even-round tournament as in an odd-.
Cross-round pairings work best if there are several lower-rated players in the tournament. If almost everybody is rated 1800 or higher, there may be too few fast-finishing games to make it work.
I don’t think anybody is proposing that the game count for one player but not the other. No matter how you do the paperwork, BOTH players get a full point in the tournament, and an extra rated game.
Either (1) both players are given a full-point bye on their respective wall charts, and the actual result is recorded on a separate extra-games wall chart, or (2) the game is not posted on any wall chart until it is over, at which time it’s posted on the winner’s wall chart (STILL giving the winner a full point) while a bye is posted on the loser’s wall chart (STILL giving that player a full point, too).
As I pointed out before, if the lower-rated player wins, posting the result on his section’s wall cahrt just won’t work. (Do you really want an 1800 player with one game at the top of an U1600 section?) My practice is to post the game on the higher-rated plaeyr’s pairing sheet and give the lower-rated a bye in his section. If the higher player wins, the result can simply be rated that way. If he doesn’t, I giove nhim his bye and pull the game out into an “extra games”
As I pointed out before, if the lower-rated player wins, posting the result on his section’s wall chart often won’t work. (Do you really want an 1800 player with one game at the top of an U1600 section?) My practice is to post the game on the higher-rated player’s pairing sheet and give the lower-rated a bye in his section. If the higher-rated player wins, the result can simply be rated that way. If he doesn’t, I give him his bye and pull the game out into an “extra games” section.
Actually, that was suggested earlier in this thread.
As for where the game is listed, it doesn’t really matter where the extra game is DISPLAYED on the wall chart but it will cause less confusion if it’s put on a separate “extra games” section. Otherwise one of the players might LOOK like he’s due a bye later in the tournament, right?
That shouldn’t be a problem if you list the game in the WINNER’s section, because then that player will have 1 point and won’t “look” as though he is due a bye.
The disadvantage of an extra-games wall chart is that, usually, it is kept hidden away in the TD room. Others in the tournament won’t even know the game was played. Even the two players involved may be left with the uncomfortable feeling that the TD may forget to submit the extra section for rating.
John Hillery makes a good point in the case where the lower-rated player wins. You wouldn’t want the “extra” player (the loser) listed at the top of the wall chart, especially if his rating makes him ineligible for that section. But even when the lower player wins, putting the game on the winner’s wall chart SOMETIMES works, as that player may be playing up a section and thus not be near the top anyway.
I didn’t make my point very clearly. The case I was trying to cover was when the bottom score group (for awarding a bye) IS the group with 1 point. It’s not that uncommon to see this in longer swiss tournaments and you occasionally see it even in 5 round weekend events. Then the player that had received the bye previously will look like he is due a bye (unless he’s won another game in the mean time).
If it’s a tournament with many sections and the lower rated player wins there’s always the option of putting the result in a section that neither of them is playing but both are eligible for. Give them the bye in their respective sections. So if the 1500 beats the 1800, put the result in the Open or Under 2000 section. This way both players will see that the result is somewhere, and it won’t mess up the order in their own sections.
That’s true. But as a practical matter, the odds of having to give a bye to a 1-pointer AND having the original byed player win no further games are slight. I’d be willing to take the chance.
And if it did happen, I’d simply try to give the bye to a different player (by overriding the computer pairings, if necessary).