40/25, SD/10+5

It’s really easy to program if you let it do stupid things:

ÏÏ§Ï FM NICK RAPTIS 2384 (0.0) W *-* JASON C ZHANG 1455 (0.5) W ÏÏ§Ï MANEESH RAJAGOPAL 1474 (0.5) B *-* BRYCE TIGLON 2306 (0.0) B

It obviously does “top down” pairings which, in the draw score group for round two will, if you have an odd number of drawn games and even number of won games, leave you with two players who played each other. Of course, that cursed rule book explains how top down pairings are a bad idea, but, hey, it’s easy to write software if you just dump all the problems down into the next score group. Instead of fixing the draw group, it double downfloats the bottom two.

Again, the basic rules of the Swiss (whether USCF or FIDE) aren’t that complicated. What makes them complicated are the hard cases where the “easy” pairings don’t work. It’s better for club TD’s to learn the existing rules rather than try to define them away. And it’s really better for club TD’s to learn the existing rules than to try to write programs to implement a “brand new” system which defines them away.

The more I think about Mr. Olson’s idea, the more I think players would hate it. At every tournament I run I have a steady stream of players by the wallcharts and, in the last round, by the flyer. They all want to know what they have to do to win prizes, and how much they can get in any number of scenarios. Mr. Olson’s plan, near as I can understand it, makes it nearly impossible to know how you are doing during a tournament. FWIW, indivisible prizes make this problem even worse.

Alex Relyea

Hi Folks! My friend wanted to ask opinions on this time control. I didn’t ask him to post in this forum, or to make posts on subjects not relating to this time control in this thread. But I figured I should get involved since they are all my invention after all.

I made a new thread regarding the new system of pairing tournaments here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22039

And I also made a new thread on the rotating blocks here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22040

Feel free to write replies to those. But this thread is in regard to the time control.