I am Swiss Training Director for a online gaming site that hosts a variety of games, including Chess. I was involved in the implementation and testing of our Swiss System tournament system, which I based largely on the USCF Rulebook.
I am very familiar with the USCF Swiss Pairing Rules and feel that USCF has the best and most consistent rules for conducting Swiss System tournaments.
I am not looking for a test on the Rules of Chess or the test that the TDCC gives to Local TDs and above; rather I am looking for good questions that will test whether a person that has been trained to direct Swiss System tourneys has the knowlege and understanding of the Swiss System and Pairing Guidelines.
I would love it if anyone can suggest some good questions to include on such a test. While we have software that generates the Pairings, we need our TDs to be able to make transpositions fairly and correctly and also take into account floating issues.
I have found alot of the threads posted here to be very interesting. I love coming to this forum and reading all the posts. I want to commend all of you for helping new TDs and sharing ideas. This is a wonderful forum.
If you prefer to send me your ideas via email, my email address is dmdesiderata@gmail.com
DMDesiderata
Leagues Support Director
Swiss Training Director Leaga.com
Just to clarify, I am not looking to recruit USCF TDs to direct online tournaments, as we host lots of games, of which Chess is one of them. Rather, I am looking for some good questions/items that will help me design an assessment to determine whether applicants seeking to direct Swiss System tournaments have the knowlege, skills, and abilities, to receive Swiss System Authorization within our system.
It is most important to me that those we authorize to direct Swiss System tournaments have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do so; that they possess unquestionable integrity; and never engage in favortism or manipulation of pairings (favortism and manipulation of pairings is very common in many online gaming sites; our system is much improved in that TDs may only make transpositions IF there are repeated pairings).
Before a TD can apply for Swiss System training, they must meet experience requirements, hosting tournaments in other formats, including Single Elimination, Double Elimination, and Round Robin.
We do get some applicants that claim to have directed Swiss System tournaments; thus an assessment would help to determine whether those applicants have the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to be authorized.
I would welcome any questions/items, scenarios, etc. that would help me to create such an assessment; it is very much needed.
Thanks in advance for your help and ideas.
DMDesiderata
Leagues Support Director
Swiss Training Director Leaga.com
With the various pairing programs available, why don’t you just use one and let people know the program you are using and the settings it has? That eliminates any charges of favoritism.
It sounds like you already have a handle on the non-pairing issues.
I think her online game server has pairing software already. I know when I’ve played in online tournaments with swiss pairings the tournament server had the software built in.
It would be helpful to know what types of games you’re playing in your tournaments. Games like backgammon and cribbage aren’t going to have color issues. Cutting the deck will determine 1st crib, and rolling the dice will determine first move. Chess and checkers are the only games I can think of off hand that have color issues.
Not having color issues eliminates a lot of the need to make transpositions. True swiss pairing software should not allow for players to play each other more then once so there shouldn’t be repeat pairings. If your league has in house ratings that should take care of ranking the players within the score group, and dropping the low rating to the next score group if there’s an odd number.
If you look at the current rulebook there are many pairing scenarios. I would look at these and design questions based on the scenarios that would be applicable to the type of game you’re playing. The Local and Senior TD tests have pairing questions on them. I don’t know if you could get anyone to supply you with questions from those tests that are pairing questions.
If you do not have color issues then you can set the pairing software to two games per round so that it will assume that there are no color issues (every round is one black, one white), at the cost of doubling the total points (win=2, draw=1, loss=0). For that matter, in many speed tournaments the pairings ARE two games per round to increase the number of games in the available time and to eliminate the color issue.
If everybody is listed as unrated then the early pairings will look fairly random.
Well, here are three questions you might want to use. I just made them up, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were similar questions on some of the TD tests:
In round 4, suppose it is necessary to pair a 1600 who has had BWB against an 1800 who has had W-bye-B. If the two players have the same score, the white pieces should be assigned to:
a. the 1600, in order to equalize colors for the player who is unequal.
b. the 1800, in order to alternate colors for the higher-rated player.
In round 3, suppose it is necessary to pair a 1600 who has had BW against an 1800 who has also had BW. If the 1600 has 1.5 points and the 1800 has 1.0 points, the white pieces should be assigned to:
a. the 1800, in order to give white to the higher-rated.
b. the 1600, in order to give white to the higher-scoring.
c. the 1600, in order to alternate colors for the higher-rated.
d. the 1800, in order to alternate colors for the higher-scoring.
In round 4, suppose there are six players with the same score, with the ratings and color history shown below. The raw (untransposed) pairings would be:
1840 (BWB) vs 1640 (BWB)
1820 (WBW) vs 1610 (WBW)
1800 (BWB) vs 1600 (BWB)
Assuming none of these players has played any of the others, the best transposition is:
a. Switch the 1640 with the 1610, as follows:
1840 (BWB) vs 1610 (WBW)
1820 (WBW) vs 1640 (BWB)
1800 (BWB) vs 1600 (BWB)
– giving the white pieces to the 1840, the 1640, and the 1800.
b. Switch the 1610 with the 1600, as follows:
1840 (BWB) vs 1640 (BWB)
1820 (WBW) vs 1600 (BWB)
1800 (BWB) vs 1610 (WBW)
– giving the white pieces to the 1840, the 1600, and the 1800.
c. Just use the untransposed (raw) pairings.
d. Switch the 1640 with the 1610, and drop both the 1800 and the 1600 into the next lower score group in attempt to equalize all the colors.