New Pairing Variation

[Ron_Suarez]

Moderator Mode: Off

As you can see in the previous new thread in this forum, my friend Wayne has asked a question on what to call a pairing variation of a tournament he has run in the past. This came from a discussion he and I were having earlier about an idea I had for a way to do pairings that might be fun.

Alright, my idea is to have a Challenge Pairing System. Now the details of this system can be changed to make it better as this is still in the formative stage.

1. In a tournament the players of the lower half of the pool would actually be able to challenge anyone in the upper half of the pool to play in that round. The person challenged might be able to not accept the challenge, of that I am still unsure. Let’s say there were 12 players in our tournament. Number 7, being the top of the bottom half, would be able to challenge any of the players 1 - 6. When an opposition has been agreed, Number 8 would then have his choice of whom to challenge from the remaining players in the top half.

2 As I said, I am still unsure if the players in the top half would be able to decline the challenge or not. Of course if they must accept the challenge, then it would be called Choose Your Opponent.

3. Another variation of this would be something like a silent auction.

a. All the players would list their preference or priority of opponents in that round game numerically on a piece of paper. In the above example each player in the 1 - 6 part would list each name of the lower half pool, 1 - 6 of their choices, who they would want to play. The lower half, 7 - 12 would list in the same manner their choices of the top half of players they would want to play.

b. The TD would collect all the lists, of course with the player’s name on top, and begin with the number 1 choices for a matching. The game would be matched by the highest priority combination of the players. For instance if the Number 2 player had listed number 9 as his first choice and number 9 had listed number 2 as his top choice, they would be paired.

4. In both of the above variations, the following rounds would have the opposition offerings from the normal pairing pool of the Swiss System. In the second round all those with a score of 1 would be split up into upper and lower halves and then the opposition choices would be reduced normally.

5. I’m still working on these pairing variations so any ideas you fellows have are certainly welcome.

6. My main question, or argument with Wayne, is how these can be rated. Wayne says that he wonders if it has to be rated as a match because the players chose their opponent. I don’t know about that because the opposition pool would still be the original one from the standard Swiss System. All the people with a score of 1 would be pooled together as all those with a 1/2 and then a 0 would be pooled in their respective groups. As the tournament progresses and if the number of players is not that great, the choices for opponents will lower in number and it is conceivable that there could be only one pairing possibility for an individual player in an individual round and that’s alright.

So, would this be rated as a normal Swiss or would we need to twist and contort ourselves to rate this as a match?

[Smythe_Dakota]

We used to run Choose-Your-Opponent tournaments occasionally at the Chicago club on Lunt Avenue. The format wasn’t exactly the same as you describe, but it had a lot of common features. We always got them successfully listed in Tournament Life, and USCF-rated.

I’m quite sure USCF would have no objection to rating your format. Only if there are time odds, or something similar – something which would affect the validity of the ratings – would there be a problem.

In the format we used, pairings were made without regard to score, rating, or color.

In round 1, each player’s name was called, in turn, beginning with the highest-rated player. He could either choose an opponent or pass. If he passed, someone else farther down the list would probably choose him. After all players had either chosen an opponent, passed, or been chosen by another player, any remaining players would be paired arbitrarily (probably 1-vs-2 style) by the TD.

Players were assigned choice points – 1 if he chose his opponent, 0 if he passed or was chosen.

In subsequent rounds, players with the lowest choice-point totals were given first priority in choosing. Choices could be made without regard to score, rating, or color. No player was allowed to refuse to play somebody who chose him. Players were not allowed to choose an opponent they had already faced. The player who chose his opponent also chose color (“I’ve always wanted to play the XYZ opening against this guy, now’s my chance”).

Prizes were awarded according to the highest player defeated (e.g. if anybody defeated the highest-rated player in the tournament, that player would win first prize).

Bill Smythe

[jwiewel]

Try to make the number of rounds significantly smaller than the number of players, as otherwise in the latter rounds you may end up with early choices boxing you into either re-pairing a pair of players or pairings WAY out of scoregroups.
If that is not a concern then don’t worry about it.

[wzim]

New Rules for USCF Rated Matches

The USCF has revised its rules for USCF rated matches. A match is defined as any games from events organized as matches (or a series of matches) of two or more games or any games between two players in which the players choose to play each other. (That’s to exclude any games from Swiss events that arise as a result of various pairing situations during a tournament, such as extra games involving a house player, poor turnout in a section, etc. Since the players didn’t enter the Swiss tournament with the intention of playing each other in a match, the match rules should not apply.)…

My problem with Ron’s idea is that one of the players is choosing to play someone and so I think that the choose your opponent idea should be considered a match. Ron disagrees in that one of the players isn’t choosing.