Tryes for fixed roster team tournaments

[jwiewel]

@wintdoan

I don’t know about SwisSys, but with WinTD, you can’t put a single game record into two locations, so you would need to do two separate game records, and make sure the results match (as described a couple of posts up). One thing to note is that no matter how you do this, the individual board standings will be a mess—you have board two’s and four’s playing above their position, and board one’s and three’s apparently playing on two and four, which (ordinarily) would mark them as board two or four. One should probably hope that (as with, for instance, a cross section pairing) that the player involved isn’t really in contention for anything.

If you enter the match with the normal line-up against a dummy team then the boards can be in the proper order for terms of prize determination (a board 2 vs board 1 pairing would be board 1 for the board 1 player in that team’s pairing vs the dummy team and board 2 for the board 2 player in that team’s pairing vs the dummy team). That is why I suggested having the actual pairings on separate teams that won’t figure into the board prize determination (and deleting the dummy pairings from the results submission).

Unfortunately a trye team could legitimately have a player in contention for a board prize and the dummy opponent will default (for median, mod-median and solkoff purposes) to a score of 1/2*(rounds-1) plus result in the game against the player (i.e. a player winning the trye game in round three of six would default to having beaten a 2.5-3.5 opponent for tie-break purposes). So you either have to manually correct the tie-breaks after the prize list is generated or you have a tedious process of entering dummy match-ups with the dummy player (not submitted for ratings) that would give the appropriate tie-break). It may not be worth messing with if teams can have alternates and there are a lot of times that a player may only play one or two of the rounds (a player in a standard match who beats an opponent who split the other three games played in the six round event, while that opponent sat out in two rounds, would also default to having beaten a 2.5-3.5 opponent for tie-break purposes).

[jwiewel]

@Smythe Dakota

@scottrparker

Your idea of a “trye” is interesting, but … I don’t see how you could work this with a computer pairing system. Neither SwissSys nor WinTD will allow you to interweave three teams in a pairing for a single round. …

I’ve never been a fan of avoiding a procedure just because “the computer won’t let me do it”. If, for example, I were using pairing software that made no provision for cross-round pairings, I would still use cross-round pairings. I’d just do it by hand, and wait until the final reporting stage to figure out how to prepare the rating report.

In fact, I’m wondering how good the popular pairing programs are anyway, when it comes to team-vs-team events. I’m treading on dangerous ground here, because it’s been many years since I’ve played in, let alone helped to direct, a team-vs-team tournament, so I don’t really know how the software handles team events.

I’m imagining that the procedure presently works along the following lines. After the data is entered, the pairing software makes the team pairings, assuming the top 4 players on each team will be playing (i.e. assuming no alternates will be used). After the round starts and it is determined which players on each team are actually playing, the TD then makes changes to accommodate alternates. The pairing software ultimately generates a crosstable, which looks something like this:

1  THE GRAND CHAMPIONS OF WESTERN PENNSYVANIA AND EASTERN OHIO
                                   wbwb  2199  3.5   W 72   W 40   D 28   W109
   Players:                                          (4.0)  (4.0)  (2.0)  (3.5)
   1a  Adams, Abigail     12233445 wbwb  2400  4.0   W 72a  W 40a  W 28a  W109a
   1b  Bensen, Bobby      13344556 bwbw  2300  4.0   W 72b  W 40b  W 28b  W109b
   1c  Campbell, Charlie  14455667 wbwb  2200  2.5   W 72c  W 40d  L 28c  D109c
   1d  Davidson, David    15566778 bwbw  1896  3.0   W 72d  W 40e  L 28d  W109e

2  THE DAKOTA RANCHERS, FARMERS, AND POLKA PLAYERS
                                   bwbw  2195  3.5   W 75   W 41   D 29   W110
   Players:                                          (3.0)  (3.0)  (2.0)  (3.0)
   2a  Edahl, Ernest      16677889 bwbw  2300  1.5   W 75a  L 41a  D 29a  L110a
   2b  Farmer, Florence   17788990 wbwb  2200  2.5   D 75b  W 41b  L 29b  W110b
   2c  Gibbons, Gertrude  18899001 bw-w  2190  2.5   D 75c  W 41c    -    W110c
   2d  Holmes, Hector     19900112 wbb-  2090  2.5   W 75d  W 41d  D 29c    -
   2e  Iverson, Inez      10011223 --wb  2010  2.0     -      -    W 29d  W110d

Only the top two teams are shown here. The top line is reserved for the team name. The second line shows the team’s color history (i.e. the colors on boards 1 and 3), the team’s average rating, the team’s match score, and round-by-round team results. The third line shows (in parentheses) the team’s game score, round by round.

The remaining lines show the data for the individual players, lettered a-d (or a-e if alternates are involved).

Now let’s suppose that, due to withdrawals after round 3, there are now an odd number of teams, and that teams 97, 98, 99 are not doing well, all having match scores of 0 out of 3. The TD pairs these three teams in a trye, so that the crosstable ultimately will look like this:

97 THE FORD TRYE MOTORS
                                    wbwb  1050  1.0   L 46   L 65   L 71   W 98
   Players:                                           (0.0)  (0.0)  (0.5)  (2.5)
   97a  Johnson, James     10001234 wbwb  1200  1.0   L 46a  L 65a  L 71a  W 98b
   97b  Kardashian, Kathy  10002345 bwbb  1100  0.0   L 46b  L 65b  L 71b  L 99a
   97c  Lightfoot, Linda   10003456 wbww  1000  1.5   L 46c  L 65c  D 71c  W 99d
   97d  Monson, Martin     10004567 bwbw   900  0.5   L 46d  L 65d  L 71d  D 98c

98 TRYE AS YOU MIGHT
                                    bwbw  1000  1.0   L 47   L 66   L 72   W 99
   Players:                                           (1.5)  (1.0)  (0.0)  (2.5)
   98a  Noble, Nicholas    10012345 bwbw  1150  2.0   W 47a  L 66a  L 72a  W 99b
   98b  O’Shea, Otto       10023456 wbww  1050  0.5   D 47b  L 66b  L 72b  L 97a
   98c  Peterson, Paula    10034567 bwbb   950  0.5   L 47c  L 66c  L 72c  D 97d
   98d  Quincy, Quayle     10045678 wbwb   850  2.0   L 47d  W 66d  L 72d  W 99c

99 TRYE TRYE TRYE AGAIN
                                    bwbw   950  0.0   L 48   L 67   L 73   L 97
   Players:                                           (1.5)  (1.0)  (0.0)  (1.0)
   99a  Raddison, Richard  10011234 bwbw  1100  1.0   W 48a  L 67a  L 73a  L 97b
   99b  Smith, Sean        10022345 wbwb  1000  0.5   D 48b  L 67b  L 73b  L 98a
   99c  Thayer, Thomas     10033456 bwbw   900  0.0   L 48c  L 67c  L 73c  L 98d
   99d  Unruh, Ulysses     10044567 wbwb   800  2.0   L 48d  W 67d  L 73d  W 97c

Note the non-matching opponent numbers in the round 4 column. This is due to the trye.

Now, how does the TD get the pairing software to produce this eventual result? I would suggest temporarily marking all three teams as withdrawn, then printing and posting the round 4 pairing sheet, and hand-writing the three team names at the bottom with a note saying “see TD”. The players on these three teams are going to need to see the TD anyway, to have the situation explained to them.

Then, once the games have started, the TD edits the data to put the correct opponent numbers into the database, just as he has done in previous rounds to handle alternates. Only this time he edits not only the opponent letters a-d, but also the opponent numbers, so that the team’s opponents can come from different teams, as required by the trye concept.

Eventually, perhaps, the pairing programs could be modified to automate some of the above – but not the “see TD” part, which will be a necessary step anyway from a tournament management standpoint.

Bill Smythe

I’m not sure about SwissSys. With WinTD I print one cross-table with just the teams (shows which team number was played, the match result of 0.0, 0.5 or 1.0, and the match score of 3.5-0.5, 2.0-2.0, 1.0-3.0, etc) and no information about individuals. The second cross-table is individuals printed by teams (in team points/rating order) and shows just the results of the players and their pairing numbers (players 1-4 on the leading team, 5-9 on the second team and including an alternate, 10-13 on the third team, etc.). After the penultimate round I also print a third cross-table in board standings order (board/points/rating order) so that players going for board prizes can readily see who their competition is during the final round.