tournament format preferences
Posted:
Aug 2, 2025, 10:05 AM
Hi all, this is an RFC, from a time long ago when the internet was still being built on those.
What are the preferred/suitable formats for a) Pente Masters b) Pente Amateurs c) Pente Open d) more popular variants/other games e) less popular variants/other games
Bear in mind that I'll also try to use this for tournament creation automation as well, so that the ones that are quickly over don't have to wait a long time for the longer ones.
Re: tournament format preferences
Posted:
Aug 14, 2025, 12:43 PM
a and b are already rotated with C. Rotating formats I can do, but first will be automagic tournament restarting.
Before rotating came up, I was asking about the ideal or better format for each of the tournament types. A, B, and C are more polular than the rest, and single elimination wouldn't do them justice, at least double elimination for the pente amateurs, but I was wondering if there's a strong preference for either swiss or round-robin for the open and masters, or even amateurs.
Re: tournament format preferences
Posted:
Aug 14, 2025, 4:43 PM
Maybe I prefer the Swiss, but by a small margin.
From Google AI,
In Swiss tournaments and Round Robin tournaments, participants compete against each other, but the key difference lies in the number of matches played. In a Round Robin, every participant plays every other participant, while in a Swiss system, participants are paired based on their performance in previous rounds, ensuring they play opponents with similar records, but not necessarily everyone.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Round Robin: Every participant plays every other participant. Suitable for smaller groups where this is feasible. Guarantees a clear winner by ensuring everyone plays everyone else. Can be time-consuming and impractical with a large number of participants.
Swiss System: Participants are paired based on their win/loss record. Winners play winners, losers play losers, creating balanced matches. Suitable for larger groups where playing everyone is not feasible. Allows for a larger number of participants and fewer rounds compared to Round Robin. Participants can still win or achieve a high ranking even after losing a match.
In essence: Round Robin ensures every participant gets to play every other, which can be fair but might be impractical for larger groups. Swiss tournaments prioritize fairness by pairing similar-skilled opponents, reducing the number of matches needed and making it more suitable for larger events.
Re: tournament format preferences
Posted:
Aug 15, 2025, 6:11 PM
From our own FAQ, and an example of a swiss we held here, as well as a few round-robins:
- swiss is the only format where there's no elimination, and the number of rounds are fixed. Moreover, you get a ranking, which the other formats don't give. But it lets all players play to the end, and possibly be matched more with players of similar skill. - our round-robin version still has players in brackets and eliminates players until the final bracket.
Re: tournament format preferences
Posted:
Aug 19, 2025, 4:51 PM
It actually depends on how many games can an average player afford. I'd suggest DRR for everything with 8-10 participants or less, Swiss for bigger tournaments.
The big problem with Swiss is time control: when it is 3 days per move, the tournament can last ages. Is it possible to play like 20 or 30 days per game per player? Then 6-round Swiss will turn into half-of-a-year tournament. But there might be players who abandon the tournament; so there will be some issues about Buchholz adaptations for such tournaments. For programming a Swiss, I can provide some advices on JaVaFo usage.
If SE/DE system is to be used, some upgrades to the pairing procedure is necessary. Generally speaking, having N players (and having n such as 2^(n-1) < N <= 2^n), you have to add 2^n - N byes in the first round so in the second round you already have a number of participants which is a power of 2 already.
I remember you've asked me to bring you some links but I didn't search for them, my bad. Too low motivation, I just know how to do it, enough for me =) I'd like to eliminate Single Elimination as a tournament system so don't want to upgrade it unless I'm forced to use it or play by it.
