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.
Re: tournament format preferences
Posted:
Aug 21, 2025, 9:30 AM
I created new tournaments right before you posted.
is round-robin still attractive if the number of players is between 3 and 8? seems you'd get at most 2 brackets in that case, and you get to play everyone in your bracket only, but there's still elimination going on after the 1st round.
I've set the open to swiss, Go to SE because those games take so long, and the rest is DE now.
