Event Idea. Input appreciated

Running Chess Tournaments
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Does the following event format sound feasible under USCF rules?

I wanted to create a monthly recurring event in which players are paired up against opponents closest in rating for a one-off, challenging rated classical game (like a tournament with only one round). There may be more than one way of setting this up in WINTD, but I want to make sure I am compliant with USCF rules. One way of doing it would be creating sections with 4 players, and doing an accelerated pairing (or not?). This would ensure that each player would get a competitive game. Or I could do 1-2, 3-4 pairing. Or I could manually match players up. I understand the limitations of creating match games, like the maximum 400 point rating disparity, and the issue of a player potentially dropping their rating floor if they are at or near their floor.

Entry fee will be minimal - 5 dollars per month. And the prize fund would also be minimal, perhaps $100 for the top point getter for the entire year and another $100 for other prizes. It kind of depends on turnout.

The main point is to enjoy a challenging classical game and to stay sharp for more serious tournaments that take place in the area throughout the year.

In order to guarantee a diversity of opponents over the year, and maintaining color equality, I would have to maintain a spreadsheet to track these things, and make manual adjustments where necessary.

Thanks for any input on this idea. I know it’s not the typical format!

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Do you know what a ladder event is? Seems like you’re kind of close to that.

As far as ratability is concerned, US Chess ratings for the most part don’t care why player A was paired against player B (FIDE is fussier about that.)

Match rule issues do come into play if someone faces the same opponent 3 or more time.

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Thanks for your thoughts! I struggled to see how to use winTD pairing software for a ladder tournament. Since the games are once a month, I will want to submit each month’s results in a timely way. But at the same time, I’ll have to track the pairings separately on a spreadsheet. I figured a good rule of thumb would be to avoid pairing the same players for two months after their game occurs, that way if they do play in January, and again in April, they can easily retain color parity.

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There’s a minimum ratings fee of $3, which is 12 games @ 25 cents each, that might factor in to how often you submit a rating report.

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Good point! Or I just pay the minimum and be satisfied that the little extra expense supports your great work!

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I will be ignoring colors in the following analysis just to make the math easier to follow (if you use double round pairings - one game white and one game black against the same opponent - then it tracks well).

If you use 1 vs 2 pairings then note that if you have 32 players and the higher rated player always wins then #1 will get paired with 2, then 3, then 5, then 9, then 17 before being the only 5-0. Essentially the reverse order of a standard Swiss where the higher rated player always wins. Draws or upsets can more quickly weaken the opposition for the top scoring player.

A regular Swiss would have 1 paired with 17, then 9, then 5, then 3, then 2. Number 11 would be paired with 27, then 3, then 19, then 5, then 17.

Accelerated pairings are often touted for giving games with smaller rating differences but that is usually only true for opposite ends of the rating distribution. A five-round 32-player accelerated Swiss (higher rated always winning) would have #1 paired with 9, then 5, then 3, then 2, then 4. Number 11 would be paired with 3, then 19, then 23, then 4, then 17 (essentially trading 4 and 23 for 5 and 27). A third round that looks a lot like a first round makes the 75% in the middle wonder how accelerated pairings benefited them, and if it is done in a case where it wasn’t even needed to have at most one perfect score (it is unnecessary for 32 players with 5 rounds) then you can see a pushback from the middle.

My club’s (non-US Chess rated) ladder uses 1 vs 2 pairings (based on points scored) every week with the proviso that you get four different opponents before getting a rematch but players of similar are likely to face each other multiple times over the year. Parings are made each week based on who showed up that week. To avoid the color issue we just ignore color history and toss for colors in every game (there are the normal statistical occurrences where one player gets more heavily skewed towards playing one color but that is random chance rather than intentional and is accepted as such). There are two end-of-season 8-player rated round robins for the top scorers, with a traveling trophy for each round robin. Tie breaks to qualify for the round robins are set to promote participation (13-13 is better than 13-5). Each new season starts with everybody at 0-0.

With one game per week, and with some games getting deferred due to normal scheduling conflicts, the round robins generally run a little more than two months. I submit them at the end even though they can run more than one month (together if they end about the same time, separately if one has deferred games making it run longer than the other). If you are only running rated games once per month as part of a long tournament then you’d probably want to submit them after every third round (about two months for each set of three rounds, i.e. Jan 15-Mar 18, Apr 14-Jun 19, Jul 15-Sep 14, Oct 16-Dec 14)

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I want to clarify (and I edited the original post), the idea is each month would be like a tournament with only one round. Perhaps instead, like you suggested @jwiewel, I could do 3 rounds per rating report. This would work well with a recent idea for quarterly prize distribution.

To that point of prizes, with the small $5 entry fee, I will give out one $25 prepaid debit card for the highest point getter each quarter. There is a high likelihood there will be ties. So I will have a tiebreaker system: 1) most wins, then 2) most wins as black, then 3) most cumulative points (awarding early round wins). If those three don’t result in a decisive winner then I’ll have to come up with another means - either the sonneborn-berger tie-break or flip a coin. At that point it’s like splitting hairs.

What I like about this prize model is that the quarterly prize doesn’t necessarily go to the strongest player, but rewards consistency. If you show up and win 3 rounds, you are in the running for the quarterly prize, no matter your rating. And by giving out a quarterly prize, it helps to generate a little more interest. At least that is my hope! In my marketing materials, I emphasize the main purpose of the event is for improvement, community, and enjoyment. The prizes are for extra recognition of dedication and skill. There will be an additional end of year award of $50 for the top point getter, and another $50 prize for best under 1000, who likely wouldn’t end up with a quarterly or end of year top-point-getter prize.

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Some years ago I wrote a Devil’s Dictionary-style definition of a tiebreak: A mathematical process designed to annoy the maximum number of people.

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Total Rounds? Once a month 12?
How many total players?
Rating Spread?
How many likely to play each month?
Missed rounds count as 0 vs .5/1 bye vs .5/1 pairing bye (important if you use 1-2 3-4)
How often is a rematch ok?
Define Competitive? +/- 200, 400, 600, ??

In general unless you a large number of participants or they have very concentrated ratings - Competitive and limited repeat pairings are working against each other. Throw in trying to maintain color balance can also hurt (e.g. colors could be perfect for a balance but it is a rematch with same colors as prior meeting) - also, Murhpy’s law applies in that players that are perfect pairs will not be present on the same day.

My first though would be to let WinTD do 1-2 3-4 and then adjust the pairings manually – missed rounds get pairing byes based on player’s strength which are removed for final standings. I have never seen any pairing option to allow re-pairing unless they are forced. The Allow X Pairs of same players if Y rounds have past since the last time they played option*.*

There may be an easy way with winTD to rate a single round each month?? but my thought would be to edit the dbf files (excel/libre calc) deleting the rounds not being rated and renaming the header to round 1 and changing date and the number of rounds. copy and paste into the new manual rating tool is not too bad for a single round, also.

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I hope it incorporated the outside temperature and the TD’s pulse. :slight_smile:

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I have seen WinTD do reasonable rematches. The two types of cases where I’ve seen this are:

  1. The number of players is less than the number of rounds and you do not want to reduce the number of rounds. There was a five round scholastic tournament with team prizes based on the best four combined results of a team that spanned multiple sections. When one section ended up with only four players it maintained balance to give all four players the opportunity of having five games that could count towards the team score. It is literally impossible to have more rounds than players without a rematch (or the same number of players as the even number of rounds).

  2. A large number of rounds that are at least have as many as the number of players. I saw it in a few 10 (single) round blitz tournaments with 14-18 players. After a while the pairings for the top boards reach the point where a rematch is mathematically less of a hit than pairing board one down six to eight score groups.

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Also, if you ae pairing on site after seeing who is available each round then it may be simpler to just treat all byes (for not showing) as zero point byes as an incentive for participation. The odd man one point bye would remain.

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Good point. No 1/2pt byes.

I avoid completely 1 pt. Byes since I and a few others are willing to sit out if there’s an odd number.

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These are all great, and makes me feel on the right track overall. I ought to do a broad survey to measure interest in my region.

My weekday evening events attendance range from 8 to 16. But I know there are people who can’t come because of distance and travel with that time constraint. They will come on a Saturday morning, even from farther away if its only once a month.

I flyered at the NH open this last weekend, and nearly all the flyers were taken. So I know there is interest. I just need to keep getting the word out. A survey would be helpful to gauge interest.

I did a simulated pairing with last years attendees in my computer system. With 22 players, the spread was from 800 to 2100. The paired ratings often had a 100 point gap., some 200 pt gaps. This gap would increase in 2nd and 3rd months of the event. So if i want there to be good competition, I would need more players. Maybe a 300-400 pt gap once a quarter wouldn’t be terrible. Re-pair once every quarter (4th month)

Maybe Im too ambitious. And I’m going to look stupid trying. Well, at least I can say I tried. NH needs more chess.

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It sort of depends on the ratings level, the difference in skill levels between a 1200 player and a 1500 player might be more than the difference in skill levels between a 2000 player and a 2300 player. (And lower rated players are more likely to be younger and still improving rapidly, I’ve seen young players who were at least a class higher than their published rating and still improving rapidly.)

As a mostly 1400-1500 player, I actually enjoyed playing B or A players, and some of my best games were against players 300 or so points above me.

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Most of the K-12 tournaments here use most current rating vs official published ratings and not unusual to have quite a few 100+ deltas on established ratings (even at the 1000+ level) – When I run a non-scholastic, I post both ratings on the registration list which reminds me I need to find out how to do that with the new system (basic curl parse of the first tournament page goes away)