Pairing players twice in a small Swiss

Running Chess Tournaments
1

For small Swisses, especially club events with trivial or no cash prizes, in which the number of players is less than twice the number of rounds, it’s worth considering Greg Shahade’s argument that pairing the same players twice is the lesser evil.

A TD should announce this and see if anyone objects, but if not it can be the best option when all options are bad. When I directed club events I lamented not having this option more than once. When a glaring-obvious case arose in a Quick Chess club event, I decided to do it, after informing all players and getting no objection. uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php … 1-12119310

That will not work in a large tournament with real prizes, of course. And that is the only time I did it as a TD. But down in the trenches a TD needs to get creative sometimes.

2

If one must pair players twice it seems best to push this to the lowest score group possible to minimize the damage.

Many years ago I held a half point lead and had the white pieces against the only person behind me in the 6th round of a 7 round event. He was 150 points higher rated. I played conservatively and drew, maintaining my lead. Imagine my surprise when I got paired with him again. The TD said there was no way to avoid this, which may or may not have been true. He rejected my argument that if this had to be done it should be done in a game not impacting prizes. I lost. One could argue I deserved for not pushing for a win in the previous game (I was never better, but I was White).

3

We are rapidly approaching a topic-split point where this becomes a discussion of pairings instead of a discussion of the status concerning the printing of the rulebook.

Pairing rematches usually happens with me in the later rounds of a non-rated blitz swiss with one game per round. WinTD will start having the leaders play again when the round number is about 2/3 to 4/5 the number of players.

My club has multiple examples of pairing brothers prior to the final round of a Swiss with the two tournaments below being just of couple of the examples. If relatives are in a round robin I will adjust the schedule to put the round with their game early in the event (but don’t manipulate a FIDE-rated round robin doing something like that).
Oftentimes, having relatives play in the final round puts them in a no-win situation if they are in contention for prizes. If they play with no collusion, with both trying to play the best they can, and if one of them takes a prize with anything other than a loss, then there is a high probability that somebody will make a claim that the other relative conceded the loss or draw just to help the first one win some prize money.

uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php … 1-12746000
players 4 and 6

uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php … 1-12746000
players 5 and 6

4

Indeed. Perhaps even a three-way split might be appropriate. I was not expecting my hijacking of this thread for a suggested 29D1 rewrite to be in turn hijacked by a discussion of repeat pairings in small tournaments.

Bill Smythe

5

This topic is a spin-off from a discussion which was originally in 7th Edition Rulebook Status? in the US Chess Issues forum and was spun off to Dropping down the wrong player from a score group in Running Chess Tournaments.

6

Pairing two players again in a Swiss System event is a big violation of the pairing fundamentals. It is not a problem a TD should face in a large event with 6 or 7 rounds. There are always ways to make a pairing, even if it means going to other score groups. In smaller tournaments, you may run into the problem of not being able to make any legal pairing in a round, but that is the only reason I can think of for pairing players twice.

Rule 29 has many contradictory priorities and ambiguities. It leads to a wide variance in pairing styles, often based on how color conscious you are. Sometimes it is better to bring up a player from a lower score group than drop a player into a lower score group. The player brought up may have been part of an upset in an earlier round. Occasionally, you have to pair the bottom groups at the same time you are working on the top groups to make the pairings as fair as possible to all rather than cascade the pairing from top to bottom creating funkier pairings for the lower score groups.

7

See the italicized quote above: Why is no legal pairing the only reason to pair two players a second time in a small Swiss? I know that’s what the rules say—but why? Is it worse than three Blacks in a row, four of the same color out of five rounds, players dropped three score groups, massive rating mismatches, etc.?

You are right that in a ‘real’ Swiss tournament, with lots of players, (several multiples of the number of rounds), prizes large enough to notice, etc., that this is not a good idea.

But why is a second pairing of Smith and Jones so much worse than the terrible options mentioned above? See Greg Shahade’s screeds about this a few years back.

8

Sorry for the sub-hijacking, Bill. I wanted to point out that a repeat pairing might in rare cases be the best option to avoid a series of less-than-ideal downfloats that create a mess in the relevant round, especially the final round.

That was sort of the situation in the last round of the event I directed in 2010 to which I linked.

9

The event I cited wasn’t large, about 18-24 players. It predates MSA and may not have been USCF rated as it occurred in Washington when we had a regional rating system. It’s possible withdrawals made it impossible to avoid a repeat pairing, but even if that was the case it should have been done on a low board, not board one.

10

True enough, if the turnout is small. In a large event, it is likely that there will be several other, better, ways to improve less-than-ideal downfloats.

Bill Smythe

11

In the 2017 non-rated standard Swiss tournament below (14 active players and 11 rounds) WinTD opted to have a rematch in the eighth round (1@7-0 vs 2@6-1) instead of dropping the 7-0 down two more scoregroups against the bottom 4-3. There was another rematch in round 11 with 1@10-0 vs 3@7-3 instead of dropping the 10-0 down three more scoregroups against one of the 4-6 players tied for 10-13.
The 11-0 ended up playing the 9-2 twice, one 7-4 twice, and once against the other 7-4, both 6-5 players and four of the five 5-6 players. I guess the remaining 5-6 and one of the 4-7 players would have been possible opponents.
The 7-4 player with no rematch played the 11-0, the 9-2, the other 7-4, both 6-5s, three of the five 5-6s, both 4-7s and the 1-10.
The 1-10 player had a bye and played one 7-4 and all at 6-5 or less.

No.	Name	        Rate	Pts	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10  R11
1  Wiewel, Jeff K 	1957  11.0	W9	W6	W3	W2	W7	W5	W4	W2	W10  W11  W4
2  Di orio, Jeff 	 1988	9.0	W8	W4	W5	L1	W3	W6	W7	L1	W9	W13  W11
3  Stinson, Marcus	1800	7.0	W10  W15  L1	W5	L2	W12  W6	L4	W8	L9	W13
4  Psenica, Chris 	unr	 7.0	W13  L2	W14  L12  W10  W7	L1	W3	W5	W8	L1
5  Janssen, Gary L	1747	6.0	W12  W7	L2	L3	W13  L1	W8	W11  L4	L6	W15
6  Swanson, Eric R	1702	6.0	W11  L1	W13  L7	W12  L2	L3	L8	W15  W5	W9
7  Djordjevic, Vlad  1537	5.0	W14  L5	W11  W6	L1	L4	L2	L9	L13  W15  W12
8  Kelley, Gregory	1533	5.0	L2	L12  W9	L13  W11  W15  L5	W6	L3	L4	W10
9  Marshall, Ken  	1502	5.0	L1	L11  L8	-B-  W15  L10  W12  W7	L2	W3	L6
10 Wiewel, Matthew	1369	5.0	L3	L13  -B-  W14  L4	W9	L11  W15  L1	W12  L8
11 Shetty,Anshul P	1275	5.0	L6	W9	L7	W15  L8	W13  W10  L5	W12  L1	L2
12 Kyaw,Siddhartha	1317	4.0	L5	W8	W15  W4	L6	L3	L9	W13  L11  L10  L7
13 Huang, Elton	   764	 4.0	L4	W10  L6	W8	L5	L11  W15  L12  W7	L2	L3
14 Bogdan, Matt  	        1.0	L7	-B-  L4	L10  -U-  -U-  -U-  -U-  -U-  -U-  -U-
15 Fulton, Nathan 	428	 1.0	-B-  L3	L12  L11  L9	L8   L13  L10  L6	L7	L5
12

I had something like this problem come up in a class tournament. There were only 2 players in a section for the 2-day schedule. Option 1 was to have them play each other twice [once with each color], Option 2 was to have them play once and then give them both full point byes, Option 3 [what was done] was to give them both full point byes for rd1 and put them into rd2 of the 3 day schedule with pairings based on the players having 1 point [from the byes]. Both players were playing up into the section, so I did not want to possibly give 1 of these players potentially an automatic 2 points to start. Was there any other options? Do you like what I did decide to do with the players?

Larry S. Cohen

13

Hmm. Option 3 sounds best. I suppose you could have tried an option 4, which might be called a cross-schedule cross-round pairing, since round 2 of the 3-day schedule was (presumably) played at the same time as round 1 of the 2-day schedule. For one player in each of those 2 games, the game would be round 1 2-day, and for the other player, round 2 3-day.

Then the two 2-day players could play each other in round 2 of the 2-day schedule.

Trouble is, the cross-schedule cross-round pairings would have to be played at the faster time control used for the 2-day schedule, and the two 3-day players in those pairings might not go for that, because they wanted to play slower, and because they would now have a long wait for their round 3 games.

So if you can’t find two 3-day players willing to do that, you could instead pair the two 2-day players against each other in round 1, and then try cross-section pairings in round 2 – after all, both of these players were eligible for the lower section anyway.

Or, if you can find only one 3-day player willing to play at the faster control, you could have one cross-schedule cross-round pairing, and one cross-section pairing. (Would this work, or am I missing something?) I guess these two pairings would collectively be called a cross-schedule cross-round cross-section pairing.

Whew! The life of the organizer of a multi-schedule, multi-section tournament, especially with some small schedule-sections, can be quite complicated. An innovative approach is a huge plus.

To top it all off, I suspect I might have been one of the players involved in this situation, and option 3 might have been used without my even being told about it. That worked out well, too, as I did get to play all 6 rounds, no byes.

Bill Smythe

14

If you crank the effort level up enough, it will find pairings without duplication. (In Round 11, pairing you with a 4-6, a 5-5 playing a 1-9, etc.)

15

I generally run WinTD at effort level 50. When you get that close to a round robin (14 players, 11 rounds) I wouldn’t be particularly surprised to find that at least one round has no pairing possible without a rematch, and in a fast-paced non-rated blitz tournament the general feeling was to accept it instead of spending time analyzing it and cutting the tournament short by a round or two .

16

I disagree with tmag. Pairing players twice is not a violation. It is just the highest priority to avoid. Some times there is no pairing to avoid pairing two players.

Take a look at the Crown section of event 199708234150. I was playing in a lower section and after there was a long delay in posting the rd. 4 pairings I went to see why the delay. Mark was trying to figure out how to pair rd 4 of the Crown section. 4 players with 4 rounds. All the players had played each other in rounds 1-3. Prizes were cash for 1st, 2nd, and a perfect score. 4-Turalic had withdrawn after losing all 3 games. 1-John Curdo (2399) was 3-0 and the two remaining players 2-Alexopoulos (2241) and 3-Schalk (2053) had drawn each other in rd.3. They now had 1.5 each. I frequently use this real situation as a pairing discussion for inexperienced TDs. After a discussion I recommended and Mark paired 2-3 with colors reversed from rd3. He gave John a full point bye and sent him home with 1st and perfect score prizes.

My logic for not pairing 1-2 with 3 getting a bye was let the two tied players fight each other for the 2nd place prize which I felt was a much preferable pairing than making Alexopulos play Curdo and allow Schalk at least a tie for 2nd without facing an opponent. I also told him he should have realized during round 1 that the problem existed and prepared for the 4th round pairings. When discussing the pairing problem I frequently leave all 4 in to be paired and see if they select 1-2 and 3-4 rather than my recommended 1-4 and 2-3.

17

In round 4, perhaps you could have paired 1 vs 2, and 2 vs 3, and 3 vs 1. Each player would play 2 games simultaneously. Three tables could be arranged like the blades on a 3-blade ceiling fan, with the short edges touching at the corners and forming a small equilateral triangle in the center. Each player would play in one of the V formations formed by the long edges, white vs the player to his left, black vs the player to his right. Everything balances perfectly.

Bill Smythe

18

Of course, in situations where the section is extremely small, you may have to pair people twice, but that should be avoided if at all possible. That was always treated in the past as a violation of the Swiss System pairing fundamentals. Players come to Swiss System tournaments to play a variety of players, not play mini-matches with one player. The examples given show poor design by the organizer that creates the pairing problem. If you are not going to combine sections, adjust the number of rounds, or turn the section into a quad, giving a bye or skipping a round, then you are stuck with your own mess.

Personally, as a player, I have withdrawn from an event that had a five player section because it was too small, the pairings would be lousy, prizes cut in half. My suggestion was to run the section as a Quad, and I went home. As a TD, when the event is smaller than expected and the number of players is odd, I sometimes have added my own name to the list, if there are no objections, to at least have an even number of players for pairing purposes so that no one gets a bye. I tell the players I am not a part of the prize pool.

19

I simply make this point re low attendance tournaments and sections. In my mind is is inherently more responsible say if you have an intermediate section in which only 4-6 show up to play for them to
play each other twice than to merge them with a section of much lower rated players. The players signing up for the lower section, expecting to play players within a specific rating range, have every bit
as much right to expect this - in fact, I view this right as FAR HIGHER than that of any so called “right” of players in the higher section to avoid playing the same opponent twice. And no, certainly, I do not
view this as a “mess” whatsoever. Simply unfortunate that one of the sections involved did not attract
more players.

Rob Jones

20

Pairing a player twice before all other options have been exhausted makes a Swiss fundamentally not a Swiss and arguably a match with frills. All of the other horribles mentioned are contempalted as possibilities. Pairing players twice is not, barring too few players for too many rounds.