Why Swiss-Style Tournaments are the BEST tournaments!

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[@kyleorndorff1304]

I dont know how I ended up on this channel because I have little interest in chess but this is honestly the best tournament system I've ever seen. If there are even number of players/teams especially. Great vid.

[@chesspathways9238]

Thanks Kyle!

[@juanpedronofal4829]

Watched the video for the format explanation and it was great! Thanks!

[@rajk1623]

Thanks, that was a fantastic explanation.

[@waterbottle1184]

lol the one i experienced recently was round robin group stage for day 1 40-50 teams i think, day 2 was elimination winner/loser bracket based on placing day 1. and games for placement 1-40 etc. and there were the token ex pro players since it was table tennis with 4-6 person teams.

[@saibamais4120]

Hi! I guess I am merely curious.. Do these swiss tournaments always end with the minimum set of rounds to determine a theoretically clear winner? 4 rounds in this case? If not, how would it continue on? xD

[@chesspathways9238]

Usually the amount of rounds is set before the tournament starts, and ties are pretty common for first place. Some tournaments have tiebreaking procedures, sometimes a tie for first is just accepted. Usually it's the case that a perfect score assures a player of clear first, but perfect scores of 5/5, 9/9 etc are pretty rare.

[@saibamais4120]

@@chesspathways9238 oh thank you.. So they pretty much set the minimum round for a clear winner if I understood correctly.. Now wether they get to that perfect score or not, thats a different thing.. Thank you for the answer

[@Andrew-jh2bn]

The answer to this question depends on if draws are possible. In chess, draws are actually quite common, so no system can guarantee a clear winner unless there are tiebreak procedures. If draws are impossible (most sports go into overtime rather than let that happen, and some chess tournaments require a definitive win/loss for each pairing) then you actually only need the same number of rounds as a single elimination tournament to guarantee a clear winner. Funnily enough, if you add more rounds than necessary, a tie becomes possible again.

[@nirmalkhirani5089]

Im assuming the winner of the tournament is the one with the highest points after all the rounds are played. Is it possible that 2 players are tied for first? If so how is a winner decided? A head to head result or a tie breaker?

[@patrickobrian9669]

One method for breaking ties is to add up all of the final scores of the player's opponents. In other words, if your opponents throughout the tournament performed better than the player with same final score as you, then you are deemed the winner as you had a tougher path to reach the same final score.

[@Edimus7]

I am following everything up until you start pairing those with like minded scores. In your example where 4 players had a score of 2 after 2 rounds you paired 1 with 3 and 2 with 4. Why not 1 with 4 and 2 with 3?

[@chesspathways9238]

For the same reason we don't do 1 vs last, 2 vs second-last in the first round pairing. That's just the rule for swiss pairings - the ideal pairing is (top in upper half) vs (top in bottom half), all else equal

[@dsiz9421]

So let me get this strait. I’m currently in a 5 game Swiss tournaments. My first. We play 1 game on Fridays until done. So am I correct in saying if I didn’t want to play one night. I would get a 1/2 point. Instead of a possible 1 or 0. So basically I can potentially do better in a tournament by taking a game off? Lol

[@lordesca4364]

The half-bye part doesn't necessarily used in the tournaments(at least in the ones which i participated in). If the opponent was not coming to play the opponent gets to have a full point as if he won.

[@AthanasiosJapan]

The best format is a double round robin, where all players face their opponents on equal terms. I hate the pacing of Swiss tournaments, because the first rounds are like, "oh who cares", but the last rounds are so stressful. In Round-Robin all rounds have the same importance. If there are eg 16 players, split them on 4 groups (A-B-C-D, with A the strongest and D the weakest), and let them play a (double) round robin tournament. The first 1-2 rounds in swiss tournaments are usually a waste of time.

[@hypersphere]

How is this practical? A 16 player DRR, playing two games a day, would last over two weeks! And most tournaments have a good deal more than 16 players.

[@AthanasiosJapan]

@@hypersphere That's why I wrote "split the players into groups". A 4-player group DRR means 8 games. If more than 16 players participate, simply increase the number of 4-player groups.

[@hypersphere]

@@AthanasiosJapan Oh, I see. People wouldn't like that, each player is segregated from most of the remainder, and the best players will never face each other. The winner would be more who got into the easiest group

[@AthanasiosJapan]

@@hypersphere That's why we have ratings. The groups should include players with about the same ratings. Let's say group A for players around 2000, group B for 1900, group C for 1800 etc. It makes more sense to play with players of the same strength.

[@plasticgodzilla1]

I understand why you prefer RR over Swiss. But how would your system continue? How do you determine the absolute winner?

[@noertri618]

This format will be used in football

[@paulmorphy7514]

I disagree with the idea that Swiss tournaments provide the best format. IMO what Blake calls "benefits" are just compromises that detract from the most important goal of a tournament, which is to determine the strongest player. Swiss tournaments are simply the most practical for the masses. The double or quadruple round robin is the best format for determining the strongest player present and is therefore the best format.

[@chesspathways9238]

How do you hold a quadruple round robin in a tournament with more than a small handful of players? Sounds like we mostly agree about the pros/cons of different formats but you wanted to be pedantic :) If the only goal of the World Series was to "determine the best team," it would likely be a best-of-49 series instead of a best-of-7, too - but they didn't go with that for a reason.

[@dsiz9421]

That fact that I can skip a game and still get a 1/2 point seems silly. Because I could have potentially lost the game.

[@user-qd5dj8fh1r]

that half point might make u face a tougher opponent next game and if u had lost u could have got an easier game @@dsiz9421

[@Jasinho702]

Anyone else on this video here because of the new UEFA Champions League format?

[@miguelsupertopzeramuitolegal]

Me,but you don’t need to worry about it