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Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 3:16 pm
by John Reyes
Mick Norris wrote:I have been sent the following:

FIXTURES FOR 11 MATCHES FOR ONE DIVISION OF 18 TEAMS
Divide the 18 teams into 2 groups x 9 of equal strength. (As per current 4NCL system)
The teams in each group will then be numbered from 1 – 9 in the same manner as above. (ie: Strongest = 1, etc)
Teams play all others in same group = 8 matches per team.

However, this will mean each round having one team per group without a game.
For that round, the teams in each group with the same number will play against each other (ie 1 v 1, 2 v 2 , etc)

The "inter-group" matches (one of each to be played in during the first 9 rounds) would be played in reverse number order (ie Round 1 - 9v9; Round 2 - 8v8; Round 3 - 7v7; etc).

This would mean that the top teams in each group (according to their perceived strength at the start of the event) would not meet until the later stages (ie Round 8 - 2v2; Round 9 - 1v1).


Therefore, after round 9, each team will have played 9 games; eight against those in the same group and one against a
team from the other group of similar strength. (The results of these matches count towards each team’s own group).

After 9 rounds, the top team in Group A will play the two top-most teams in Group B who they have NOT ALREADY PLAYED, whilst similarly, the top team in Group B will play the two top-most teams in Group A who they have NOT ALREADY PLAYED.

i.e. If the team finishing top of Group A had not already played the top in Group B, they would then play each other, whilst
also playing the next highest-placed team they had not yet faced.
If the top teams HAD already played, they would each face the next two highest-placed teams yet to be played.

The system would then continue down the groups, with the remaining teams each being paired against two others they had not previously met.

Following these matches the 2 groups would then be combined to show the teams’ final places in a division of 18 teams.

The above would then ensure that the teams most likely to be aiming for promotion (ie those towards the top of their groups
after 9 games) would be playing all the others who are also in contention.


An example of the above is shown below, the pairings for which I have based on the alphabetical order of the teams currently shown for Division 3 North on the 4NCL website (5th October 2016)

Group A is shown in alphabetical order, whilst Group B is in reverse alphabetical order – purely to prevent teams with the same name being put together in their “extra round” against the opponents from the other group.

GROUP A GROUP B
3Cs 2 1 Spirit of Atticus B
Ashfield Breadsall 1 2 Manchester Manticores 4
Bradford DCA Knights B 3 Manchester Manticores 2
Cheddleton 2 4 Jorvik
Gonzaga 5 Holmes Chapel
Hounds and Bears 6 Enniscorthy
Manchester Manticores 1 7 Bradford DCA Knights C
Manchester Manticores 3 8 Ashfield Breadsall 2
Manx Liberty 9 3Cs 3

Teams play the other 8 in their group plus their opposite number from the other group = 9 matches,

After the opening 9 matches the groups might look as shown below:
(For this example I have left Group A in the same order, but in Group B have reversed teams 1-4 and teams 6-9)
GROUP A GROUP B
3Cs 2 1 Jorvik
Ashfield Breadsall 1 2 Manchester Manticores 2
Bradford DCA Knights B 3 Manchester Manticores 4
Cheddleton 2 4 Spirit of Atticus B
Gonzaga 5 Holmes Chapel
Hounds and Bears 6 3Cs 3
Manchester Manticores 1 7 Ashfield Breadsall 2
Manchester Manticores 3 8 Bradford DCA Knights C
Manx Liberty 9 Enniscorthy

For the last two matches, the fixtures would be:
A1 v B1 / B2, A2 v B1 / B2, A3 v B3 / B4, A4 v B3 / B4, A5 v B6 / B7, A6 v B5 / B6,
A6 v B5 / B7, A7 v B6 / B7, A8 v B8 / B9, A9 v B8 / B9
Note : A5 does not play B5 as they met in the “inter-group” game.

Each team will then have played 11 matches, with the teams who finished in the top two positions in each group having then at least also faced those who finished in the top two places in the opposing group (ie: their main promotion rivals).

NB: It is inevitable, due to 18 teams playing 11 matches, that every team will NOT play 6 of the others in the division.
Whoever sent this has took the time and I like this idea, it got a lot of common sense with it!!

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:32 am
by David Pardoe
Roger de Coverly wrote:
David Pardoe wrote: And certainly its not good to have such teams targeting opponents in future rounds with pre-arranged team orders, designed to `take -out` the big gun opposition.
That's been part of the cultural and sporting tradition of the 4NCL almost since it was founded. That's why fixtures are established well in advance and why matches between the favourites are grouped for the final weekend whenever possible. The 80 point rule reduces the possibilities for board order fixing and strengthening the second team at the expense of the first.

.
******
... Board order `fixing` isn't particularly the problem.. its more about teams with big `pools` sending out whole teams to target selected pre planned opposition... ready for the `take-out`....and selectively `resting` others for other occasions..
FIDE grades mean that the 80 point rule, for those below the 1900 level, should probably be raised to 100 or 120 points, I think
******** .[/quote] .[/quote]

Division 3 North and Division 4 does see stacking up of teams from the same squad in the same division.[/quote]



The 9 group format is too pre programmed, contrived, and pre ordered... and with teams playing less than two thirds of opponents, it is too rigid.
To prefix 8 of the 11 rounds is too much I think, (based on guesstimated seedings), when you have 18 teams involved... i.e., each team can avoid playing 7 teams, which is over a third of the entry. This is quite a high percentage, and could easily lead to lop sided pairings, when taken as a whole.

The 6 group format has the advantage of balancing things much better, by having 5 rounds of `league type` format and the final 6 rounds of `seeded` Swiss... which introduces just enough flexibility and `surprise` element to balance the competition and make things more interesting.... and incidentally, both formats provide the final Swiss element, to ensure the top few teams meet. With its implied propensity to throw up `surprise` pairings the 6-group format would add the right level of uncertainty, to compensate for the fact that teams only play two-thirds of opponents.. too much pre programmed match arrangement could lead to claims/concerns of `engineered results`... result fixing even..

The other advantage of the 6-group format is that it allows you to do a provisional `seeding` at the start, but to readjust things with `final seedings` after the first 5 rounds are complete.
By using the revised `seedings` after 5 rounds (seeding just the top 4 – 6 teams), you can run a structured/seeded Swiss, where the next two or three rounds pair up various top half v bottom, and top v middle order permutations, which would address any anomalies in the previous pairings, and enable the final 3 rounds where the top few teams could fight out a standard Swiss to give the final order..

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:51 am
by LawrenceCooper
.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:52 am
by LawrenceCooper
David Pardoe wrote:


The 9 group format is too pre programmed, contrived, and pre ordered... and with teams playing less than two thirds of opponents, it is too rigid.
To prefix 8 of the 11 rounds is too much I think, (based on guesstimated seedings), when you have 18 teams involved... i.e., each team can avoid playing 7 teams, which is over a third of the entry. This is quite a high percentage, and could easily lead to lop sided pairings, when taken as a whole.

The 6 group format has the advantage of balancing things much better, by having 5 rounds of `league type` format and the final 6 rounds of `seeded` Swiss... which introduces just enough flexibility and `surprise` element to balance the competition and make things more interesting.... and incidentally, both formats provide the final Swiss element, to ensure the top few teams meet. With its implied propensity to throw up `surprise` pairings the 6-group format would add the right level of uncertainty, to compensate for the fact that teams only play two-thirds of opponents.. too much pre programmed match arrangement could lead to claims/concerns of `engineered results`... result fixing even..

The other advantage of the 6-group format is that it allows you to do a provisional `seeding` at the start, but to readjust things with `final seedings` after the first 5 rounds are complete.
By using the revised `seedings` after 5 rounds (seeding just the top 4 – 6 teams), you can run a structured/seeded Swiss, where the next two or three rounds pair up various top half v bottom, and top v middle order permutations, which would address any anomalies in the previous pairings, and enable the final 3 rounds where the top few teams could fight out a standard Swiss to give the final order..
Do you really mean six groups of three teams and not three groups of six? :shock:

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 11:02 am
by David Pardoe
Hi Loz...
No, I meant 3 groups of 6 teams, as initially suggested by Neil Graham, would be my preference..
This would mean that each of the three groups play out an initial 5-round all-play-all. This would be followed by a more formalized seeding of the top 6 teams (probably 2 from each group). Then you play a structured Swiss for 3 rounds, followed by a standard Swiss to finish off, as mentioned above.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 11:09 am
by MartinCarpenter
Looks incredibly fiddly to me that. What does it do that the rather simpler 3 x 6 for 5 rounds then a plain Swiss to finish doesn't?

Or even simpler things like fixing top vs bottom half for a few rounds.

I'm not that sold on that proposed 2 x 9 group format - by fixing the cross group games in the manners that it does it seems like it may well have a built in bias against the top seeded teams. Only a modest one, but still.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 11:42 am
by David Pardoe
I take your points Martin... but my suggested 3 groups /6 teams option is actually fairly straight forward if you stick to the basic method.
Yes, as you say, other options are available, but any Swiss option needs to be seeded/structured, as part of the wider package... with various permutations of top and bottom quartiles for the latter 6 rounds.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 12:06 pm
by Roger de Coverly
Is everyone confident that the usual Swiss pairing software can cope with 11 rounds of 18 participants without running into a round 10 or 11 that cannot be paired? That's regardless of whether the first five or eight rounds have been cooked in some manner.

You could cook up a reasonable ranking order, then run this through pairing software to get 11 rounds of pairing assuming the higher ranked team always wins. You could then move the rounds that saw clashes of adjacent teams to the final weekend.

Hours of fun for the 4NCL arbiters and others to draw up a pairing scheme.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 12:12 pm
by IM Jack Rudd
It's certainly possible to jam an 18-player Swiss in 9 rounds.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:02 pm
by Paul Dargan
I had alwasy rather assumed that one of the upsides of using pairing software was that at least if you told it in advance how many rounds you needed it would make sure that it didn't jam the pairings. Surely this is a basic requirement?

And of course another good reason for not using cards and pairing boards.

Paul

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:19 pm
by John Garnett
I think the two groups of nine format would need very accurate seeding. If one group was much weaker than the other, then the two Swiss rounds at the end probably wouldn't be enough to compensate for the advantage of starting in the weaker group.

With three groups of six the teams starting in the weaker group (if there was one) would be likely to face more difficult matches later on so I think the advantage would be rather less significant.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:41 pm
by IM Jack Rudd
Paul Dargan wrote:I had alwasy rather assumed that one of the upsides of using pairing software was that at least if you told it in advance how many rounds you needed it would make sure that it didn't jam the pairings. Surely this is a basic requirement?
It might be, but I've certainly managed to jam the pairings in Swiss Master before.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:43 pm
by Alex Holowczak
The 4NCL pairings are not done by computer - they are done manually using cards, because the system of seeding is not something that any pairing software pairs to.

And in fact, the rules have the flexibility to allow the arbiters to pair two rounds in advance of the weekend again.

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:28 pm
by Mick Norris
John Reyes wrote:
Mick Norris wrote:
Alan Walton wrote:It maybe Broadland, but according the the 4NCL website, their top board last year is looking for a team; so maybe not or weaker team
Broadland have pulled out and their IM has found a team to play for

Did Big Sam helped with the Transfer of the IM?
No, (big) Mark gave him a lift to the airport last season on one of the weekends, so he has returned the favour by signing for the Manticores - whether he'll be the board 1 we have needed, time will tell

The registration lists are out, I'm not quite sure what to make of the actual strength of the Irish teams, but Manx have strengthened, so will be an interesting season, as always

Re: Div 3 North 2016-17

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 1:47 pm
by Roger de Coverly
Mick Norris wrote: The registration lists are out, I'm not quite sure what to make of the actual strength of the Irish teams.
Enniscorthy
Number Player Title Jnr. Nat. DM num ECF FIDE Grade Other Current 4NCL Restrict
1 O`Gorman, Tom j IRL 295223D 2508249 178 2029 2029
2 Scott, Luke j IRL 293810J 2507986 134 2018 2018
3 Plaza Reino, Agustin IRL 32083483 1895 1895
4 O`Gorman, Alice j IRL 295214C 2508214 159 1853 1853
5 Pocevicius, Gabrielius IRL 2508435 1695 1695
6 Plaza Reino, Mercedes j IRL 306395B 24511951 0 1665 1665
7 Pocevicius, Dovydas IRL 2508427 1654 1654
8 Kildea, Robbie IRL 66800323 1639 1639

Gonzaga
Number Player Title Jnr. Nat. DM num ECF FIDE Grade Other Current 4NCL Restrict
1 O`Donnell, Conor f j IRL 283118B 2504243 199 2346 2346
2 Delaney, Killian IRL 304619K 2501570 208 2229 2229
3 Moran, Stephen IRL 271879A 2501872 195 2176 2176
4 Murray, David IRL 207163A 2501511 0 2139 2139
5 Freeman, Gordon IRL 181680K 2501309 0 2117 2117
6 Jackson, Carl IRL 207158H 2502585 0 2100 2100
7 Li, Henry j IRL 306401D 2508524 0 2097 2097
8 Byrne, Ray IRL 2500922 1976 1976
9 McMorrow, John IRL 252348G 2501481 0 1971 1971
10 Casey, Eoghan IRL 207157F 2502178 0 1922 1922 [/code]

The top 5 boards of Alba, now in Division 2 could pass muster as a Scotland team for the European Teams.

Alba
Number Player Title Jnr. Nat. DM num ECF FIDE Grade Other Current 4NCL Restrict
1 Greet, Andrew N i SCO 104259C 405817 238 2464 2464
2 Shaw, John g SCO 176235H 2400553 240 2449 2449
3 Sreeves, Clement f SCO S31575 275665B 2402564 220 2356 2356
4 McKay, Roderick M i SCO 2400049 2346 2346
5 Berry, Neil f SCO 190631J 2400650 215 2299 2299
6 MacQueen, Calum SCO 254194E 2402270 207 2248 2248
7 Burnett, Andrew f SCO 179555H 2400855 228 2183 2183
8 Findlay David John SCO 157942D 2400278 2179 2179
9 Abdulla, Murad SCO 2403757 2137 2137
10 Edwards, Jonathan SCO 254069B 2402912 170 2123 2123
11 Minnican, Alan SCO 264484J 2400987 180 2116 2116
12 Brechin, Hugh R SCO 254085L 2461307 195 2092 2092
13 Grassie, Duncan SCO 229763C 411787 2092 2092
14 Bamber, Elaine wf SCO 291055L 2401428 183 2065 2065
15 Shafi, Declan j SCO 275553B 2405156 142 1999 1999
16 Durno, Joy wf SCO 2403501 1885 1885