English Chess Forum

Hi.
How are the number of rounds in a tournament determined? Do they follow any ruling?

If the tournament is to be a title-norm tournament, then (barring some explicitly specified exceptions) it must be at least 9 rounds long.

Otherwise, no, there's no ruling. Typically the thinking is something like "we have this much time available, we want people to have at least this much thinking time, how many rounds can we fit into that schedule?".

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: How are the number of rounds in a tournament determined? Do they follow any ruling?

One main ruling affecting the number of round is that at least 9 have to be played to enable a FIDE rated tournament to offer Norm chances. Outside of that, in the UK it's a question of how much time is available for the tournament. Thus in the UK, we have weekend tournaments that follow a five round format, which is either a first round Friday evening followed by two games on each of Saturday and Sunday, or three games on Saturday and two on Sunday. The latter version is not usually FIDE rated as it's unpopular to both start early in the day and finish late, something necessary if sessions of at least four hours are needed. If there's a public holiday on the Monday, extra round(s) are usually added, topping up the tournament to six or even seven rounds. That's particularly true at Easter, when the Friday of the weekend is also a public holiday.

On the other hand -

The International tournament at Vienna in 1882 was a double round all-play-all with 18 players. (Steinitz & Winawer 1st= with 24). So, it was 34 rounds.

The Interzonal at Palma de Mallorca in 1970 was a single-round tournament with 24 players. (1st Fischer 18.5, 2nd-4th Larsen, Geller & Hubner 15)
And so it was 23 rounds.

John McKenna wrote: And so it was 23 rounds.

An all play all has a number of rounds one fewer than the number of participants. Tournament organisers aren't prepared to finance 23 rounds, 11 or 13 is about the maximum on offer these days.

I just want to organize a local tournament

Then read Stewart Reuben's book.

The one he suggested you translate into Farsi.

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:I just want to organize a local tournament

You should aim to ensure that the number of rounds is suitable for the number of players, so you neither get two players finishing equal first on 100% scores (obviously not having played each other), nor do you get last round pairings where the leaders are playing people with far fewer points than them because all the leaders have already played each other.

Ian Thompson wrote:

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:I just want to organize a local tournament

You should aim to ensure that the number of rounds is suitable for the number of players, so you neither get two players finishing equal first on 100% scores (obviously not having played each other), nor do you get last round pairings where the leaders are playing people with far fewer points than them because all the leaders have already played each other.

How to make sure of that?

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: How to make sure of that?

You approximately match the number of players to the number of rounds needed for a knockout. So for 16 players that's 4 rounds, for 32 it's 5 and for 64 players, 6 rounds, In the UK, weekend tournaments are invariably 5 rounds and section sizes of between 20 and 40 players work in practice. Offering half point byes in the first 4 rounds thins out the number of players able to reach 100%.

In France, a lot of 5-round weekenders go under the name of 'Tournoi International de..', even though they are generally limited to under 2200 players for rating reasons, and no specific effort is made to have foreign players present. There are enough foreign players in France to make sure that there are always a couple of non-French participants present. Even if there are none, the tournaments are open to foreign players, and once again, calling a tournament 'International' sounds more impressive for sponsors and the local press.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: How to make sure of that?

You approximately match the number of players to the number of rounds needed for a knockout. So for 16 players that's 4 rounds, for 32 it's 5 and for 64 players, 6 rounds, In the UK, weekend tournaments are invariably 5 rounds and section sizes of between 20 and 40 players work in practice. Offering half point byes in the first 4 rounds thins out the number of players able to reach 100%.

LOL
So I write in the flyer,
Number of rounds = log_2(number of players)!
Very nice!

John McKenna wrote:Then read Stewart Reuben's book.

The one he suggested you translate into Farsi.

I lost the link, and I thought IARruben said the rights are with someone else, so I didn't consider translating it

It can be found at the ECF website (on the left in 'ECF Resources').

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: LOL
So I write in the flyer,
Number of rounds = log_2(number of players)!
Very nice!

Actually wrote that in the notice!