English Chess Forum

So many people have said the Olympiad is chess's equivalent of the World Cup. So I came up with a format for it based on the World Cup. It is also based on the Hastings system invented by Stewart Reuben, as used once in the Hastings Masters.

(Note: this format only works if 192 or fewer countries enter. This probably won't be a problem.)

The format:

Main Olympiad

Each country may enter one team for this. The teams get divided into 32 groups of 5 or 6 teams, which start off by playing an all-play-all in their group. If a team has a bye, it gets paired against a team from another group (if you sort this out like a World Cup, preferably a team it couldn't meet until the semi-final); this fixture's result does not count towards the group standings, but does count in the B Olympiad (see below).

After the all-play-all, the top two teams from each group go into a knockout stage, which lasts for six rounds to create a clear winner. The other three or four in each group go into the B Olympiad, as does any team eliminated in the knockout stage before the final.

B Olympiad

Each country may enter any number of teams for this. It will be run as a Swiss throughout, with teams knocked out of the main olympiad filtering in with however many points they have scored up to that point. (Standard scoring - won matches score 2 points, drawn matches - including drawn matches in the knockout stage that are settled by rapid play-offs - score 1 point.)

Looks interesting. How many teams tend to enter the Olympiad?

What happens if the match is drawn 2-2 at the KO stage? Do we have a blitz playoff, i.e. a penalty shoot-out?

Why not just divide the Olympiad into two or more Swiss sections based partly on squad ratings :-

A section - average rating at least 2300 (say)
B section - average rating less than 2350 (say)

etc.

Teams with unrated players wouldn't be allowed in the A section.

Alex Holowczak wrote:What happens if the match is drawn 2-2 at the KO stage? Do we have a blitz playoff, i.e. a penalty shoot-out?

That would seem the obvious way to do it, yes.

The only problem that I envisage with this format, is that you most probably get less "big" matches, whereas the current standard swiss system will normally mean the team winning should play all the main rivals

Alan Walton wrote:The only problem that I envisage with this format, is that you most probably get less "big" matches, whereas the current standard swiss system will normally mean the team winning should play all the main rivals

It would be a pity if two big teams met in an early knockout round.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

Alan Walton wrote:The only problem that I envisage with this format, is that you most probably get less "big" matches, whereas the current standard swiss system will normally mean the team winning should play all the main rivals

It would be a pity if two big teams met in an early knockout round.

Well, you'd seed the groups so that was unlikely to happen. Mind you, you still might get teams performing like England in the last association football World Cup...