Pairing Boards

[Paul McKeown]

I have been trying to source pairing boards, but none of the usual chess equipment suppliers seem to stock them at the moment.

Is anyone able to help here?

[John Upham]

I have been trying to source pairing boards, but none of the usual chess equipment suppliers seem to stock them at the moment.

Is anyone able to help here?

Tim Onions usually has a stock but I assume you have tried ?

[Stewart Reuben]

Much easier today by omputer. Unless you are tezching the principles to inexperienced players.

[Paul McKeown]

Much easier today by omputer.

Not always, by any means.

Particularly where pairing system is neither Swiss, nor Round Robin. But even when approximately "Swiss", not necessarily the best if you don't know the participants before the start of the first round. Or the eleventh for that matter. I actually wish there was an easy to use pairing program which facilitated informal pairing methods, or even user defined pairing methods, without too much fuss. Try a ladder system, or a double Swiss, or a knock-out with repechage, or a Swiss with 3, 2, 1 or 3, 2, 1, 0 scoring(*), or name the pairing system. Eventually your JaVaFo pairing engine is going to chuck out the message that there are no possible Swiss pairings. Then it's not even just an awkward process: you're actually stuffed.

There is a whole world of formal and informal competition and a whole world of pairing systems, formal and informal, beyond FIDE's latest definition of Dutch Swiss.

It would be nice if there was a simple means to generate tournament cross-tables, rankings, player reports, ECF grading reports, even pairings from a user defined pairing system. But, hey, can't get everything.

Guess pairing boards and cards still have their place.

(*) actually for a Swiss with alternate scoring, this may be possible with JaVaFo, but may require a user written wrapper program, or a fairly straightforward change request on the various offerings out there.

[Of course there is also the matter of fallback procedures for when your IT fails (power failure, disc failure, network unavailability, ...)]

[Stewart Reuben]

Paul > a Swiss with 3, 2, 1 or 3, 2, 1, 0 scoring(*<
Treat it as a team tournament and use the Olympiad Pairing System.

Of course a computerised Swiss Pairing Sytem will not work for a non-Swiss event. Round robin, knockout with repechage or ladder are not Swisses.

Very few people nowadays experiment with Computerised Swiss Pairing systems other than the flawed Seeded System. That is a great pity. But it will be more valuable to write a new programe for a new system and then run simulated Swisses and observe the results.
e.g.
Fractional Accelerated Swiss as designed by me. In order to compare with the Bonus Point System devised by Phil Haley which has been computerised.
e.g.
Changing players ratings after each round depending on the results, using a k factor of 70. That means a rating completelhy turns over in 11 rounds.

e.g. Swiss Pairings seeded, but the seeding changes afer each game. For example 64 players. 1v33 and 33 wins. His new seeding position is 1 and the loser becomes 33. Had they drawn, they both become 17 and the higher takes the higher rank.

[NickFaulks]

e.g. Swiss Pairings seeded, but the seeding changes afer each game. For example 64 players. 1v33 and 33 wins. His new seeding position is 1 and the loser becomes 33. Had they drawn, they both become 17 and the higher takes the higher rank.

But why?

[Stewart Reuben]

Nick If you play in a Seeded knockout like the World chess Cup, that is the way it works. So, why not try it for an ordinary Swiss?

[NickFaulks]

Because the players are perfectly happy the way it is.

[Stewart Reuben]

They were 'perfectly' happy when we used to use a lottery Swiss. They became even happier with a Seeded Swiss. Since then innovation has stagnated.

Far more people played competitively in England with quickplay finishes than today. Perhaps we shouldn't have introduced increments.