[blml] Swiss Teams formats

[Konrad Ciborowski]

> Richard:
> 
> >2.  Psychological ­ A seeded Swiss is unpopular among some weaker teams
> due
> >to the first-round “bloodbath”, where their teams get annihilated by
> >Klinger, Marston etc.  There is no bloodbath in the first round of an
> >Accelerated Swiss, as the top seeds and bottom seeds are paired within
> >their own group.
> 
> Many years ago, I was playing in the Canberra bloodbath and after two
> lucky
> rounds, we met, and were annihilated by Indonesia 1.  This was one of the
> 
> great thrills
> of my life, as we won 1 board, and several others we went down only 1 IMP
> 
> (an overtrick
> here or there).  Surely this is the only game in the world where you can 
> actually
> get to play against the top players in the game.  So bugger the theory say
> I.

    You are talking apples and oranges. I firmly believe that rules should
be very different depending on the purpose of the event. If the main purpose
of the event is to give people "great thrills of their lives" than
the rules, CoC, laws and TD behavior should be entirely different than
in an event where the main purpose is to select the best team(s).
    These two purposes are not mutually exclusive in every case but
sometimes _they are_. And this basic fact cannot be ignored. This is the
same kind of blindness with which FIFA refuses to allow instant replay in
football  because "teams in the Third Division of Uzbekistan won't be
able to afford it". I say - so what? The Champions League game between
Manchester United and Roma and an Uzbekistan Third Division game are
basically two different sports - they have actually almost nothing in
common: _everything_ is different there (pitch, number of viewers, 
level of play, money involved - you name it) so insisting on it being
played according to exactly the same rules is nonsense.
    Same for bridge. If you run a friendly tournament then by all means -
screw it. Keep it simple, use one scale, one method of scoring, don't
let the discipline become too strict, allow players maximum leeway etc.
When you run a national championship tournament or trials then it is (and 
should) be a different story. "Giving players thrills" should be definitely 
considered secondary.
    As for rankings and including "strength of schedule" - here is 
a very good website that discusses the issue. You'll need to know
statistics and probabilities at the university level to understand
the concept, though. A very good discussion about different
kinds of rankings. It is mainly based on the American college football -
a similar situation to Swiss Teams in a sense that you have a lot of
teams and you cannot have the full round robin in order to determine
that standings.

http://www.dolphinsim.com/ratings/


-- 
Konrad Ciborowski
Kraków, Poland

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