OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I've been thinking it'd be fun to arrange a tournament. A comment in a thread today reminded me of the usage of the swiss system in Chess which is a handy way to arrange an event such that you get a guaranteed amount of games against players playing at broadly your own standard. To summarise in brief, the players are seeded according so some agreement, and initial pairings are made. After the first round, players accumulate points based on their performance in the tournament so far, with 1 point for a win, 0.5 for a draw, and 0 for a loss. In the following round, players play against people on the same points. There are other rules to accommodate edge cases, but that's broadly the system.

A bit of research shows that this is used in Badminton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... Tournament

What is the feeling of the forum about such a tournament, in theory? Specific questions:

- How many players do you think you'd need to make a 1 day event workable
- How many rounds?
- How would you feel about a 2 set match, with 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1 as acceptable results?
- After how many games would you be fed up of playing the same player? Given that a 2 set, 11 point match wouldn't take long, you might end up with a bunch of games.

Thoughts?

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Interesting example of a 5 round swiss with 19 players here:

http://tabletennis.about.com/od/tournaments/ig/Demonstration---Swiss-System-/

Note that in this case a simple win/loss formula is used, rather than a win/loss/draw.

On this approach, you'd expect to hold a decent tournament in one evening, with only four or five tables.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I'm going to check this out for our local club. Looks like it could be interesting for players and get peoples to play many matches with every one playing the same amount or games.

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CORNILLEAU Hugo Calderano FOCO OFF+
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Exactly - this is the great strength of the approach.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I tried reading it and by page 3 I was completly lost lol
wouldn't some giant round robins be better and easier

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Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
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Easier, yes. Better - depends how you define better.

The main advantages of the Swiss system are:

- For a large tournament, it allows a clear winner to emerge in a similar number of rounds to a knockout, but with every player getting a full compliment of games. Giant round-robins require more rounds to determine a winner, thus more time.
- Players will end up playing other players of similar standard, tuned by the playing standard of the tournament. This is good for both player development and morale.
- There is the chance to play against and learn from stronger players without fear of knockout consequences for either person.

It's more complicated, but only for the organiser

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!