Trying to find the logic behind this

[ErikLevin]

Where I disagree with ErikLevin is this: I believe that on BGA Swiss is good in a variety of different cases, not just where you have many players and few rounds. Swiss can be quite good for a set of players who all want to keep playing matches even after they have no chance of winning the tournament. For example, my friends and I play Swiss tournaments of 4-player games like Catan and Living Forest, where there's only 4 of us in the tournament and the number of matches is 10 or even 20. We like playing against each other, game after game. Similarly, if you have a group of 12 people who all want to play 8 games of Catan one after the other, Swiss works fine (as long as people aren't going to be inclined to drop out if they haven't won after a few matches).

OK, so kind of running a longer series of automated rematches? And tally up a score for that. That's fair enough, I can see the appeal. I've had AFK groups doing similar things, but not with Swiss exactly, but similar ideas. Running indefinitely long series of matches and counting who has won the most the past X weeks and so on.

[detlefchef11]

So, here's an issue with this format:

Three out of 8 advance and the 3rd place player beat out the 4th place player by a 1/2 point
They played each other 3 times and the 4th place player won 2 of the 3
The 4th place player played the eventual group winner 2x while the third place player never did
Instead, the 3rd place player played the 8th place player 1x, the 7th place player 2x, and the 5th place player 1x.
In the 4 games not against each other, the 4th place player played the 1st place 2x and the 5th and 6th place players once each
So in unique games not against each other or someone they both played, the 3rd place player got a MUCH easier path

That seems very unfair to the person who finished 4th.