New “Auto” number of matches for Swiss Tournaments

[Mathew5000]

I guess undefeated is a bit too specific of a definition. I think a more general description would be that the tournament ends once there is one player with a higher score than all other players.

You're right; that would be a better algorithm. Although if that is the rule, you could imagine the tournament going on for quite some time if there are two players at the top with the same score, and they've already played each other, and "try to prevent repeat matchups" is checked.

[Meeplelowda]

I guess undefeated is a bit too specific of a definition. I think a more general description would be that the tournament ends once there is one player with a higher score than all other players.

You're right; that would be a better algorithm. Although if that is the rule, you could imagine the tournament going on for quite some time if there are two players at the top with the same score, and they've already played each other, and "try to prevent repeat matchups" is checked.

Why can't it just be resolved with tie breakers already used for Swiss tournaments? So it goes for however many rounds would be required to determine an undefeated player if ties were impossible, regardless of whether that particular game allows for ties. Then if there is still a tie on points, it uses the 1st tie breaker, which is cumulative number of points of the opponents each has faced. And if still tied, then the average ELO of the opponents each has face (which will almost never be the same). So it could still be capped at log_2(P) rounded up.

Live Swiss chess tournaments have the same issue with reaching a set number of rounds with the top players still tied on points. They don't just keep adding rounds until there's no tie. They just have a very elaborate system of tie breakers (definitely more than two levels) to determine the winner.

[BoosPeople]

Is the "tournament agenda" section ever populated for a purely Swiss tournament? I've checked all my currently running Swiss tournaments and that section is blank in all of them.

here's a Swiss tournament with an agenda - https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=324477

I don't know how or why it gets populated.

[Mathew5000]

Is the "tournament agenda" section ever populated for a purely Swiss tournament? I've checked all my currently running Swiss tournaments and that section is blank in all of them.

here's a Swiss tournament with an agenda - https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=324477

That was created by me, as an experiment. I entered the match dates myself. (Link: viewtopic.php?p=189966#p189966 ) Ordinarily in a Swiss tournament, the match dates do not have fixed times other than the first round. After round 1, all matches of a round will begin when all matches of the previous round are complete. But if the creator sets match dates then, I believe, you could have some dead time where all the matches of round 4 (for example) are done but no round 5 matches have begun yet.

[Mathew5000]

Here's a tournament that was created with "number of matches" set to Auto: https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=383402 Only four entrants, two-player matches. The tournament stopped after Step 2, when there was one undefeated player.

[BananaHarambe]

Here's a tournament that was created with "number of matches" set to Auto: https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=383402 Only four entrants, two-player matches. The tournament stopped after Step 2, when there was one undefeated player.

Thanks for sharing. I think this Auto swiss has good appeal as a pseudo-single elimination style tournament that creators can set up frequently with little effort and without any idea of player count and have it always function well to create a winner, similar to current single elimination, but with the benefit that everyone gets to continue playing for placement and good matchmaking (via swiss system pairing).

Organizers don't need to worry about minimum and maximum player count for number of rounds, it will always make a decent tournament which is nice.

[yodamus]

I agree.. the new auto Swiss system will be great. Glad to see someone at bga is caring about tourneys. Big untapped area of site. Keep up the good work and effort bga. Thanks

[BananaHarambe]

Next step is to figure out how 3p and 4p Auto Swiss tournaments work! I haven't made any yet, but perhaps I can make some more Faraway ones. Haven't done 3+p Faraway tournaments yet but my gut says 10 day for 3p and 15 day for 4p because the game runs fine on 5 day for 2p. Number of turns is 10-15 "turns" for 2p based on my calculations and experience with it. There's 8 rounds and 2 actions each round, but the player that plays last each round will drop their card for next round ASAP during the "play card face down" start of each round.

I sure don't want to make a 30 day game tournament to test it. I would choose 20 days for 4p if it was an option. Does anyone have experience in Faraway tournaments with 3p or 4p? I'm too lazy to go through old tournaments and figure out if time was good or not.

I would assume based on everything so far the formula is still Rounds=roundup(Log_p(n)+y) Would be the formula where p is player count for the game (base of log), n is the number of players per group/tournament, and y is the “bonus” number of round, which seems to be set to 0. This would mean a 3p tournament with 27 players is 3 rounds and 81 players is 4 rounds, but once the player count goes over it should round up the number of matches either automatically or if a winner hasn't been determined yet.

[yodamus]

I need to step my toe into making tourneys. I imagine start with smaller simple games single elimination. There are plenty of games I wish had more tourneys more often. Keep up good work Banana. I want to join those faraway tourneys. 10 day for 3p. 15 for 4p. I agree with.

[BananaHarambe]

I need to step my toe into making tourneys. I imagine start with smaller simple games single elimination. There are plenty of games I wish had more tourneys more often. Keep up good work Banana. I want to join those faraway tourneys. 10 day for 3p. 15 for 4p. I agree with.

https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=389875 3p tournament link here. Starts May 20 so I should get 82+ players.

3p Faraway should be fairly popular. It's not as fast as 2p Faraway, but the extra cards is interesting and games shouldn't take TOO long. I heard 7p Faraway is a nightmare for Turn Based.