Suggestions for additional tourney types

[Liddicoatite]

I've played a few tournaments, enjoyed what I've done so far, and have some suggestions for additional formats I'd like to see supported:

Double/Triple elimination brackets - I just learned that triple elimination tourneys were a thing today! Anyway, it's similar to the single elimination tournaments BGA has now, only if you lose a game, you're dropped into a consolation bracket. The consolation brackets can either determine final places, or feed back into the main bracket, giving players the chance to have a comeback and contend for the overall title.

Staggered-start round-robin - The biggest issue with the current round-robin format is that it dumps all the games you're going to play on you at once, which can be overwhelming. I'd like to see an option where games come in a steady stream - for example, one new game a day.

Regular Season/Playoffs - How about a format that combines round-robin with an elimination tournament? Think something like the World Cup or NFL, where teams play a limited slate of games in pools or divisions as a "regular season," and then the top teams from that phase move on to an elimination tournament for the championship.

Anyway, if anyone else has any other alternate formats they'd like to see, I'm interested in hearing them!

[headkace]

I agree double elimination would be a great addition. I'm not sure about triple elimination: at that point, wouldn't a swiss-system be just as good? (Swiss-system is already available here.)

And, very much agree with your observation on the round-robin tournaments here. I prefer the round-robin format over others, is the most fair. But, I've taken to warning people about the all-games-start-at-once way it works here when I organize such a tournament. The staggered-start idea is good. Probably, the time between starts should be related to the overall time-allowed per game. ... Also, consider that when there is an odd number of players (for a 2-player game), some players would get stuck with bye-rounds. So, an option to have some sort of staggered starts with X-number of games at a time would be very nice, too.

Finally, I'll throw in that a double-round-robin (2 games versus each opponent) would be a great option, too. Especially, it would be great for games that have a substantial 1st player advantage, as well as for games that have an element of luck involved.

[Liddicoatite]

I think you're right about triple elimination tournaments, that the niche it takes up is handled more efficiently by Swiss tourneys, which is probably why they're so rare.

I also really like the idea of "X games at a time from Y round-robin tournament" because it cuts down on the number of games dumped in your lap when the tournament starts, and also solves the issue of the odd man out for tourneys with uneven numbers of players.

Double round robin tournaments would be cool. Another option related to that might be double Swiss system matches, for the same reasons as you've cited. Each match between players is a two-game series where they take turns playing first; if both players win one match, it's counted as a draw for Swiss system pairings in the next match. Looking it up, the two-game setup seems to be common in chess where there is a first-turn advantage.

And for elimination tournaments, another interesting option might be to re-seed the bracket for each round or given rounds, so in each round, the true highest seed plays the true lowest seed. While the first round draw seeds players based on ELO, the next rounds' draws should only be based on the seeding for the previous round, since with wins and losses, ELO is bound to change, especially when upsets in a re-seeded format increases the swing of how much ELO changes by the match, since that maximizes the gap between ELO when the best players in the tourney always play the worst.

[Daavids]

Staggered-start round-robin - The biggest issue with the current round-robin format is that it dumps all the games you're going to play on you at once, which can be overwhelming. I'd like to see an option where games come in a steady stream - for example, one new game a day.

Yes, it would be perfect to schedule 1 new round a day.

Let know the round-robin tournament creator/admin that there are option to schedule games. Although it is not perfect.
Should edit each round date and time.
You can start 1 match in a day or whatever prefer.
Depending of moves per day, it calculates maximum time for match. If it's 3 days, then next match (or matches) could start after 3 days. (But if admin wants, can schedule after 10 or 30 days.)
If first round started 10:00am, then next round should start after 3 days at 10:00am. It would not allow to schedule at 9:00am
Another issue: If some matches are not finished by the time when starts new round, they are stopped and loser is that who had longer thinking time.

[Liddicoatite]

Staggered-start round-robin - The biggest issue with the current round-robin format is that it dumps all the games you're going to play on you at once, which can be overwhelming. I'd like to see an option where games come in a steady stream - for example, one new game a day.

Yes, it would be perfect to schedule 1 new round a day.

Let know the round-robin tournament creator/admin that there are option to schedule games. Although it is not perfect.
Should edit each round date and time.
You can start 1 match in a day or whatever prefer.
Depending of moves per day, it calculates maximum time for match. If it's 3 days, then next match (or matches) could start after 3 days. (But if admin wants, can schedule after 10 or 30 days.)
If first round started 10:00am, then next round should start after 3 days at 10:00am. It would not allow to schedule at 9:00am
Another issue: If some matches are not finished by the time when starts new round, they are stopped and loser is that who had longer thinking time.

That's basically how the current Swiss system tournaments work - everyone plays their first round matches, and once either the games are all done or the round time limit is up, then everyone gets paired up for the second round. I think that works great, and would be great if you could have that option for round robin tournaments too, where you would play your games one at a time.

The only two issues I see would be if you have an uneven number of players, which already happens and there's a solution for that. Each round, someone doesn't get a match, and unlike in a Swiss system tournament, everyone would have a bye round.

The other thing is how long a round robin tournament would take if you did it one match at a time, but with the right time limits and if you keep the number of players manageable, it's not so much of an issue. And it's a lot less stressful than suddenly having to play 15 matches of the same game at a time...

[Daavids]

The only two issues I see would be if you have an uneven number of players, which already happens and there's a solution for that. Each round, someone doesn't get a match, and unlike in a Swiss system tournament, everyone would have a bye round.

In current Round Robin system it is already happening. When i created a tournament with 3 matches simultaneously per round. In each round some of players had 2 matches.

[LSC]

I support the double round robin idea, especially useful for games with first-turn advantage. But how can we suggest this to admin?

[LSC]

I have made a suggestion here, lets vote for it
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=27937