Board Game Arena

Hi, I was just informed that Swiss tournaments and Group Stage Swiss can be configured with “Auto” as the number of matches. There is text notice that says auto will adjust based on the number of players.

Does anyone have a link to the announcement or any clarification post by an admin? Do we know the formula they use?

I’m curious if it’s only a “pure sort” type of Swiss or if they have an additional match, how many bonus matches they include. I want to know how it calculates before I use it.

Rounds=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 rounds

Here's a suggestion in BGA's official bug report system: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=142911

It only has 8 votes at the moment, and the devs have not marked it as "implemented" (or otherwise commented).

In any event, it's terrific that at least one BGA dev is working on improvements to tournaments. I just wonder, was this inspired by Meeplelowda's submission in the official system this past October, or by the various threads on this forum, or did the dev never see either of those but just came up with the idea independently.

I made a quick starting Faraway tournament to test it here
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=384258

Starts May 2 so we will know on Friday.

The "Auto" feature could be great. Looking forward to learning details about the algorithm implemented and hope that it includes extra rounds based on the number of players and in group stages, the number of players that will advance.

BananaHarambe wrote: ↑28 April 2025, 21:12 Starts May 2 so we will know on Friday.

Maybe next Friday...

Congrats on getting such a high turn out to your tournament so quickly.

I hope there are more than the minimum number of 7 rounds. It would be nice if the tournament page, https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=384258, indicated the computed number of rounds as well as saying "Number of matches: Auto"

BoosPeople wrote: ↑02 May 2025, 17:01

BananaHarambe wrote: ↑28 April 2025, 21:12 Starts May 2 so we will know on Friday.

Maybe next Friday...

Congrats on getting such a high turn out to your tournament so quickly.

I hope there are more than the minimum number of 7 rounds. It would be nice if the tournament page, https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=384258, indicated the computed number of rounds as well as saying "Number of matches: Auto"

Thanks, 2 player Faraway is an awesome game to test tournaments since so many players sign up. All I had to do was invite about 15 people from a recent tournament to get a boost and numbers climbed fast!

I made a post in the tournament group. I didn't participate so I'm unsure if anyone in the tournament can see a defined number of rounds so I asked for a reply.

Auto might keep going until there is 1 or less undefeated player or leading player, no one knows. This is guaranteed to happen by Round 7 but in theory could happen by Round 6 if the leading players lose all their pair downs matches. If it somehow ends after 6 rounds, that's why, but is quite unlikely.

BananaHarambe wrote: ↑02 May 2025, 19:05

BoosPeople wrote: ↑02 May 2025, 17:01

BananaHarambe wrote: ↑28 April 2025, 21:12 Starts May 2 so we will know on Friday.

Maybe next Friday...

Congrats on getting such a high turn out to your tournament so quickly.

I hope there are more than the minimum number of 7 rounds. It would be nice if the tournament page, https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=384258, indicated the computed number of rounds as well as saying "Number of matches: Auto"

Thanks, 2 player Faraway is an awesome game to test tournaments since so many players sign up. All I had to do was invite about 15 people from a recent tournament to get a boost and numbers climbed fast!

I made a post in the tournament group. I didn't participate so I'm unsure if anyone in the tournament can see a defined number of rounds so I asked for a reply.

Auto might keep going until there is 1 or less undefeated player or leading player, no one knows. This is guaranteed to happen by Round 7 but in theory could happen by Round 6 if the leading players lose all their pair downs matches. If it somehow ends after 6 rounds, that's why, but is quite unlikely.

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.

The tournament should show up, it's public.

Hey I found a 2p tournament with Auto swiss that's finished. 5 players and finished after 3 rounds with a clear 3-0 winner.

https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=383798

Interesting. It could be that "Auto" makes the tournament terminate when there is exactly one undefeated player. Although for a tournament with multiplayer matches, it would be possible to get to a point with 0 undefeated players (also possible for a two-player game if draws are a possibility).

One other thing I noticed from that link: in the tournament standings, the icon to the right of the word "Players" (which gives further information about the standings when you click on it) used to be a plus symbol but is now a greater-than symbol.

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑02 May 2025, 22:43 Interesting. It could be that "Auto" makes the tournament terminate when there is exactly one undefeated player. Although for a tournament with multiplayer matches, it would be possible to get to a point with 0 undefeated players (also possible for a two-player game if draws are a possibility).

One other thing I noticed from that link: in the tournament standings, the icon to the right of the word "Players" (which gives further information about the standings when you click on it) used to be a plus symbol but is now a greater-than symbol.

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. Going undefeated is the easiest way to cause this, but it could be achieved with some ties or shared victories (from skips).

We will have to wait and see when Auto decides to stop! Add any related tournaments you find here.