From: Pieter Stouten <pieter.stouten <at> DUPONTMERCK <dot> COM>
Date: 29 apr 1998
Subject: Re: Pairing system

On 98/04/30 at 0:46 +0200, Martin Danerud wrote:

>This means that this pairing system followed what is often referred to as
>"Monrad" rules with the exception that the top rated players
>were seeded before the pairing of round 1. This seemed reasonable since
>the top players should be able to contest the victory of the tournament
>in the final rounds. The top rated players won the first round games with
>only one exception.
>
This seems similar to a McMahon system (where the top 8 players in your
tournament would have received 1 point upfront), only in your arrangement
the top players still have to earn that point. The advantage of McMahon is
that very unbalanced games can be avoided and that one has one extra round
for more balanced games; the disadvantage that players that are "perceived"
to be weaker will start with one point less than the stronger players and
have a much harder time to win the tournament.

>What is it that you in UK would call a 6 round "swiss"?
>
I guess John Kewley referred to the first-round pairings specifically. Or
maybe to the fact that if a player has to be paired with a player with a
different number of wins, in a Swiss system one would typically pair the
player with the highest sum of opponents' scores in the higher point group
with the player with the lowest sum of opponents' scores in the next lower
point group. The aim of this biasing scheme is to produce as much as
possible equally difficult sets of opponents for all players within a point
group.
Pieter Stouten, SHOGI-L owner
pieter.stouten <at> dupontmerck <dot> com