From: "'Ben Bednarz'" AOL COM> Date: 25 sep 1998 Subject: Re: Dancing Shogi Piece In a message dated 9/25/98 6:42:49 PM EST, dysartdj EMAIL UC EDU writes: << > >In a Swiss tournament everyone starts with 0 points (wins) and > >are paired up randomly. > ====================== > No, in a swiss tournament, the pairings in the first round should not be > done randomly. > Eric Cheymol Get the last european Shogi news at That's true. I was jostled by this statement, too! In fact, I believe the Swiss pairings work like this: List all the players from best to worst, then divide all it into four sections. The players in the top section play the respective ones in the third section, and those in the second section play the respective players in the fourth. Each following round you do this same process at each score level. Does that make sense? I hope I explained it right. I have TD friends who might know better. >> Swiss pairing are usually divided into two groups, not four. However, when you match 1st group with 3rd and 2nd group with 4th, the effect is the same as dividing the entire list in half. There is a type of Swiss called "Accelereated Swiss", in which you divide the list into two parts and then pair the upper group amonst themselves and the lower group amongst themselves (this is effectively the same as dividing the total list into four group, and pairing 1st with 2nd, 3rd with 4th). You only do this accelerated pairing for the first few (30%-50% of the total tournament length) rounds, and then revert to normal Swiss. To get back to the original statement, your list list (for the first round) should be ordered high to low, but that only works if you have ratings for everyone! Ben Bednarz