Movement for 'fair' competition - 18 boards
We play an 18 board online afternoon session on BBO, previously getting 9 - 13 tables, at which we play a 9 * 2 board round Mitchell. However the numbers have recently been going up, and today we had 15 tables, so moved to a 6 * 3 board round 'Swiss' (actually Danish).
Obviously as you increase over 9 tables, the straight Mitchell becomes 'less fair', but you do meet up with more players with the 2 board rounds.
Does anyone have a view on how many tables we should allow for the Mitchell, before it becomes 'too unfair', and we should switch over? My current feeling is around 15 tables, but I have nothing to back this up, other than you play against only 60% of the players in the other direction, so that there is an additional level of luck over who you do and don't play.
Are there any other options that we can consider?
Thanks
Comments
It's not like a live club event where there are boards in circulation that are not being played by everyone. They are all playing the same boards so it would be best for them to meet as many people as possible. As such I would stick with the Mitchell, where everyone plays 9 pairs, rather than the Swiss where they play 6 pairs, at most.
As Gordon said, maximise pairings. Meeting strong players or robots if you use them, over 2 boards less painful than 3 board rounds.
I am in a similar position - we play 7 x 3 board rounds and when we had 6 tables it was not so bad, but there was a revenge round.
Then we increased to 7 (perfect) then 8 tables, so 1 pair not played.
We are now playing with about 9 tables and tonight it was 10. Playing 7 rounds of 3 boards means only playing 7/10 pairings, which does not feel ideal.
I have considered running a swiss movement and also running Howell type movement, but these also do not feel ideal.
It is a real shame that we don't have the same flexibility in movements online as we do face to face, plus the limitations in time that people have with online play).
I have also found that 21 boards is an ideal number of boards to play (taking us about 2 hours and 25 minutes) - not too long for those that struggle with computers, particularly over extended periods of time, but just long enough to be worthwhile.
BBO Howells are better than their "Swiss" because of the avoidance of playbacks. I would play 10x2 or 11x2 round rather than 7x3, but you know what your players like.