There's a difference between Swiss Pairs and Swiss Teams, though, isn't there? With a teams triple to handle an odd number of teams everybody still gets to play all the hands. With a pairs triple to handle an odd number of pairs, there will always be one pair sitting out, even if it is only for half or a third of a match. I think this explains the use of a reserve pair to ensure there are an even number of competitors.
@AlanW said:
There's a difference between Swiss Pairs and Swiss Teams, though, isn't there? With a teams triple to handle an odd number of teams everybody still gets to play all the hands. With a pairs triple to handle an odd number of pairs, there will always be one pair sitting out, even if it is only for half or a third of a match. I think this explains the use of a reserve pair to ensure there are an even number of competitors.
Certainly at the start of the event - but as I understand it, the pair pulled out after the first round - which is usually an hour of play. Not easy to persuade a pair to hang on - and if so where do you draw the line?
Getting stand-bys to stay to start of round 1 can be hard enough! I was provided with a stand-by team who left 5 minutes before the start because we had an even number of teams. Of course we only had 4N-1 pairs, but nobody had checked before releasing the stand-bys. TD and caddy played match 1, and one stand-by pair answered their mobile and were turned round to return for match 2.
Triangles in Swiss Pairs are fiddly, consume TD effort and error prone. But if you have odd number of pairs who have all paid to enter then triangles are preferable to 6/7/8 board sit-outs.
Triangles in Swiss Pairs also eat up assignments. I had 15 pairs for a 4-round Swiss Pairs and so more than half the field sat out and all put 3 pairs played in the triangles.
In the last round, the first sitting out pair sat at the spare table and looked at the board set there. Of course, these were the boards they were due to play in the second half of the round, so the first sitting out pair could not play any boards - they went home and the due-to-sit-out pair got to play the whole round - took some while to persuade EBUScore SwissPairs what had happened.
Comments
Put them as missing and run a triple. Or find a substitute pair.
What were you planning to do if you had an odd number of pairs at the start? If you had robots ready they could be the substitute pair now.
Didn't realise you cold do a triple for Swiss pairs - although it's obvious now.
Every Swiss pairs event I've ever been to has had an odd pair willing to drop out if there is a half table.
There's a difference between Swiss Pairs and Swiss Teams, though, isn't there? With a teams triple to handle an odd number of teams everybody still gets to play all the hands. With a pairs triple to handle an odd number of pairs, there will always be one pair sitting out, even if it is only for half or a third of a match. I think this explains the use of a reserve pair to ensure there are an even number of competitors.
Certainly at the start of the event - but as I understand it, the pair pulled out after the first round - which is usually an hour of play. Not easy to persuade a pair to hang on - and if so where do you draw the line?
Getting stand-bys to stay to start of round 1 can be hard enough! I was provided with a stand-by team who left 5 minutes before the start because we had an even number of teams. Of course we only had 4N-1 pairs, but nobody had checked before releasing the stand-bys. TD and caddy played match 1, and one stand-by pair answered their mobile and were turned round to return for match 2.
Triangles in Swiss Pairs are fiddly, consume TD effort and error prone. But if you have odd number of pairs who have all paid to enter then triangles are preferable to 6/7/8 board sit-outs.
Triangles in Swiss Pairs also eat up assignments. I had 15 pairs for a 4-round Swiss Pairs and so more than half the field sat out and all put 3 pairs played in the triangles.
In the last round, the first sitting out pair sat at the spare table and looked at the board set there. Of course, these were the boards they were due to play in the second half of the round, so the first sitting out pair could not play any boards - they went home and the due-to-sit-out pair got to play the whole round - took some while to persuade EBUScore SwissPairs what had happened.