Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 06:36:12 06/08/99
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On June 08, 1999 at 08:13:55, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On June 08, 1999 at 03:00:22, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >> >>On June 08, 1999 at 01:36:33, Dave Gomboc wrote: >> >>>The web page http://www.uni-paderborn.de/~wccc99/ reports that standard >>>(non-accelerated) pairings will be used, but from my conversation with some of >>>the ICCA executive, they do intend to use accelerated pairings (mainly because >>>it will force more games to be played between the strongest opponents.) >>> >>>So I am writing this so that everyone is not shocked when they get there. :-) >> >>I predict a big fight. >> >>bruce > > >I don't know who the TD is, but you can tell him for me that this is _stupid_. >All he has to do is ask _any_ legitimate TD and he'll discover that accelerated >pairings are _wrong_ when you have more than log2(players) rounds. And since >2^7 (7 rounds) is > number of players, this is useless... > >Some people never learn. Or they refuse to learn. :) I specifically gave this argument, Bob. But David Levy replied that they wanted to maximize the number of games between strong opponents, and that using accelerated pairings would do that. I went and researched this a bit, and here's what I found in the Chess Federation of Canada handbook (at "http://www.chess.ca/section6"): Accelerated Methods of Pairing Early Rounds (Variations) 633. In a tournament where the players-to-rounds ratio exceeds the optimum (16:4, 32:5, 64:6, etc.), the chances of producing a clear winner are decreased. Accelerated pairings increase the frequency of meeting of the higher ranked players and are therefore also useful in longer tournaments where the winner is unlikely to have a perfect score. The effect of these variations decreases when the players are of about the same playing strength (as in a tournament divided into sections by playing strength). [after this, specific VARIATIONS 633.1 and 633.2 are discussed] They are using accelerated pairings to "increase the frequency of meetings of the higher ranked players" because that is "useful in longer tournaments where the winner is unlikely to have a perfect score." I thought about it, decided that this description fit the WCCC very well, and consequently was persuaded by David's argument. Dave
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