Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 09:44:04 06/08/99
Go up one level in this thread
On June 08, 1999 at 09:36:12, Dave Gomboc wrote: >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 What I most dislike is that nobody knows which are the strongest entries, so I do not see how the accelerated pairings will help to match them more frequently. I think one of the premises for accelerated pairings to work is to have a good ranking of the players, like an established ratings list. But I remember somebody said that in these tournaments the entries are ranked according to the TD's guesses. I do not think that is a good ranking. José.
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