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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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I've paired tournaments both over the board and correspondence. I organized and paired two correspondence Canadian Opens with more entrants than this OTB Canadian Open. No big deal but a lot of work.
Pairing a swiss tournament is not rocket science. Complicating the pairing system and then screwing it up (if that's what happened) takes a special talent.
and that amounts to making the tournament a complete and utter joke and a farce, Et Tu Gary?
I don't know if he did (if I had to guess it would be "no") but it seems that the Chief Arbiter (Hal Bond) and the organizers knew by 1pm or earlier that there were "issues" with the pairings. [see Bob Armstrong's post about this elsewhere].
I find it rather disconcerting that nothing was done to correct the situation when they appear to have had at least 5 hours before the round was scheduled to effect changes. I think John Brown commented that the potential retort that "people had already made preparation for the advertised opponent" was a "crock" and I would have to agree.
Filing an appeal after the round is completed seems to be nothing more than procedural - but it should be done (knowing that nothing is likely to come of it). I doubt the organizers would try to squeeze in an extra round or to replay Round 3 with correct pairings or any other sort of remedy...
I wonder what Kevin Spraggett will have to say about all this!?! On my way over there now...
and that amounts to making the tournament a complete and utter joke and a farce, Et Tu Gary?
Come, come, Zeljko. I didn't write that.
It's far too dramatic for me.
My only real comment is the live games yesterday were too one sided to be of interest. Also that running a Swiss system event should be relatively easy for an IA.
It's not so easy when there are 250+ players. If you do it by hand, the sheer overburden of the numbers can be a challenge, as I discovered in 2007. My theory is that Swiss pairing rules were so easy that a computer couldn't follow them. Then FIDE rewrote their pairing rules to be more computer friendly. That's why they were so incomprehensible to humans, the last time I looked. I don't know the current status, but for years the pairing program most popular in North America had problems with odd groups, especially when players within such a group had already met. Normally, you could safely ignore those problems, but in a tournament like the CYCC, with lots of small sections, each one having many groups with--potentially--an odd number of players ... I'm still not sure there is a program which does precise North American (CFC or USCF) pairings. By contrast, there are, reportedly, several programs which flawlessly execute the FIDE pairing algorithm, er, rules.
Complicating the pairing system and then screwing it up (if that's what happened) takes a special talent.
I posted the crosstable and report of the 408-player Toronto 1976 Canadian Open, in this forum, as a kind of word to the wise. They in fact got through the first four rounds of a hyper-accelerated pairing system with head held high. They only came a cropper in the fifth round.
Back again in 2007, I played in the Quebec Open. At least twice, I prepared for an opponent, only to find out upon arriving at the site that the pairings had been changed. After I lost a game to Cuban IM Rodney Perez, we analyzed the moves and had a little chat in Spanish. I told him: "Pensaba que iba yo a jugar con tu." (or at least that's what he would have heard). He continued smiling, but I began to wonder. Then I took apart what I had just said and what he might have heard, which was "I thought that I was going to play with you (tu, although that's ungrammatical. If I'd really wanted to say that I was playing with him, it properly would have been con tigo or contigo, not con tu, but since I was apparently telling him that I thought I was going to play against him, and I really did play against him, this putative grammatical error fades beside the idiocy of the remark). Then I started to laugh and said. "No, no, no ... Pensaba que iba yo a jugar con el gran maestro Vietnames, Tu Hoang Thong". Rodney laughed too. A high point of the trip.
Oh yes, the super-hyper Accelerated Pairings – the sure way to ruin a Canadian Open.
2007 Ottawa, Ontario … Canada
20+ GMs, 280 participants in total – excellent venue and conditions.
One thing amiss… the pairings!
Ah yes – the super Aix-la-Chapelle pairings – >20 GMs – barely one IM norm, but over 200 unhappy “customers”. Rounds one, two and three: all started with unacceptable delays. Sounds more like Dunkerque!
In my feed-back response to the tournament organizers I indicated I liked the tournament but I will never participate if the pairing system will be the same. Many felt the same – a summary of these responses was made public.
Fast forward 2010.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
I strongly suspect the problem is not the accelerated pairings but the wrong way it is applied. Such pairings are used elsewhere with no problem at all. If one section Canadian Opens continue, it would be a shame to go without good accelerated pairings and return to more of "la même chose" just because of another sub-par TD performance.
Re: Canadian Chess Open Championship: Round 3 Farce.
David, is Hal responsible for doing the pairings (or ensuring their correctness if the data input is handled by others)? Looking at info provided by Matthew Scott & others, it seems that it should have been clear to the experienced observer, early on, that there were problems with the pairings. Weren't the pairings checked before they were posted? Is someone wearing too many hats (again)?
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
It's not so easy when there are 250+ players. If you do it by hand, the sheer overburden of the numbers can be a challenge, as I discovered in 2007. My theory is that Swiss pairing rules were so easy that a computer couldn't follow them. Then FIDE rewrote their pairing rules to be more computer friendly. That's why they were so incomprehensible to humans, the last time I looked. I don't know the current status, but for years the pairing program most popular in North America had problems with odd groups, especially when players within such a group had already met. Normally, you could safely ignore those problems, but in a tournament like the CYCC, with lots of small sections, each one having many groups with--potentially--an odd number of players ... I'm still not sure there is a program which does precise North American (CFC or USCF) pairings. By contrast, there are, reportedly, several programs which flawlessly execute the FIDE pairing algorithm, er, rules.
I posted the crosstable and report of the 408-player Toronto 1976 Canadian Open, in this forum, as a kind of word to the wise. They in fact got through the first four rounds of a hyper-accelerated pairing system with head held high. They only came a cropper in the fifth round.
I'd imagine when one has to keep track of all those phantom points a 250 player event can get complicated.
What I see for the round 4 pairings is 1500 players with 2.5 points and not many phantom points playing lower than they would normally play with a regular Swiss. Sooner or later these players, if they keep racking up points, will end up as simul fodder for the GM's in rounds 6 and maybe 7, will they not? In a regular paired Swiss they would be long gone and the top players would be playing each other.
I understand the idea is to make norm chances. However, the real outcome is seen in tie break points, is it not? Under rated players who happen to finish high will have lower tie break points. A strong player who gets unlucky enough to have to play and defeat a weak player with few phantom points in a later round when those phantoms disappear will also end up with fewer tie break points as a result. Wouldn't it be better to just get the weaker players out of there in the early rounds?
I'd have thought there would be more entrants in Toronto. On the other hand, I guess 250 is almost 12.5% of the CFC membership numbers so maybe it's a terrific entry. Do you recall the CFC membership when the entry was over 400 so we can compare percentages. :)
Re: Canadian Chess Open Championship: Round 3 Farce.
It seems to me with the Open's schedule they should post "tentative pairings", wait an hour, and then post official pairings. Granted this means conversing with participants about who's paired how and why (these come anyway, don't they), but experienced directors know they don't have to heed complaints unless they stem from true errors, and not just "suboptimal choices".
Better yet, there ought to be a program that validates pairings. I know I could write one in short order (not that short), and it would instantly give a TD a heads up about any bad matches that Swiss Sis might have created. Correcting pairings is another matter, much harder than identifying problems, but that can be left up to the TD and the pairing software. This validator would simply check the result and be your guarantee of quality.
.
I understand the idea is to make norm chances. However, the real outcome is seen in tie break points, is it not? Under rated players who happen to finish high will have lower tie break points. A strong player who gets unlucky enough to have to play and defeat a weak player with few phantom points in a later round when those phantoms disappear will also end up with fewer tie break points as a result. Wouldn't it be better to just get the weaker players out of there in the early rounds?
In a normal Swiss, 200 masters play 200 amateurs, round 1. The result is obvious.
In a hypothetical accellerated Swiss, 100 top amateurs play 100 losing masters round 2. Round 3, any amateurs still in the contention (far less than 50) deserve their chance to play the top guns. Meanwhile the top guns aren't saddled with needing to play the really weak players unless their own performance is poor.
Someone should run statistics on the number of mismatched games under various pairing systems, and the number of exotic finishes (1500 player scoring 6/9; IM scoring 2/9). I expect you'd find the numbers are pretty reasonable for the Canadian Open.
I strongly suspect the problem is not the accelerated pairings but the wrong way it is applied. Such pairings are used elsewhere with no problem at all. If one section Canadian Opens continue, it would be a shame to go without good accelerated pairings and return to more of "la même chose" just because of another sub-par TD performance.
Thank you for your answer.
I would tend to agree “almost 100%” – I should go back to that poll and change my vote :)
If our best IAs cannot manage accelerated pairs for 200+ players … I do not see any other solution but give it up in THEIR tournaments.
We can all agree that titled players might like to play interesting games from round one and that norm chances improve.
By the way, today in round 4 – at board 1, two strong and very respected GMs ended the game at move fourteen. Surely not a vote of confidence for the system.
Seriously, I’d rather watch board 34 where William Doubleday goes for a double rook ending …
Emil as usual puts us all to shame with his erudition and humour.
I would make a few more pedestrian observations:
First, Emil is right. We should never have allowed accelerated pairings in the Open in 2007. It was a fiasco. The TD of that event chose to share my pointed assessment of his performance with ChessTalk. Let us simply say I was not impressed. That said, his conclusion with which I am not qualified to argue, was that the software used by Capelle la Grande was not generating the desired results---something flawed in the algorithm as I recall. the result was labourious handpairings which were, as Emil says, unacceptably late.
Fast forward to Toronto 2010 and accelerated pairings are back, ostensibly for the same reason, to enhance the prospect of norms. This time, the TD relies on SwissSys which turns out to be badly flawed. "Those who do not remember their history shall be condemned to relive it" or something to that effect. I deeply sympathize with the players affected but also appreciate, having witnessed it first hand, that Hal Bond and his team have worked like trojans to reduce the inconvenience to a minimum.
As Emil observes, for the sake of a couple of norms; 200+ annoyed participants; to which I would only add, times 2. By contrast, Edmonton, with a simple Swiss pairing system, was a spectacular success with little or not criticism of the pairings---surely a modern Canadian first.
Could there be a lesson here?
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