Life
Smash Hero
Yu-gi-oh uses Swiss for its regional events (and most locals). Regionals around here usually get around 100 players. For a children's card game!
jussayin
jussayin
-
Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!
You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!
Swiss style tournaments should be the new Smash standard
- Thread starter Winnar
- Start date
BunBun
Smash Master
I have Swiss software, FYI Winnar.
-Ran
Smash Master
Randall [Fake George] tried Swiss at the last large tournament he ran a year or two ago. It was a total nightmare, because he couldn't rely on people to do the math right. Him and I both had to drop our focus on the tournament in order to resolve some of the glaring issues. There were numerous errors in individuals getting into brackets and it turned off entire car pools from ever returning to our state.
If anything, rather than doing Round Robins, we should be doing double elimination Pools where you play for top three and then seed for bracket from there [bo3 only]. You don't play grand finals. This makes every match actually worth something and reduces the time it takes to seed the bracket and cull the players that aren't prepared significantly faster.
If anything, rather than doing Round Robins, we should be doing double elimination Pools where you play for top three and then seed for bracket from there [bo3 only]. You don't play grand finals. This makes every match actually worth something and reduces the time it takes to seed the bracket and cull the players that aren't prepared significantly faster.
BunBun
Smash Master
Are you sure he didn't just fail at running the tournament?
Winnar
Smash Lord
I honestly don't know what grounds you have to say that swiss is exactly like a single elimination tournament. If you take the top 32 then it would probably be more accurate to describe it as a triple elimination tournament, I guess? I don't think that's even a good way to view it because it implies
I thought I had addressed the three-way tie. Just put them in a round robin together and if there's another tie then use the software to rank players by how well their opponents did. This shows which players had to fight the hardest to get into the tie-breaker group. These are the ambiguous statistics I keep referring to.
Players don't have to be able to recognize each other to know they have to play their match at TV 8. How is that any different than announcing pools? That's a good point about pools being easier to enforce rules with. I don't really have an answer for that.
With this mentality you allow the best players to get better (by playing more) and the worst players to stagnate (because they can't get the matches they would need to improve). This is not how you foster a growing community. All players deserve every opportunity to improve, especially when it doesn't come at a cost for any player.
You're wrong. You can save a significant amount of time only by switching from pools to swiss. I have no idea what basis you have for this argument, when I've gone to great lengths to show in the OP that my claim is sound.
If you point out specifically where my calculations or logic fails and why, then I will happily concede that swiss isn't faster than pools.
As for the reset time and reorganization, swiss has at least one advantage over pools in that it's much easier to make a schedule for. For example, Round 1.1 starts at 1:00pm and ends at 1:30pm. All players must play their matches and report them within 30 minutes. Round 1.2 starts at 1:30pm and ends at 2:00pm, etc.
By the way, thank you for all this feedback. I know it probably seems like I'm just throwing everything back in your face, but you're bringing up some good points that I think need addressing.
Awesome! :D What were the small seeding issues? I'd like to know all potential problems so that we know how to avoid them in the future.
If it's 256 players or below with a setup to player ratio of 1:4, then it would take 8 rounds of swiss. This means 16 sets, which would take about 25-30 minutes each so 7-8 hours. Above 256 players will take about 1 hour longer because it's one more round of pools.
I was at this tournament in the pool you ran. You guys did swiss pools, which 100% defeats the purpose of doing swiss. You also did it by hand and overcomplicated the **** out of swiss. This was also done on a whim, and was neither pre-planned nor explained to the pool leaders until the day of the tournament. You tried to use a system you didn't full understand and it ended up being a disaster.
Sorry, but that one was just poor TO'ing on your part and is in no way indicative of how swiss can or should be run. :\
From what I can tell, Swiss+bracket also helps get rid of death-pools, which is something I've always disliked. Particularly when better players sandbag because they're confident they can win when the time comes. Seems like Swiss makes every match count because you don't want to end up screwing yourself later playing, let's say, Armada as your first round in the bracket because you messed up your seeding.
Palpi
Smash Hero
Yeah, it sucks to see so many good players have death pools, especially at big tourney series like genesis and pound and not get into brackets.
...
probably rubyiris...
...
Palpi
Smash Hero
edit;doublepostsry
Bones0
Smash Legend
This is what we ran at Crimson's, bro. lol
Winnar
Smash Lord
Here's the bare-bones explanation of how I will be running swiss. Eggm, I think you were looking for something like this?
thespymachine
Smash Ace
Winnar
Smash Lord
That's a really cool idea O:
thespymachine
Smash Ace
Thanks!
I've been looking it over due to this thread, and found a little flaw with my point system. Going to rework stuff and post a revamped version soon, hopefully.
I've been looking it over due to this thread, and found a little flaw with my point system. Going to rework stuff and post a revamped version soon, hopefully.
Zoro
Smash Champion
Winnar did you ever make the software? I've found some for chess but the programs were complicated to me. Maybe a run-down on how to use one would be nice.
Actually something like this would work pretty well. http://fsmash.org/swiss-tournament/
I'd like to implement swiss at our melee monthlies here in Orlando but I'd like software first to help TOing. I really like the whole idea because it gives more of an incentive for less skilled players to enter. We've had trouble getting people to enter/stay that aren't already playing at a high level. I totally agree with making the best possible tournament experience for everyone regardless of skill level.
Winnar
Smash Lord
I have not made the software yet. I'll try to sit down tonight and chug through it after I get some food. Wish me luck!
Also that was a very helpful link, thanks.
TheCrimsonBlur
Smash Master
Northern Virginia actually. I hosted that.
In general I like swiss, but it definitely has disadvantages. I'd be interested in whatever software you make, because the largest one is that it is very TO intensive. I didn't play a single friendly at my tournament. Because of this though, it was run very efficiently; we completed 187 sets in less than 5 hours with a less than 1:2 setup to player ratio.
mers
Smash Ace
LOL
i saw "swiss style tournaments" and the most recent post was Crimson's, so i had to come see what was going on.
swiss hybrid... lol what a hilarious tourney.
<3 Crimson
i saw "swiss style tournaments" and the most recent post was Crimson's, so i had to come see what was going on.
swiss hybrid... lol what a hilarious tourney.
<3 Crimson
Zoro
Smash Champion
http://www4.atpages.jp/kakoiku/competitionlist.php?lang=en
This one is even better, I think I could manage with this alone. Only downside is that it would need an internet connection. Which isn't always guaranteed in a tournament setting. Good thing is that it'd be easy to keep records this way.
Eggm
Smash Hero
That was a good summary. That's all that should have been in the OP especially since you are making software where the TO or the players don't need to understand it anyway (for maximum attention). Along with an explanation about how you don't need to understand how it works cause i'm making software etc.. Also the benefits/cons of it. And maybe a "show spoiler" of how it actually works for people who are interested. Since smashboards is mad lazy.
Anyway I think if the software works well and everything it would workout pretty well at tristate tournaments. Our turnout to setup ratio is always really really good cause of our low turnouts lol. The problem is we hardly ever do pools, but that might change as our turnouts are starting to improve. This weekends no johns tournament is looking like 50 people.
If this continues (the good turnouts) and the software is as easy as you claim then maybe i'll try and talk some of the TO's into trying this out, cause I really like the thing about not leaving the bad players behind and letting them play more matches of people among their skill level. When I was bad I always resented the fact that the best players were always getting better faster cause of playing each other more often. That elite "group" always used to play friendlies with each other more often too. Felt like i'd never catch up even though I finally did. I host myself sometimes, but I never get the turnouts needed for pools/swiss. I get like 10-20 people only.
By the way i'm not trying to be mean, but did you calculate in the fact that players who are bad, that their sets take longer i'd say by at least 5 minutes (if it goes to game 3) than non bad players? Like in my experiences of going to tournaments, usually what ends up happening is when the good players are playing through all their matches in the pool vs the bad players it takes like TWICE as long if not more for the bad players to finish each set. I guess cause they are less efficient at killing each other and doing combos. If there are going to be so many more sets of bad players playing each other with swiss it might throw off our time calculations lol.
Anyways I think your best bet for getting people to do this would be to have a OP like this. The one u have there is a little confrontational cause your automatically declaring your method 100% the best before even explaining why with the TL;dr part.
The part about chess doesn't even need to be in there imo it just makes people look away cause its so long.
_____________________________________________________________________
Thread title "Swiss vs pools"
Swiss works by pairing players based on their win/loss records. Players with the same or similar records are paired up randomly or semi-randomly for each round of swiss. A win counts for 3 points, a 2-1 loss counts for 1 point, and a 2-0 loss counts for 0 points. All players start with 0 points.
The number of rounds of swiss depends on the number of entrants. In case of a tie, players will play tiebreaker games (time permitting).
Players or TO's don't even know how swiss works to enjoy its benefits. Using a software i'm creating for running swiss at smash tournaments players in a pool report their own matches either to the TO or ideally they input the results directly into the software on their own. From there the software tells the TO or the players who to play next until the swiss pools is over.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
Pros
It lets more players get more matches against people of their skill level.
It’s faster even despite the first point
It holds equal appeal players of all skill levels
It seeds better for brackets in many ways including eliminating death pools.
It allows for a unified ranking system similar to chess’s elo system which would be great for seeding brackets without pools and cause less disputes when TO's don't see d the way players feel they should (rubyis) if its simply based on math/points.
Cons
It requires a higher emphasis on getting setups to tournaments
It needs software for best results
It suffers from some misconceptions, so introducing it could be a bit of a gamble for TO’s
It might be more difficult to enforce rules and provide guidance for new players than pools (no pool leaders)
Your gonna just have to trust me on that it's faster, but if you don't you can read this painful analysis I did as to why its faster "show spoiler"
And also if you wanted a longer explanation of how it works u can check here "show spoiler"
Let's discuss!
_____________________________________________________________________
I think that's less confrontational and more informative. Its mostly your words, and please feel free to improve it lol i'm bad with words.
Also I was reading over this paragraph and thinking about myself at a tournament doing this.
Players or TO's don't even know how swiss works to enjoy its benefits. Using a software i'm creating for running swiss at smash tournaments players in a pool report their own matches either to the TO or ideally they input the results directly into the software on their own. From there the software tells the TO or the players who to play next until the swiss pools is over.
And I realized that it would be a pain for players to run back and forth from the TO desk to the pool all the time. Esp at a national. Sometimes the pool and the to desk is really far away, not only that but the TO desk would be super crowded with that amount of people coming to check all the time. I wonder if you could write smartphone/android apps, that correspond with the program ur writing for the TO's computer.
At least one person in each pool will have a smartphone (either iphone or android) and then they could see what match to play next and plug it into that instead which would avoid that problem I forsee happening with people coming up to the TO desk all the time to see who they play next. That person could also be the "pool leader". Sorry for the wall of text lol.
Anyway I think if the software works well and everything it would workout pretty well at tristate tournaments. Our turnout to setup ratio is always really really good cause of our low turnouts lol. The problem is we hardly ever do pools, but that might change as our turnouts are starting to improve. This weekends no johns tournament is looking like 50 people.
If this continues (the good turnouts) and the software is as easy as you claim then maybe i'll try and talk some of the TO's into trying this out, cause I really like the thing about not leaving the bad players behind and letting them play more matches of people among their skill level. When I was bad I always resented the fact that the best players were always getting better faster cause of playing each other more often. That elite "group" always used to play friendlies with each other more often too. Felt like i'd never catch up even though I finally did. I host myself sometimes, but I never get the turnouts needed for pools/swiss. I get like 10-20 people only.
By the way i'm not trying to be mean, but did you calculate in the fact that players who are bad, that their sets take longer i'd say by at least 5 minutes (if it goes to game 3) than non bad players? Like in my experiences of going to tournaments, usually what ends up happening is when the good players are playing through all their matches in the pool vs the bad players it takes like TWICE as long if not more for the bad players to finish each set. I guess cause they are less efficient at killing each other and doing combos. If there are going to be so many more sets of bad players playing each other with swiss it might throw off our time calculations lol.
Anyways I think your best bet for getting people to do this would be to have a OP like this. The one u have there is a little confrontational cause your automatically declaring your method 100% the best before even explaining why with the TL;dr part.
The part about chess doesn't even need to be in there imo it just makes people look away cause its so long.
_____________________________________________________________________
Thread title "Swiss vs pools"
Swiss works by pairing players based on their win/loss records. Players with the same or similar records are paired up randomly or semi-randomly for each round of swiss. A win counts for 3 points, a 2-1 loss counts for 1 point, and a 2-0 loss counts for 0 points. All players start with 0 points.
The number of rounds of swiss depends on the number of entrants. In case of a tie, players will play tiebreaker games (time permitting).
Players or TO's don't even know how swiss works to enjoy its benefits. Using a software i'm creating for running swiss at smash tournaments players in a pool report their own matches either to the TO or ideally they input the results directly into the software on their own. From there the software tells the TO or the players who to play next until the swiss pools is over.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
Pros
It lets more players get more matches against people of their skill level.
It’s faster even despite the first point
It holds equal appeal players of all skill levels
It seeds better for brackets in many ways including eliminating death pools.
It allows for a unified ranking system similar to chess’s elo system which would be great for seeding brackets without pools and cause less disputes when TO's don't see d the way players feel they should (rubyis) if its simply based on math/points.
Cons
It requires a higher emphasis on getting setups to tournaments
It needs software for best results
It suffers from some misconceptions, so introducing it could be a bit of a gamble for TO’s
It might be more difficult to enforce rules and provide guidance for new players than pools (no pool leaders)
Your gonna just have to trust me on that it's faster, but if you don't you can read this painful analysis I did as to why its faster "show spoiler"
And also if you wanted a longer explanation of how it works u can check here "show spoiler"
Let's discuss!
_____________________________________________________________________
I think that's less confrontational and more informative. Its mostly your words, and please feel free to improve it lol i'm bad with words.
Also I was reading over this paragraph and thinking about myself at a tournament doing this.
Players or TO's don't even know how swiss works to enjoy its benefits. Using a software i'm creating for running swiss at smash tournaments players in a pool report their own matches either to the TO or ideally they input the results directly into the software on their own. From there the software tells the TO or the players who to play next until the swiss pools is over.
And I realized that it would be a pain for players to run back and forth from the TO desk to the pool all the time. Esp at a national. Sometimes the pool and the to desk is really far away, not only that but the TO desk would be super crowded with that amount of people coming to check all the time. I wonder if you could write smartphone/android apps, that correspond with the program ur writing for the TO's computer.
At least one person in each pool will have a smartphone (either iphone or android) and then they could see what match to play next and plug it into that instead which would avoid that problem I forsee happening with people coming up to the TO desk all the time to see who they play next. That person could also be the "pool leader". Sorry for the wall of text lol.
Rubyiris
Smash Hero
OP: no "pool leaders" is BS. MTG/Yugioh/Pokemon has been doing this for swiss for as long as they've had tournaments.
There are a plethora of people who attend smash tournaments just to socialize, and even just to TO/help run the event. Use these people to patrol the isles and have them answer any questions.
Print out match slips and put them at each table and make sure an official signs the slip rather than the players to avoid any misconceptions.
Also, OP: I have the software that Yugioh uses (Mantis, not Cossy), if you're interested.
There are a plethora of people who attend smash tournaments just to socialize, and even just to TO/help run the event. Use these people to patrol the isles and have them answer any questions.
Print out match slips and put them at each table and make sure an official signs the slip rather than the players to avoid any misconceptions.
Also, OP: I have the software that Yugioh uses (Mantis, not Cossy), if you're interested.
GKInfinity
Smash Champion
I approve of the swiss tournament format idea. One of the local tournaments I went to with around 30 entrants did it before and it turned out really well. (violence)
choknater
Smash Obsessed
nick, use swiss at the next modesto local!!!
Swiss style is awesome. It WOULD BE the new standard except ONE thing..... TIO does not have an option for it :^(
I have bothered Neal multiple times to put it into TIO, but he never wants to. I think it's because he has too much work to do.
The only thing we can do is bother him so much he has to relent to our pestering.
But once it's put into TIO you would be seeing it all the time. Gone would be the days of deathpools and ushering in more rounds of play for less time spent and giving us great seeding for our brackets.
I have bothered Neal multiple times to put it into TIO, but he never wants to. I think it's because he has too much work to do.
The only thing we can do is bother him so much he has to relent to our pestering.
But once it's put into TIO you would be seeing it all the time. Gone would be the days of deathpools and ushering in more rounds of play for less time spent and giving us great seeding for our brackets.
crush
Smash Master
this game would become waaaaaaaay more popular if every tournament used swiss
just saiyan
just saiyan
Mr Wizzrobe
Smash Journeyman
I would be stoked if this became the tournament standard.
Winnar
Smash Lord
So I've been working a little on the swiss stuff and a whooooole lot on MSU and other related nonsense. Sorry dudes!
T0MMY - Yeah that was what I was thinking. I assume TIO is open source? I have some software/computer/electrical engineering undergraduate students I can probably pluck for this project if Neal wants a hand with adding that functionality. What do you think would be the best way to contact him?
Eggm - Thanks for the awesome feedback. When I get time I'll change the OP to make it less confrontational haha
Rubyiris - The point I think KishPrime was making was that pools are structured in such a convenient way that they allow a natural chain of command. As you pointed out, this is easily emulated by a swiss TO designating certain players as TO assistants. Maybe give them a badge or a hat or something to distinguish them and make them visible, but other than that it's problem solved.
Thanks for the offer, I'd love to check out Mantis.
T0MMY - Yeah that was what I was thinking. I assume TIO is open source? I have some software/computer/electrical engineering undergraduate students I can probably pluck for this project if Neal wants a hand with adding that functionality. What do you think would be the best way to contact him?
Eggm - Thanks for the awesome feedback. When I get time I'll change the OP to make it less confrontational haha
Rubyiris - The point I think KishPrime was making was that pools are structured in such a convenient way that they allow a natural chain of command. As you pointed out, this is easily emulated by a swiss TO designating certain players as TO assistants. Maybe give them a badge or a hat or something to distinguish them and make them visible, but other than that it's problem solved.
Thanks for the offer, I'd love to check out Mantis.
tarheeljks
Smash Lord
don't think tio is open source, but idk for sure
MuraRengan
Banned via Warnings
There are swiss-style tournament pairing softwares. Look up Swiss Perfect.
Winnar
Smash Lord
Yeah, but you have to admit having swiss in TIO would be pretty sweet!
I'll check out Swiss Perfect though, thanks :D
Rubyiris
Smash Hero
Tommy, tio isn't the only software out there. once I get my portable hard drive back from my friend ill upload IR on mediafire.
i ran a swiss style tournament like 4 years ago with like 50 people, and there were 2 main problems that i want to know how you deal with. we did several rounds of swiss into an 8 man bracket, for reference
1. when it came time to make the bracket, we had to eliminate down to 8, and, while i dont remember the numbers exactly, something like numbers 6-11 were tied in sets. we had tiebreakers in place to figure it out, and we did, but everyone who didnt make it was not only hugely disappointed (happens in every system, cant change it) but more importantly felt like it was all too detached from what they were a part of. in pools, at the very least you are tied with people you played against, you lose a tiebreaker because you failed to take a match where they did against the same player, or you gave up a match to a player that they didnt. its much more connected to your own performance, whereas in the swiss system they just reported to us what happened then we said "you 3 made it, you 4 didnt, sorry" then explained why not through a complicated list of sets involving like 10 different players. placings can change, seemingly out of nowhere, and only because tink ****ed around and gave up a match to everybody who played him
2. as we neared the end of the swiss section, the best players were playing each other, as expected. the problem is that they then, immediately after the top players play against other top players, they go into the bracket where they then play each other again within 2-3 sets. i suppose this wouldnt be as big of a problem in a 32 man bracket, but youre still going to have the top 2 players playing against each other in swiss and then again later in bracket, and the players themselves dont seem to enjoy that and it kills a decent amount of the hype normally reserved for the end of the tournament
i see that other people are running swiss and loving it, so i'd just like to know if these issues come up/how you deal with them
1. when it came time to make the bracket, we had to eliminate down to 8, and, while i dont remember the numbers exactly, something like numbers 6-11 were tied in sets. we had tiebreakers in place to figure it out, and we did, but everyone who didnt make it was not only hugely disappointed (happens in every system, cant change it) but more importantly felt like it was all too detached from what they were a part of. in pools, at the very least you are tied with people you played against, you lose a tiebreaker because you failed to take a match where they did against the same player, or you gave up a match to a player that they didnt. its much more connected to your own performance, whereas in the swiss system they just reported to us what happened then we said "you 3 made it, you 4 didnt, sorry" then explained why not through a complicated list of sets involving like 10 different players. placings can change, seemingly out of nowhere, and only because tink ****ed around and gave up a match to everybody who played him
2. as we neared the end of the swiss section, the best players were playing each other, as expected. the problem is that they then, immediately after the top players play against other top players, they go into the bracket where they then play each other again within 2-3 sets. i suppose this wouldnt be as big of a problem in a 32 man bracket, but youre still going to have the top 2 players playing against each other in swiss and then again later in bracket, and the players themselves dont seem to enjoy that and it kills a decent amount of the hype normally reserved for the end of the tournament
i see that other people are running swiss and loving it, so i'd just like to know if these issues come up/how you deal with them
I ran into the "hype problem" myself as well.
But I ran things a bit differently, which avoided some of those problems you ran into.
For one, everyone makes it out of my pools. I put those whom you would eliminate into a single-elim lower division. The top 4 make it into upper division.
The hype buids back up over time, so while the lower division the higher ranking players wouldn't have just finished their match. When the lower division is seeded into the higher division it's a whole new ballgame at that point. When we reached finals there was plenty of hype.
But I ran things a bit differently, which avoided some of those problems you ran into.
For one, everyone makes it out of my pools. I put those whom you would eliminate into a single-elim lower division. The top 4 make it into upper division.
The hype buids back up over time, so while the lower division the higher ranking players wouldn't have just finished their match. When the lower division is seeded into the higher division it's a whole new ballgame at that point. When we reached finals there was plenty of hype.
Strife
Banned via Warnings
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2011
- Messages
- 784
Not sure my opinion matters but I'll give my 2 cents anyways.
I'm against it. Not sure if anyone has mentioned thi before but; more skilled players should not be paired against more skilled players because it gives the lesser skilled players a greater chance of making bracket. In otherwords it punishes higher skilled player by forcing them to play against other good opponents thu diminishing there chances of making it into bracket, while it rewards lesser skilled players.
I'm against it. Not sure if anyone has mentioned thi before but; more skilled players should not be paired against more skilled players because it gives the lesser skilled players a greater chance of making bracket. In otherwords it punishes higher skilled player by forcing them to play against other good opponents thu diminishing there chances of making it into bracket, while it rewards lesser skilled players.
GKInfinity
Smash Champion
Actually that's not really how it works. Before the tournament starts you determine how many rounds you're going to have. Then, each round, players are paired up against each other. In the beginning you might have really good players playing against bad players, but after each round everyone is sorted according to wins and losses.
Next the people who won their first game play against people who also won their first game, while people who lost their first game play people who lost their first game.
The next round it's people with a 2-0 record vs people with a 2-0 record, people with a 1-1 record vs people with a 1-1 record, and people with an 0-2 record vs people with an 0-2 record.
This continues until all of the rounds are done. By the end of it, all of the players are sorted from best to worst (more or less). The people who move on to the bracket are the people who placed the highest. The best players will make it into bracket and the worse players will not.
But I agree with what BigD said. It seems like many of the players that make it to bracket will end up playing people they already played during the swiss portion of the tournament (which seems like a problem)
Next the people who won their first game play against people who also won their first game, while people who lost their first game play people who lost their first game.
The next round it's people with a 2-0 record vs people with a 2-0 record, people with a 1-1 record vs people with a 1-1 record, and people with an 0-2 record vs people with an 0-2 record.
This continues until all of the rounds are done. By the end of it, all of the players are sorted from best to worst (more or less). The people who move on to the bracket are the people who placed the highest. The best players will make it into bracket and the worse players will not.
But I agree with what BigD said. It seems like many of the players that make it to bracket will end up playing people they already played during the swiss portion of the tournament (which seems like a problem)
Zoro
Smash Champion
Just to let y'all know we started running this swiss ish in Central Florida just recently
everyone really likes it a lot,, needs to be tested in a bigger setting but the initial reactions have been very good.
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=309026
everyone really likes it a lot,, needs to be tested in a bigger setting but the initial reactions have been very good.
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=309026