So You Wanna Direct a Tournament? Funky Pairings - Part 2

Note: If you're looking for insightful analysis or another one of my crazy games, you can skip this post. Games will be forth coming in my next post. If you want a little behind the scenes angst from the tournament director's point of view, read on. If nothing else, you'll get the short course on Swiss system pairings.

In my last post, Funky Pairings - Part 1, I mentioned how the computer pairing program can sometimes go haywire and come up with some strange pairings. Since pairing programs came out in the early 90s I've seen some pretty strange pairings both as a player and as a tournament director. Usually on Monday nights I don't need my computer, and I can pair a tournament on a single piece of paper. I don't need a wall chart or pairing cards. When there's no school the next day we get a few more then normal. I wasn't prepared how many more came. So when 16 people, including two father-son combos show up it becomes a little more challenging trying to run a tournament with no computer and no pairing cards. Add to the mix that I was also playing in this tournament to make an even 16.

The first round isn't that difficult to pair. My list is in order of who gave me money first, but once I have all the names I number everyone by rating. Sometimes I mess up the numbering, and then have to start over again. I did manage to number correctly so no do-overs were necessary. After I flip a coin to see if number one will be black or white, I simply take numbers 1-8 and alternate white and black. My page will look something like this:

1 Lonnie-
- 2 John R
3 John K-
- 4 Alex
5 Mike A -
- 6 Mike B1*
7 Mike M -
- 8 Polly

Then I take numbers 9 - 16 and slot them in. After that's done the pairings look like this:

# White # Black
1 Lonnie - 9 Dan
10 Guy - 2 John R
3 John K- 11- Mike B2*
12 Alan - 4 Alex
5 Mike A - 13 Giancarlo
14 Silvio - 6 Mike B1
7 Mike M - 15 Connor
16 Joseph - 8 Polly

* I had 4 Mikes playing and 2 of them had a last name beginning with the letter B.

In an ideal world there would be no upsets. It's a piece of cake to pair round two. Numbers 1 -4 play numbers 5-8 and numbers 9 - 12 play numbers 13 - 16. Adjustments are made to balance the colors. The pairings would look like this:

# White # Black
6 Mike B1 - 1 Lonnie
2 John R - 5 Mike A
8 Polly - 3 John K
4 Alex - 7 Mike M
9 Dan - 14 Silvio
13 Giancarlo - 10 Guy
11 Mike B2 - 16 Joseph
15 Connor - 12 Alan

Blue = 1-0 Red = 0-1

Everybody will have had one of each color, and in the last round all the players in the various score groups will be paired amongst each other and will toss for color. No problem! Now that you've read this far you're ready to direct your own tournament. Piece of cake! Even a trained monkey could do that.....

Unfortunately my buddy Murphy likes to apply his law to pairings. It was upset city with numbers 2 (2202), 4 (2078) and 8 (1729) losing to numbers 10 (1596) , 12 (1540), and 16 (1082) respectively. This almost the worst case scenario possible. White won on 7 out of 8 boards, which meant 7 out of 8 one pointers were due black in round two, and 7 out of 8 zero pointers were due White. It's not the worst thing in the world to have a bunch of people getting two whites in a row in three round tournament. On the other hand it really sucks to have a bunch of people getting two blacks in a row. What makes it even worse when it's most of the first round losers who are faced with the two blacks in a row. (You still want to be a tournament director?)

The objective of Swiss pairings in round two is pair the players in each score amongst each other and balance the colors. Score has priority, so in the one score group I had three people getting two whites in a row, and in the zero score group I had three people getting two blacks in a row. All the remaining players were getting the opposite color they had in round one. It took awhile to sort out who was going to play who, and some players can be a snarky bunch when it's taking awhile to figure out the pairings. Finally I get everyone paired.

I wasn't overly concerned if there were upsets in the top group creating the possibility of having three players due black in round 3. Who's going to complain about getting 3 whites? However during my second round game I'm staring at the pairings I had written down and came to a horrible realization. Barring any more upsets there would be three zero pointers who had two blacks. I started thinking to myself, maybe I should have given the lower ranked player their due color so that after the higher ranked players won as black they could get paired with the 1 pointers who lost with white.

The USCF rule book has 25 pages devoted to pairing subsequent rounds following round one. Buried on page 145 is variation 29E4a "priority based on plus, even, and minus score groups." Using this variation I could have given the lower ranked players their due color. However when the TD is in "time pressure" so to speak she is not thinking about obscure variations of the rules that may be buried somewhere in the rule book.

The only way the color crisis in the zero score group was going to resolve itself was the higher ranked players lost with white aginst their lower rated opponents who got the two blacks in a row. Somehow I didn't expect the master and expert to fall victim again in round two. I also didn't expect the 1722 to lose to a 1200. The only realistic "upset" possibility would have been Silvio (1474) beating me (1729), but that wasn't really going to help because the two of us were the only zeros that were getting their due color. It wasn't going to matter which one of us won.

True to form, Murphy allowed no more upsets except Silvio holding me to a draw. (Our 29th draw in our 90 games we've played.) However that still didn't resolve the color crisis. Pairing the last round was nuts. It was easy to pair the 2 pointers. They had played one game with each color. Now came the fun part. I kept making pairings and then realize for some reason or another they were wrong. I suppose considering how little money was on the line, I shouldn't have been so anal about exact pairing order. I also should have not worried so much about score group. But that's not the way I think when I'm in "time pressure". A couple of players are ragging on me about whether we would get round 3 in before next week. (Good natured kidding, but it didn't help my concentration.) I finally paired everyone, or at least I thought I had when Mike M. asks me "Who am I playing?" I couldn't remember who else had been left out, so I ask who else doesn't have a game. When Dan spoke up I said "Dan plays Mike."

Then the father of one of the kids complains that his son has to play a kid from his school, and that he lost the toss and got the third black. He wants me to change the pairings. I said "No, it's late. People want to play. I'm not changing the pairings again." I apologized for the third black, and offered to give him back his son's entry fee. He declined. Afterwards I found out he was more annoyed that his son had to play somebody from his school. It happens. In round two Silvio and I had played our 90th rated game against each other. Sometimes you have to play people you play a lot.

After all was said and done we had 2 players at 3-0 and 5 players at 2-1. Ideally you need 4 rounds to have a clear winner in a field of 16. Unless people wanted to play until 1:00 AM there wasn't going to be an unadvertised round four. The two 3-0 got $50. The twos got their entry fee back. This wasn't exactly big bucks everyone was playing for.

When I got home I put the results in on the computer, in order to submit the results online. The computer made pretty much the same pairings as I had for the first two rounds. The third round differed because the computer was set without the "3 consecutive colors OK" on. In hindsight I should have paired out of the score group. The bright spot was Murphy didn't totally get his way. The kid who lost the toss and got the third black, beat his higher rated opponent.

Funky Pairings - Part 1

My return to tournament play didn't exactly get off to a stellar start with Wednesday's loss to an 1100. I was hoping that things would be better on Thursday night down at the Marshall. If I judged how the night would go based on round one, I would have jumped on the next train and gone back home. What can I say about a game that would have ended with a smothered mate on move 26 if I hadn't resigned on move 25? Pretty damn bad. Totally crappy. Sucked big time. Really @#$%! up! Here it is in all it's ugly glory.

erabin-pwright110608.pgn


In early October I had a bad run of four tournaments where I I didn't win any games. 4 draws and 10 losses. So after the ugly first round loss I'm thinking to myself, "Am I ever going to win another game of chess?" Without even looking at the wallchart I was anticipating playing a 1900 in the second round since I was on the lower half of the zero score group. There had been no serious upsets, but a 1720 drew a 2100 in round one.

If you know anything about how swiss pairings work, you know that top half of a score group is paired against the bottom half. You start with the top score group and work your way down to the bottom. If there's an odd number in the score group he low man drops to play high man in the next score group. In the first round if there's only been one draw and no 1/2 point byes for the round, the 1/2 point score group is only going to have 2 players and they can't play each other again. Since the one score group had an even number there was no one to drop to play the high rated 1/2. What normally happens in that case is those two 1/2 pointers get paired against the highest two players with zero. Then after they've been paired with the top zeros, the remaining players in the zero score group are paired against each other, top half versus bottom half.

Back when I started playing and directing in the early '70s all pairings were done using pairing cards with all the color, score, and opponent information on them. Take the stack of cards in score groups and rating order, divide in half, pair all the players and then write out the pairings on paper. Pairing a section with 200 players was labor intensive and tournament directors would have a bad case of writer's cramp by the end of the tournament.

Now pairings are done using a computer with pairing software. The software does a pretty good job of following the swiss pairing rules, but sometimes the program seems to have a mind of its own. Tournament directors will take the time to double check what the computer does, especially in later rounds when it's very important to make sure the pairings are correct. Normally the second round pairings are very straight forward, and the director doesn't have spend much time checking them. Since the round was running late the director ran the pairings and posted them. He wasn't expecting any hiccups. On this particular night the pairing program must have been feeling sorry for me. It paired the 2100 rated 1/2 pointer with the highest rated zero who was rated 1981. The next zero was rated 1960 and the third zero was rated 1940. The 1722 1/2 pointer should have played one of those 1900s depending on the color. However the program by passed the entire top half of the zero score group, and paired the 1722 against me.

I was sure I was going to play White against Shernaz Kennedy for the fifth time in a row in this tournament. Imagine my surprise when I see that I'm playing the guy right below me on the wall chart. This would be my 39th game against him. 7 wins, 4 draws, and 27 losses. 3 of those wins have been in the last two months and in a row. Lately I've had his number which is a nice change of pace considering my overall record against him. I was perfectly happy to get that pairing. Though when I got to this position I was not too happy. He had just played Nd3 attacking my rook.


31. Rd1 (White's best try may be 31. Qxd3 exd3 32. Rxe8+ Kf7 33.R8e3 d2 34. Nxd2) I'm expecting Nf4+ winning the exchange, but that doesn't happen. 31... Qd6?? Not only does he miss the fork winning the exchange after 31... Nf4+ 32. Kf2 Nxe2 33. Kxe2 f4, he also allows me to win the knight because the pawn is pinned to the rook. The game continues 32. Rxd3! exd3 33. Rxe8+ Kh7 34. Qxd3 Qf6 35. Re6 Qb2+ 36. Qd2 Qxb3 37. Rxg6 Kxg6 38. Qf4Qb2+ 39. Kh3 Qb1 40. Kg2 Qb2+ 41. Kg1 Qc3 42. g4 fxg4 43. Qxg4+ Kh7 44. h5 Black loses on time in a few more moves. I only had 1 second left, and had been giving a bunch of checks. I wasn't convinced I'd be able to do anything with the extra knight in the ending. Fortunately he ran out of time before I had to figure it out.

The next two rounds I got paired way up. I lost in round 3, but pulled out a draw in round 4. I actually gained some points and will have a published rating on the December rating list off my floor. Three months in a row! In some ways it's meaningless, but it's nice to play in tournaments and not be on the wall chart at 1700. Also being higher then 1700 changes my ranking, and reduces my chances of unwanted byes in earlier rounds.

Off The Board Strategies: Playing The Pairing Game

An outsider might think that all the maneuvering and strategical planning happens over the board. Those who play in a lot of tournaments knows there's a whole other game going on at the same time. Depending on one's rating or position in the tournament the end result may be different but the objective is the same. The object of this inner game is to try to out guess the pairing program in order to achieve a certain result. The result isn't a win, loss or draw of the game. The result is trying to get the most favorable pairing as possible.

There are different ways to play this game. A master rated 2200 - 2300 may look at the potential next round pairings and realize barring no upsets he's going to play a grandmaster in either that round, or the round after. Based on his calculations he'll choose to take a 1/2 point bye for the round that he anticipates playing the GM. This way he plays a "Swiss Gambit" deferred and avoids the GM and still slips into the money. Another variation on this theme is the player anticipates that 3 points will win money. He knows he'll get two easy pairings, and the next two rounds will be a crapshoot. He takes his two 1/2 point byes, and barring any upsets he has his 3 points and a piece of the action.

Along with strategic byes one has the reentry gambit. The reentry gambit is usually played by class players who get off to a lousy start and want to reposition themselves to have another crack at the class prize. However I've seen a few different objectives for the reentry gambit. One kid I knew used to re-enter when he anticipated that he would get the full point bye in the next round. This way he'd avoid getting the bye along with a chance to contend for the class prize. Sometimes I felt like he did it just to annoy me because when he'd reenter, usually I'd be the one getting the bye.

I won't play the reentry gambit for any reason. I see no point in spending more money to attempt to have a better shot at winning a prize, or to avoid getting a bye in a middle round. I also have sworn off the preemptive last round 1/2 bye to avoid middle round full point byes. I tried that in one tournament and it blew up in my face. I was forced to take the last round bye that I didn't need. Now I take my chances and hope that I can avoid byes or that at least a decent house player is floating around if I get a middle round bye.

Last night was the second week in a row I was the second lowest on the wall chart in 4 Rated Games Tonight! When one is that low there's a very good chance that a bye can't be avoided. Last week it came in the first round because the lowest rated player was taking a 1/2 point bye. I was given the option of playing an 1150 house player. There's always the risk that one may lose to the lower rated house player, and then get crappy pairings for the rest of night based on scoring zero in round 1. I wasn't thrilled by having to play someone that low, but I didn't feel like sitting around an hour for round two. It almost blew up in my face. He played much better then his rating, but in a very drawish position he let his time run out. Apparently the guy had never used a digital clock before. He didn't know what time delay was, and had no idea how to read the display on my Chronos. I dodged a serious bullet that round!

I would not have had to think about bye possibilities last night if I had managed not to lose that round two game where I declined a draw offer while up a rook. So I started looking at the wall chart and figuring out whether I'd end out with a bye in round 4, or be able to avoid it all together. One scenario had the bottom player and me both losing in round 3. That was possibility since we were both going to get paired up again. Though the rating differences amongst the zero score group wasn't significant so anything could have happened. If that happened then even if there were an odd number he'd get the bye, not me.

What I didn't take into account was one of the zeros playing the reentry gambit. I'm not sure why he reentered. If was to avoid playing down it didn't help. He still played the highest rated in the zero score group. He won, and then got paired up in the last round so it didn't improve his chances at the class prize. $15 down the tubes. His money, not mine. However his maneuvering caused me to play the lowest rated player. Playing the lowest rated player in this tournament is not a slam dunk win considering that he's only 70 points lower then me. What resulted was a totally bizarre game where I should have ignored the advice I give my students. Castle to keep your king safe. I would have been better off taking my chances in the center.


Polly-TomM110107.pgn



I lost on time because I just couldn't figure about what to do about all the threats along the b1-h2 diagonal. I let Fritz take a whack at the position, and it came up with 28. Rh6 Rad8 29. Rxg6+ Qxg6 30. g3 e5 31. Qc2 Qxc2+ 32. Kxc2 Ra6. Fritz rates it plus over equal for white. The two pawns for the exchange gives white a slight advantage. That's all well and good but when black has a 5 minute time advantage and white has very little time, all the numeric evaluations of the position go out the window. Unfortunately my brain doesn't work as fast as Fritz. I had not even considered that move. I was freaking out over the threat of 28...Bxc3, and didn't even consider that 28. Rh6 takes care of that threat. All I was looking at as a defense was 28. Bxd4 which doesn't work because of 28... cxd4 29. Rh6 Rc8 30. Rxg6+ Qxg6 31. Rd1 Rd5.

Back to the pairing sub-plots of bye evasion and improving one's class prize chances. My loss positioned me for a last round bye if there was an odd number. A last round bye allows me to make the 11:12 train home as opposed to the 12:30 train if I play the last round. It does have its merits, but I won't do a preemptive drop out to make the earlier train. As it turned out the number was even so I avoided byes all together. Unfortunately avoiding byes also afforded me another opportunity to lose which I did. As for our reentry player, he got paired up to a 2100 and lost. So much for improving one's chances at the class prize.