Swiss with Elimination

Swiss with Elimination is a tournament format which combines Swiss Pairing with an Elimination (Knockout) system.

The tournament is run as a normal Swiss tournament, with the added rule that any player with X losses, for some value of X, is eliminated from the tournament entirely. If the number of players becomes odd, the player with the least losses receives a BYE.

16 player double elimination example

Suppose we run a tournament with 16 players, and any player with 2 losses is eliminated:

After the first round, there are:

• 8 players undefeated
• 8 players with one loss

After the second round, there are:

• 4 players undefeated
• 8 players with one loss
• 4 players eliminated

After the third round, there are:

• 2 player undefeated
• 6 players with one loss
• 8 players eliminated

After the fourth round, there are:

• 1 player undefeated
• 4 players with one loss
• 11 players eliminated

At this point, with an odd number of players, the one undefeated player receives a BYE, so

After the fifth round, there are:

• 1 player undefeated
• 2 players with one loss
• 13 players eliminated

Again, the number of players is odd, so the undefeated player receives a BYE.

After the fifth round, there are:

• 1 player undefeated
• 1 players with one loss
• 14 players eliminated

Now, with two remaining players, there is a direct final game for tournament victory.

8 player triple elimination example

Suppose we run a tournament with 8 players, and any player with 3 losses is eliminated:

After the first round, there are:

• 4 players undefeated
• 4 players with one loss

After the second round, there are:

• 2 players undefeated
• 4 players with one loss
• 2 players with two losses

After the third round, there are:

• 1 players undefeated
• 3 players with one loss
• 3 players with two losses
• 1 player eliminated

With 7 players, the undefeated player receives a BYE. One of the 3 players with 1 loss is paired down, so:

After the fourth round there might be:

• 1 players undefeated
• 2 players with one loss
• 2 players with two losses
• 3 player eliminated

Or

• 1 players undefeated
• 1 players with one loss
• 4 players with two losses
• 2 player eliminated

etc.

Tournaments that use this system

Phase 2 of the Finnish Championship qualifiers is a 16 player tournament, from which 3 players will enter the championship league. The tournament system is essentially the 16 player double elimination example on this page, but the tournament stops after round 5, at which point there are exactly 3 players that haven't lost twice.