Generalised Knockout
Keywords: Tournament
In this tournament format, players compete for the top half of the places they still can reach in that round; losers end up in the bottom half, and the process repeats inside each half until each player has as individual score.
Table of contents |
Procedure
- all players start with a score of 0
- for each round
- pair equal scored players
- at the end of the round, double each player's current score, then add 1 point to the score of winners, jigo (if decided so) and byes
- repeat until enough players have a unique score so that 2nd, 3rd, ... places are known, as far as desired
Pairing
- slide or fold pairing is recommended otherwise chances are the second best player will end up in the bottom half after e.g. the first round.
- Bye are given to the strongest player (the one most likely to go to te next round)
Detailed ordering inside a score category:
- descending number of byes: always allocate byes first to maximally distribute byes
- ascending strength
- in case of odd number of players, last player in this list gets a bye.
- Then proceed with slide pairing
Note that there can still be tiebreak issues here: who's to get the bye? See /bye discussion
Advantages
- easy (an Excel sheet should suffice, but paper and pen will do fine)
- can also determine 2nd, 3rd, 4th... etc. place; if desired, much more players keep playing in all rounds
Inconveniences
- players with the same number of victories might not meet each other
- an early loss counts heavily (this is a key property of this system); a lucky win places a player relatively high in the end result. This effect could be reduced by increasing the number of games to decide a round. If you want to avoid this disadvantage, use double (or triple) knockout, or use Swiss.
- less suited for large tournaments as an increasing number of rounds is needed to decide on the winner