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BGonline.org Forums
PGH Swiss Format Helped Solve Time Problems
Posted By: mamabear In Response To: Pgh LAbor Day BG Tourn- Director's Decision (Bob Koca)
Date: Wednesday, 5 September 2012, at 2:27 a.m.
One advantage of the Swiss system is that you don't have one lagging bracket producing waits of several hours for the people who have been winning in the leading bracket. That is the kind of wait that really annoys people, and leaves a bad taste that quite possibly lingers all the way to the following year.
In contrast, it's not so bad if you know you will have a match to play at, say, 2:30 and it's now 1:30. Surely there is something you can do to kill just one hour! It's nothing compared to the challenge of figuring out a way to kill what could be several hours, or maybe a much shorter amount of time if one or more of the consecutive matches you are waiting on is decided in one game with a 16-cube. You can sign out, but you can't go too far away; you can hit the gym, but you can't figure on too long a workout followed by a shower and maybe a short nap, because you have to be ready to get back in just a few minutes when the staff calls you. Even if your best estimate is that you have three or four hours, you never know when the turtles will switch back from decaf.
With a Swiss, it also becomes obvious quickly whose match is slowing things down, since they are the only ones still being played when it's getting near post time. That enables the director to zero in on matches that really do need clocks, rather than lock the barn door too late by putting some later match on a clock after the damage has been done by an earlier one that perhaps didn't involve either of the players in that later match--or if it did, they weren't necessarily a slowpoke. It might have been just an opponent they eliminated earlier, who is now slowing down a jackpot.
I think what this well-run tournament (thanks, Steve and staff!) showed more than anything about clocks or the lack thereof, is that the Swiss system solves quite a few time-related problems. That, and not letting players in the long-match events such as the Masters and Main enter too many side events until they are out of those main events, helped make this event successful.
I have always thought the Swiss was a good idea for providing variety in tournament formats, but I am becoming a serious fan of the Swiss. I hope there will continue to be ABT tournaments run with this format.
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