In the same vein as my other post. Future live tournaments need to be automated to somewhat work, not in the least so we can have tournaments while I'm sleeping.
I haven't played any anywhere online though so I'm making this up as I go. Baby steps are probably in order, meaning I need to build this on current infrastructure and start with the formats I already have. Round-robin seems most practical though, to avoid prolonged standoffs that may occur in the other formats.
Here I am thinking of making a server that doesn't allow to create tables by users but by the server only, and the server pairs players at tables and have them start their games within, say, a minute of being paired. Forfeit players who didn't start their games. Perhaps allow a player to invoke a short (pee) break once per tournament.
I don't see much of a future for non-speed time formats though.
Are there things I'm overlooking or an (elegant) solution I'm not seeing?
I'm not sure how well round robin would work in non TB tourneys. When we were playing speed tourneys in the ladder back around 2003, I played in one or two and it was it was just seeded single or possibly double elimination, I believe. Sometimes there would be multiple sets, but in speed that's not a huge issue. Generally, tourneys would be over within a couple of hours with several rounds completed. Multiple set matches allow those who finish early to have breaks, so only those involved in the multi set match would generally need much provision for a break. That's just off the cuff what I recall. Others probably have more tourney experience than I do and can probably give you more input.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
I think swiss system is better than round-robin for live tournaments.
Of course it depends on the number of participans and for small number it can be round-robin, one group.
What about time settings? One round will be 1 game or set (2 games)? Of course set will be more fair but take much more time. In my opinion tournament should not be longer than 90 minutes.
How about arenas like on lichess? That seems to cater well to players coming and going as they feel like. Whereas swiss or round-robin still need intervention to progress to the next round in case players need drop out.
I will keep the old formats, but they're expensive in terms of human capital to direct them. Alternatively I'd need to come up with smart director software for them.
Re: Automagical tournaments
Posted:
Apr 19, 2019, 1:30 AM
I'm not sure since I've never played there, but is it really that different from the KotH system we have in place here already? From what I could tell from a quick look it seems to favor those who play lots of games during the time period (assuming they are winning or drawing a substantial number of their games, of course).
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Re: Automagical tournaments
Posted:
May 20, 2019, 5:43 PM
Still not giving up on arenas, but that's not for now.
The new tournament code is shaping up and I still need to do some testing, but I thought I'd lay out here how it works, to be sure I'm not overlooking anything.
- At the start of the tournament (or a new round), the server iterates over the matches and, if possible, puts matched (and available) players into tables and tells them to start within 30 seconds. - Any player who hasn't pressed play after those 30 seconds will have forfeited the match, double forfeit is possible here. And I'm also forfeiting the entire set here if the timeout occurs before the 1st game starts. - The table will be automatically closed 30 seconds after the end of the set, and earlier if all players leave. - In case of a Round-Robin format, multiple matches need to be played and the server will pair players up in new tables as they become available. - 3 minutes after no more pairings could be made, the server will forfeit the remaining matches, again either a double forfeit if neither player is present, or a forfeit in favor of the present player. After which the server proceeds to the next round. - (Non-)Participants can spectate other games, but if a match becomes possible for a spectating participant, they will be exited from that table and placed in their own match table.
