Movement
We play a pairs tournament on BBO with 24 boards. When we have 12+ tables we play 12 rounds of 2 boards each. This means that when we have 15 tables then 3 pairs don't get to play against each other. It gets worse when the number of tables is larger.
It occurs to me that in such cases a SWISS movement might give a less inaccurate result.
Is there a mathematical way of determining the point where SWISS is better than Mitchell?
Comments
You would have to define what you mean by "better". I would doubt that Swiss movements are ever "better" but they are, in many circumstances, far more popular with players, and that matters. If I were to play at a Congress event, I would be far more likely to go if the Pairs were to be Swiss rather than ordinary, simply because I like the format and not because of any logic.
In a 24 board online Tourney, you probably won't be able to get anything "better" than having each pair play 12 rounds of two boards each against randomly assigned opponents, but you might (and I don't know either way) find Swiss more popular.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
There is also the drawback that BBO doesn't offer a 'proper' Swiss. The movement called Swiss is actually a 'Danish' competition, where players can play the same opponents multiple times. I think we had a 6 round BBO 'Swiss' where 2 pairs met each other for 3 of the rounds! People are even more unhappy when there is a pair of robots to make up the numbers, and you meet them many times.