Triangles in Swiss Pairs
I'm running my first F2F Swiss event for a while, and I've been re-acquainting mself with EBUScore.
In the options for Swiss Pairs, it makes reference to allowing triples (triangles).
I understand how triples work in Swiss Teams, but how can they make sense in Swiss Pairs?
Or is this just spreading the burden of the sit out so that a pair only sits out for half a round?
Jeremy
Comments
Two pairs sit out for half a round each round, getting 10 VPs for the boards they don't play and their score on a 10 VP scale for those they do play.
Thanks, Gordon
Hi JeremyChild
Could you give feedback on how the "triangle" worked (i.e. pitfalls or oddities). I have done swiss pairs at the club but that was with an equal number of pairs and people enjoyed it. So any info would help.
Many thanks CMOT
I will if I use it. We've just lost a pair so back to even numbers.
Jeremy
No pitfalls. Works very well. Players may not understand what’s going on, but better than sitting out for 7/8 boards. The “lucky” N/S pair play the full round and two E/W pairs play half a round. Odd numbered board sets in the threesome are rounded down to next even number for the round. Ran a few pre-Covid days so most of above from memory:)
Thank you both. Sorry Jeremy that seems to be the bain of my life recently as well. Had an even number the other day and two pairs dropped out but 3 more pairs joined unexpectedly. Throws all plans out the window. Hope it all works out for you.
I notice on EBUscore that in a triple the N/S pair seem to have to change tables. How did that go Triffid? Or did you just swop bridgemates/tabs etc.
Just going back to Gordon's original answer. I am pretty sure thathe pairs playing half the boards get 7VPs out of 10 (rather than all 10) for the boards they do not play plus the score that they actually get out of 10 VPs on the boards they do play.
Paul
Yes. Not sure how the calculations is done, but it should be 60% on 2 boards, and 50% on the other(s) - assuming 3 or 4 board triangles in 6/7/8 board rounds - converted to VP on the same 10-0 scale as for the short rounds played as part of the triangle.
To answers an earlier point, NS have to move because that was the easiest way to programme the bridgemates. But it is as easy to move the EWs in and out and give the table a new bridgemates. In the second half, the bridgemates have a new number for the NS pair (999).
Yes, you are right. I answered without thinking.
I normally go to some trouble to ensure an even number of pairs by having a standby pair, but that will be too fraught when I run my next club Swiss Pairs as I will be away until the day itself. So, let's say that I get 19 pairs for 5 rounds of 6 boards each.
So, using EBU Swiss Pairs Score, I go to the Movement Details tab and select 5 rounds of 6 boards each in one section of 10 tables.
Then I go to the Assignments page and select the "Missing Pairs" tab and select Pair 20 as missing.
Then I go back to the "Assignments" tab and press "Do Round 1 Assignments" and then go to the Bridgemates Scoring page and start the bridgemates. I move the NS in the triple at halfway through the round as described up-thread.
Does all this sound right or have I got anything wrong?
Also, if I select to allow a pair to sit in a triple more than once, could that mean that one pair could sit out twice while another doesn't sit out at all?
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
What you have said about how the event runs sounds right. As for the sitting out twice. If I am allowing pairs into the triple more than once I make a note of each pair which sits out (you can look back in thee results to find this but I find keeping a note easier). Then if the same paie is going to sit out a second time I would manually adjust the assignments to prevent that. I am not sure that I have ever had to do this so maybe the software does it itself but no harm in keeping a check.
The info above looks right (+7 sitout and is fixed assuming a 10 VP scale) and not to get alarmed at seeing pair 999! (You can see NS plays as its normal pair number and then as 999 in the second half and you can verify this in the BCS Database table on Bridgemate Scoring screen). This was just a fix to get this to work because there was no other way of specifying a NS playing two EW pairs in the same round. You need separate Bridgemates for the two halves of the Triple. so the TD needs to supply them to the NS sitting pair in the triple (or NS shifts tables).
I had 10.5 tables for Sheffield BC's New Years Day Swiss Pairs. With thanks to all the above contributors to this hread, the event went without any problems at all.
Just one very small observation: As it happened, I and my partner started off as the NS pair in the first triple.
When, after 3 boards, we moved from Table 10 to 11, the Bridgemate at Table 11 wanted all four of our numbers rather than just the EW numbers, so we put them in so that I and partner then showed as being Pair 999. On subsequent matches, the Bridgemate at Table 11 named the incoming NS pairs as being me and my partner rather than the actual pair. I said to ignore that, and it was all fine.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Barrie
This is a known glitch. The names for NS in the second half of the triple are always the same, because the movement works by giving that pair a number of 999 (in the BridgeMates), it has to be a different number because the pair numbers cannot be duplicated in one round. So throughout the session, the NS names at the second table in the triple are always the same.
Thanks, Robin. :)))
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
It may be better to instruct pair 999 on triple part 2 not to enter their names. That way there won’t be the glitch