Wait! DirectorS ?!? More than one? Mmm. What did you mean?

how can their be bias in a swiss/danish system. We used a swiss system in the first tournament...

However I am not sure how a swiss-danish format would work, its round robin but at the same time it isn't???

OMG fasces! Mmm. We need a recap!

..............................................*** S U M M A R Y ***.............................................

We used Round Robin groups in the first Tournament. The best 4 of each group went to Knockouts.
This system had some issues:
- Dropouts and substitutions are hard to manage, if not impossible.
- Many unmeaningful Matches (i.e.: already-qualified vs already eliminated)
- Already eliminated players often give up, screwing the tournament.
- Long pauses for tiebreaking Matches
- No Final Standings. If you're not the Champion, you'll never know what your Rank is.

All these issues are eliminated or minimized by a system that has 2 variants:

1) Danish is when each player will be pitted against other players who have done as well (or poorly) as himself. So, after a Round is ended, you look at the updated Standings and next Round will be: 1st vs 2nd - 3rd vs 4th - 5th vs 6th...
Same 2 players can face more than once.

2) Swiss is the same as Danish but same 2 players CAN'T face more than once.

Both variants need a Standard Match to work. It will be 2 GvI + 2 FvA + 1 Duo.

Now, after we explored some other options, we are discussing between:
- Swiss/Danish: first 6 Rounds are Swiss, Round 7 is Danish - perfect but not simple;
- Pure Danish all 7 Rounds - simple but not perfect.

@fasces: Need more clarifications?

The first tourney was not a Swiss tournament it was just a plain round-robin.

Computer programs can handle the pairings.

wait: So if 1st has already played both 2nd and 3rd place, who does he play?

4th, 5th, so on.

so your no longer really playing those who are at your skill level...

well, not really, the no. of rounds is equal to the no. of rounds needed for a straight knockout. So if say 16 people join, you need 4 rounds of match so the first plays only the 4 next best players...not that much of a difference I suppose.

Wow... lot's of typing... so I think I understand this basically... but one question... how long about would the next tourney take? because the reason I resigned out of the first one was that it was going to take FOREVER... if this takes like, half the time of the last, I may be re-interested in it.

Well, depends on how fast you play the games...
Say 16 joined as before, you get to play in 4 rounds, 4 rounds of 5 games each that's 20 games, and we can set deadlines for games where a 50% result is awarded for any games that go past the deadline.

It will be 6 rounds of Danish which probably mean 13 weeks

Danish sounds fair to me

Well, 6 rounds would be doable, but 7 is better. Both to be sure of the leadership and to have a reliable Final Standings, that would be unripe with only 6 Rounds.
30 or 35 games, it's not that week that makes the difference.
Thoughts?

However, butterhead made a good point and I intended to talk about lenght after we decided the exact Formula.

First of all I remind all that 1v1 is basically a Gunboat, you don't need to discuss strategies with your allies or convince anyone to do anything, so it takes little time each day.
Second you don't need endless waits for someone who's not joining his games. If someone doesn't show up, well....Goodbye! It's a forfait. He scores 0 and his opponent gets the bye (6).
Third, no need of tiebreaking games with Danish, so the whole Tour won't stop waiting for someone to play tiebreak.

That said, my proposals to KEEP the TOURNAMENT SHORT, FAST and ENJOYABLE for all, are:
1- After fasces gives the start to a Round, players have 24h to create/join the games they're in.
2- Do we start all 5 games (2 GvI, 2 FvA, 1 Duo) of a Match simultaneously? If not, Duo must be the first because it's longer.
3- Games are mandatorily 24h/phase. If a game is created longer, fasces will force the phase lenght to 24h.
4- If someone needs a pause, he will ask fasces. Games will be paused only manually. So fasces knows when a player will come back. I'd add : "No pauses longer than 48 hrs" but we can just make it at fasces' discretion.
5- Since next Round can't start until all games are ended, games will have a mandatory deadline. After that, if nobody was able to prevail, games will be drawn manually. I'd say the last year is 1913 for Duo and 1909 for the others. So in spring 1914 (1910) fasces will force the draw.

Thoughts?

Fasces? Since you're the most involved in my last proposals, I'd like to hear from you about them (and about "6 or 7 Rounds" issue).

5- A time limit is better than a year limit; what if I can play 10 game years in 3 days, should I be barred from going beyond 1901?
Otherwise, fine.

I mean *going beyond 1909*.

Furthermore I suggest this: When the time limit is reached, all games are considered to have ended, with the country with more SCs winning in each unfinished game. This is fairer than an across-the-board draw.

I`d be for swiss.

Some considerations:
1) time limits may be abused. Against a stronger player, I could start asking for pauses and I could never finalize or whatever, to avoid the game comes to an end.
2) 1909 and 1913 are very loose limits. I've made a research* for each variant and I've found that games lasting more than 9 years are exceptions in relation to the number of games played on this server for that variant.. It's only these exceptions that are dangerous for Tournament-timing. The other "normal" games can go on normally, you only have to worry to log in at least once a day.
3) "the country with more SCs winning"-rule looks rather unfair. I won several games in which, the year before the last, I had less SCs than my opponent but a better positioning**. With time limit rule, a player could never finalize his last phases' orders as the time limit was close enough, at hand.

A 1v1 game that doesn't end in 9 (13 for Duo) years is exceptional. And this is due to players' skills rather balanced. Balanced skills don't let anyone to prevail within a "normal" number of turns. So I think a draw would be fairer than an arbitrary win.

______________
* Games> double click on Finished > select variant > Order by: "Turn (in-game date)(Oldest->Yougest)" > click "Search"
** example: gameID=2817.
Autumn 1905: Italy 16 - 14 Germany
Autumn 1906: Italy 14 - 19 Germany

@Guaroz: The reason I would rather do 6 instead of 7 is because its 5 games a round, rather then 2. This means it would be likely that rounds end up being 2 weeks, and so 12 weeks instead of 14...

@Fasces. Yep!...I don't think I'll have anything better to do those 2 weeks! :)

Seriously, if you want to cut the time then start all 5 games at once. Remember they are gunboats. Or maybe: Day 1: start Duo (longest) - Day 2: start FvA - Day 3: start GvI.
Both ways you'll have games ending in 6-9 days and so the whole Tour 8-9 in weeks instead of 14. Five weeks difference is worth something (-36%, but players more committed).
12 weeks instead of 14, looks a joke (only -14% and an outcome less reliable, but players less committed).

I know I said since the start that only 6 Rounds is doable, but I assumed it for Matches longer than 5 games (including FGvRT).
However, although I disagree, I won't insist if this looks so important to you. Probably none of us knows exactly what he's saying: this will be an experiment anyway. Look at the current Tour. It started 18 weeks ago (May, 21) and we didn't completed Quartes yet.

BTW, fasces, can I please have your thoughts on "my proposals to KEEP the TOURNAMENT SHORT, FAST and ENJOYABLE for all" that I posted a dozen hours ago?

Response to King Guaroz:

1) Solution: Fasces may demand reasons for why there is slow play, particularly suspicious slowplay. It should be written into the rules that deliberate slow play is unacceptable and will result in penalties. There problem solved.
2) Fair point.
3) Fair point. But if we enforce No. 1, then that situation is not likely to happen at all. More often, someone can't win fast enough because say they are France slowly grinding towards St. Petersburg.

Actually Guaroz has a good point, also it will really force players to be commited. So maybe we add 1 more week for a test, to see if players can keep up.

@Gobble.
1) Fair solutions but, as you see, I like to keep things simple. So, writing into the rules about when, exactly, a slow play is "deliberate" and when it becomes "unacceptable" doesn't look so simple. We want that anyone, who can log in at least once a day, signs up for the Tourney. If he starts reading on the rulebook that his slow play may be judged as "unacceptable" according to some complicated rules (and/or discretionally by the Director), he could change his mind about joining.
Also setting fair penalties isn't so simple. And even if it was, the fairest penalty is never better than a game that has come to its natural conclusion. When a Match doesn't start due to a missing player, the arbitral score: bye=6 is fair, but it's not better than a Match actually played.
Further...It's a lot of work for fasces! Patrol all games, asking why a game is slow to both competitors...waiting for both replies...evaluate them...typing decisions...hearing complaints...It's not simple at all and it requires time to spend. Rules that involve the Director's discretion are heavy for the Director! I'd keep only the one about pauses: the Director usually grants them, unless the same player is asking too many pauses too close or too long, and Director suspects an abuse. That's why I want to hear from fasces about my proposals: it's his time!
2) ok
3) if France "can't win fast enough because is slowly grinding towards St.P", it means that Austria was able to stop him there and everywhere else. So Austria is not that bad, no? A draw in 1910 is fair, I think. Actually, since Austria starts with a little advantage, a draw is a good result for France. As in Chess a draw is a good result for Blacks. The player who's France in this game and who was able to fill the gap, probably in the other game as Austria would be able to keep the advantage or to increase it. So the set would end 3-1, that is the exact measure of the skill's difference. One player is stronger, but not that stronger.
Reading this story from the other point of view, it's: Austria wasn't so good to keep his advantage but was good enough to reject all assaults and to keep the game balanced for 10 years. Stop. We're talking about a game exceptionally long. Austria was not that bad. The Tour must go on. Force draw.
France did well filling the gap, but not so well to win, and gets 1. Austria did bad wasting his advantage, but not so bad to lose, and gets 1. The other 4 games of the Match will tell who's the stronger and how much. I'd bet on the player who was France here, hoping the draw was not just luck.

@fasces. Sorry for my bad english, but I'm not sure of what you was talking about in your last message. Could you please make clear your thoughts about:

1) Tournament-pacemaker rules. You've read several proposals. Some of them involve somewhat of your work and your time. Do you like any? Which ones? More proposals?
2) 6 or 7 Rounds?
3) Do the 5 games of a Match start simultaneously or when?

If you could answer, it would help us a lot closing some issues, updating the Summary and moving on the next issues.

My main issue is with number 3. Players willing to devote time to 5 1v1's as well as continue playing in others (for fun) may be hard to come accross.