Seeing that both the League and the Elimination Tournaments are struggling with some problems, I'd like to submit a framework for a swiss league that is more robust against problems with coordination and unreliable signups.
The League- The league consists of six individual tournaments. Players may participate in any number of these.
- Players will be added to the league standings as soon as they participate in one of the tournaments
- A player's league score is the sum of their three best tournament scores. Tiebreaker between players with equal league scores is the 4th best tournament score, then the 5th, then 6th.
Should two players have an equal league score and equal tiebreakers at the end of the season, they may play a match to determine the final ranks at the end of the season.
The Tournaments- Each tournament consists of five rounds Swiss (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament)).
- Matches are played best-of-3 games. The marks and any number of cards may be changed between the games
- If a player is not available for the match 10 minutes after the pairings for the round, they are forfeited for the round (and dropped from the tournament if they do not show up before the end of the round)
- 35 minutes after the beginning of the round, there is a deadline. No new games may be begun after that point. This means that a match can end with 1-0, 1-1, 2-0 or 2-1.
- Each player receives 1 point for a win (1-0 counts as a win) and 0 points for a loss. Should the match end 1-1, both players receive 0.5 points
- A player can enter the tournament after round one and/or exit it before round five if they notify the tournament coordinator accordingly
The Pairings- Criteria for pairings are:
1) The score in the current tournament
2) The league score
3) The relative number of "downfloats" in the current tournament (times where a player was paired against a player with lower scores in 1 or 2)
4) Randomness
- In one tournament players may not play against each other more than once and not receive a (planned) bye more than once.
- After ensuring that rule, the players are paired in matches according to the 4 criteria.
