In this article I'd like to shine the spotlight on the Swiss System, an alternative tournament method which can handle the large number of players that a knockout system can deal with, but still give all players the same number of matches, similar to a round robin. And while the Swiss system is not perfect either, it does have a number of advantages over knockout and round robin systems which can make for a great competition for all players concerned.
Although the Swiss system has been around for many years in various sports and games (such as chess, squash, bridge and Scrabble), I first became aware of the Swiss system only a couple of years ago, since I had never seen it used for any table tennis competitions I had attended. When a friend and I wanted to run a table tennis tournament with a difference, I did a little web surfing on competition methods and the Swiss system looked quite interesting. Although the rules can seem a little complex, in practice it was actually fairly easy to run, and all the players concerned had an enjoyable time, so I'd say it was quite a success!
How Does The Swiss System Work?
There is a full length explanation on Wikipedia about the basics of the Swiss system which I'd recommend taking a look at if you are interested, but I'll present the basics below. I'm currently working on a full sample tournament as a demonstration of how the rules work, which I hopefully will have ready to publish tomorrow. It's actually quite simple when you see it put into practice.- The Swiss system uses a certain number of rounds, which are decided in advance. The number of rounds usually needed to find a winner is the same number of rounds needed for a knockout tournament, so you need 3 rounds for 8 players, 4 rounds for 16 players, 5 rounds for 32 players, and so on.
- All players take part in each round - no players are eliminated. So if you had 16 players each round would consist of 8 matches.
- A certain number of points are earned for a win, and possibly for a loss. In the tournaments I ran I used 1 point for a win, and 0 points for a loss, which worked well.
- In the first round, the players are typically all seeded, then the top half is paired against the bottom half, so that if there were 8 players, the #1 seed would play the #5 seed, the #2 seed would play the #6 seed, etc. These seedings are retained for the rest of the tournament, to help in deciding future match ups.
- In subsequent rounds, players are matched up against other players who have done as well as they have. This will give several groups of players who have the same number of wins. The players are then ranked according to their original seedings, and the top half paired against the bottom half of that group again, with modifications made (if needed) to prevent players from playing each other twice.
- Sometimes you'll get a grouping with an odd number of players, in which case the top seeded player from the group below should be placed at the bottom of the group. (For example, if you have 5 players with 2 wins, the top seeded player from the group of players with 1 win should be moved into the bottom of the 2 win group.)
- While normally the final round will result in one winner who has no losses, it is possible to have a final result with several players all finishing at the top with one or two losses each. In this case, a tie-break method can be used to determine the winner. (Depending on the number of players, you could play a straight knockout match, or have a count back between the players involved).
- Apart from the winner, most players will finish in a group of players with the same number of wins. There is usually a bell-curve type distribution of players, with more players in the middle groups, and fewer at the extremes.
- If there is an odd number of players, the bottom player receives a bye and is awarded a win. A player can only have a bye once.
Next page: Advantages and Disadavantages of the Swiss System
