The Wiki article on the Swiss system explains how this tournament format differs from the round-robin and the knock-out. The round-robin is the "fairest" system but if each of the 150 teams in the Olympiad plays every other team once, the event would go for about five months. 
Please explain the chess Olympiad to me
Sort:
Oct 5, 2018
0
#2
Oct 5, 2018
0
#3
The article helps thanks. An imperfect system, but I get it. I think the swiss system followed by a 2 round knockout for the top four finishers would be better. 4 vs 1 and 2 vs 3, then the 2 winners play for the championship. Espeically in cases like this year where tie breaks are used to determine the winner!
Yeah, that makes more sense.
Oct 5, 2018
0
#5
JamesColeman wrote:
Adding two whole days onto the event (or you expect them to just sit down and play after 11 gruelling rounds?) adding on massive event organisational costs, and throwing many players hotels, flights, other tournament plans etc into uncertainty? Yeah that sure makes a lot more sense.
Yeah two whole days. Might be hard for you to imagine, but very doable. 2 weeks total. There are other touch less important tournaments during the year that are about the same.
Oct 5, 2018
0
#6
DeirdreSkye wrote:
forked_again wrote:
The article helps thanks. An imperfect system, but I get it. I think the swiss system followed by a 2 round knockout for the top four finishers would be better. 4 vs 1 and 2 vs 3, then the 2 winners play for the championship. Espeically in cases like this year where tie breaks are used to determine the winner!
It is actually a perfect system that allows a big number of players to compete in 9 or 11 rounds. The better player will always win. Isn't that what you want from a tournament?
I agree it works for a large number of participants, but there is no way you can argue that the best always wins. If China is better than the USA, why didn't they win when they played head to head? Tie break statistics against opponents that China played but the US didn't? That is not perfect.
Oct 6, 2018
0
#7
I don't know why these discussions have to be so contentious. I suggested a way to possibly make the match more exciting and the determination of a the winner more solid. I understand the system that exists and the plusses and minuses of that system. It is ridiculous to ignore the negatives of the system (which are obvious) just because it makes some people uncomfortable to question the status quo.
Dierdre, your soccer analogy is interesting. First, penalty kick tie breakers are controversial, and lots of people would like to see that changed. Secondly, at least a penalty kick tie breaker requires the winner to earn the win on the field in some way. A better analogy would be if soccer ties were decided by looking at the statistics of the match and awarding the winner based on time of possession or some other stats. That's what the Olympiad does now.
A better analogy would be college football, where the national champion used to be determined by a vote, based on number of wins and strength of schedule. But the teams involved all had different opponents. People complained for years but that was the status quo and it remained, despite its faults. Finally they developed the BCS system where the 4 top teams (by formula) play a playoff to earn the national championship. Much better.
Do people still complain about the BCS system? Yes of course; that is what people do! But I think most fans think it has been an improvement.
Oct 6, 2018
0
#8
I always thought in a swiss system 1st tie break was if the players themselves had played, second tie break was more difficult opponents?
Oct 6, 2018
0
#9
All right made me look it up, here it is for individuals, I assume for teams its a modified form.
For Swiss chess tournaments for individuals (not teams), FIDE recommends - in an Annex to the FIDE Tournament Regulations regarding tiebreaks:
- The result of the direct encounter(s) between the players (if any)
- The greater number of wins
- The greater number of games with Black (unplayed games shall be counted as played with White)
- The Average Rating of Opponents Cut (the average rating of opponents, excluding one or more of the ratings of the opponents, starting from the lowest-rated opponent)
- Buchholz Cut 1 (the Buchholz score reduced by the lowest score of the opponents)
- Buchholz (the sum of the scores of each of the opponents of a player)
- Sonneborn-Berger
My question is this: There are 11 rounds, and tomorrow is the last round. But there are much more than 11 teams. So how can an overall winner be declared when the leaders (based on number of wins) haven't even had the same opponents, and haven't played each other? For example, the winner of USA vs China tomorrow is supposed to {probably} determine the champion.
But Neither the USA or China has played Russia. India played the US and Russia, but not China. Russia played France, but The US played Armenia. Caruana never had to play Karjakin or MVL, but had to play Giri, Mamedyarov, Ding, and Aronian. Kajakin had to play MVL, but not Ding, not Aronian, not Mamedyarov, etc.
It makes no sense to me. The number of wins is pretty meaningless on its own. USA beat Panama but also beat much stronger India.
The leader board simply is ranked by the number of team wins, which doesn't seem to make sense. How is this whole thing figured out?