Tournament 1401 -1600 players

Dear all

Regarding tournaments: I have entered the 1401 - 1600 one starting 1st Sept - are all entrants within that banding randomly put into groups of 6, or is there further "seeding" so each group has a range of abilities ie someone 1401 - 1430; aonther 1431 - 1471 and so on? Just curious. Thanks

All tournaments are seeded the same way.

1.) The system determines the number of groups, X.

2.) The highest rated player is placed into slot 1 of group 1

3.) The second highest rated plater is placed into slot 1 of group 2

4.) Repeat until the Xth rated player is placed into slot 1 of group X

5.) The (X+1)th player is placed into slot 2 of group 1.

6.) Repeat until all players are placed.

So, for a 9 player tournament with 3 groups, with the highest rated player being "A" and lowest rated player being "I," the groups will be:

Group 1:

A

D

G

Group 2:

B

E

H

Group 3:

C

F

I

That is very helpful. Many thanks! 

These official chess.com tournaments usually have close to 1000 entrants in each tier.  By the time that many people get spread out according to the seeding scheme used, described well by omnipaul, there's not going to be much variation in starting ratings among the groups.

What you'll notice, though, is that the starting ratings may not mean much.  Some people are still new and have rapidly evolving ratings (usually upwards, if they're entering tournaments), and you get a few sandbaggers who have deliberately lowered their ratings so they can enter a tier lower than their actual ability.  Since only one person advances from each group, all it takes is one person who should really be playing in a higher tier to knock out everyone else in the group.  Still, these tiered tournaments are a good way to get several games against players who should, for the most part, be a good match.  

The seeding as described in tournament help works only if all groups are filled.

http://www.chess.com/tournaments/help.html#groupings

In practice the groups are filled the opposite of the way described.

For example if there are only eight rather than nine players.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H

Group 1: F, C

Group 2: G, D, A

Group 3: H, E, B