kleineme: Remember that you can set a number of days for the tourney to wait after the start date. What I do is set mine for something around 7 days, and then watch to see if I need to extend it. I also check the 'start imeediately when filled' box.

Eriisa: Yes, you're right :) But my suggestion is about those tournaments who will never be filled, at least not with the number of players the tourney creator has set up. Take a look at this one: random elimination wild chess. The original starting date was May, 1st, currently nine players have joined, and unless a miracle happens the tourney will be deleted at the end of May. Why not let those nine play, regardless whether the 16 participants are reached or not. I would like to play and I wouldn't mind if I get a bye in the first round, and I would assume that the others won't care either. At least we could play from round two on ;)

kleineme: I see what you mean. If it was my tourney, I was edit the start day and extend it, so it won't be deleted.

The only problem with letting the 9 play, is that 9 cannot be divided by two, so who will the 9th person play against???? The Single Elimination game type pairs off the players so it must be an even number.

I did have one elim tourney that I had set up a while ago, that was set for 16 players and only 8 signed up. I sent Fencer a PM and he edited the tourney for me and changed the 16 to 8 so it could start.

But 9 players wouldn't work, so that option's out.

Eriisa: I think you don't see what he means, Eriisa. Think again about the concept of "a bye" pls. Ok, I give you a hint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_%28sports%29 ;-)

Eriisa: The idea ist to give random players wildcards for the first round. Maybe one could chose wether to start only if the proper amount of players has signed up, or to start when the deadline passes - no matter how many players are in (well - if there are at least 4 of course)

Mr. Shumway: Sounds interesting and strange at the same time as usually everybody here has a wild card, that means can participate in tournaments without qualification. Would there be a diference to an invitation? Or did you just mix things up a bit because of the tournament's name kleineme mentioned?

gringo: But not everybody has a wildcard for the second round. You normally have to qualifiy for it by winning a 1st round match.

gringo: Why not seed the tournament and give the higher rated players a bye? Then the next round would start with a power of two number of players. Simple solution and it will get every tournament of the single elimination type started on time.

16 player tournament, but only 11 sign up. The deadline passes. Now you take the player's ratings and pair them up to add to 17 as they're ranked. 1-16, 2-15, 3-14, 13-4, 12-5, 11-6, 10-7, 8-9. As there isn't any players numbered 16, 15, 14, 13, or 12 players 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, would get a first round bye. Round two would start with 1 versus winner of 8-9. 2 versus winner of 10-7, 3 versus winner of 11-6. 4 versus 5.

The first round in a 11 entrant single elimination tournament would have three games played amongst the lower rated seeds. The three winners would continue on and the second round would have four games with the eight remaining players.

This can done for any number of entrants, odd or even. After one round the power of two number of people are left in the tournament and it will always work out at the end. Fencer should look into doing this. The tournament creator could have a 32 player tournament with 21 entrants and just have it start when the deadline passes.

I believe a few people posted earlier on this site about how brackets and seeding work. It's a real simple process.

Walter Montego: there is a problem though with rating people in random tournaments .. how do you rate the players in a tournament which choses the games randomly from all possible game types ?
(or from just the line types, or the gammon types)

i dont know how the seeding is done nowadays with the random tournaments

Hrqls: I hadn't thought of the random game type tournaments. I can think of a few ways.

One way would be to seed them randomly!

Another way depends on how the actual game to be played first is chosen. Does everyone in the tournament play the same game in the first round? If so, after the game is chosen the players could be ranked and seeded by the rating they have in that game. For the second round, you could re-seed the field or keep it as is.

A third way would be for the games to be played to be picked for each round in advance and then the total rating to be used for the seeding. Whether or not the game order is revealed to players if it is done this way would be up to the tournament creator.

I'm sure some other ways can be thought up. I like the second way that I just made up of these three ideas. Allowing the tournament to be started after the deadline with a pared down list could also be done. Say you have a 32 player tournament, but only 21 sign up by the deadline. Even after the deadline is extended it is still 21 entrants, start the tournament with the top 16 seeds. Yes, the ranking and seeding of them is a problem for a random game, but idea number two would work for that too.

Walter Montego: random seeds would give random byes

i like the idea of giving each player in a round the same type of game .. it takes away some factor which is in the random tournaments now though and less different game types would be played in the total tournament (by all players combined) (i think its nice when a lot of different games are player because it gives more established ratings, in the end ;))

another option would be to average the rating over all possible game types and use that average .. it can be wrong though when there are some unrated types in the average .. i dont know whats done with the seeding of unrated players in normal tournaments now?

Hrqls: The seeding in these tournaments is like in chess instead of in other games. In a 16 player field 1 plays 9, 2 plays 10 and so on. After the first round I don't know how they pair so you would have to ask Fencer. But I would prefer 1-16, 2-15 over the system we use now.

gambler104: The system of seeding a tournament based on the rankings for a single elimination tournament is based on the premise that the final match should be against the number 1 and number 2 rated players. The groupings are done in such a way that this will happen if the higher rated (lower numbered seed) will always win their match in the early rounds. If the lower rated player upsets the higher seed, then they get to carry on in that person's place. They earned it, right?

Walter Montego: The seeding should be correct now. For new tournaments. This is an example: JoshiTM's all open Single game Eliminator 8 #2

Fencer: Unless your ratings changed after this seeding was made, it is not correct. Also, it is customary to list the ranking with the person.

Top bracket as 1-8
next------- as 4-5
next------- as 3-6
next------- as 2-7

If done in this manner it will makes it possible to have the top seeds meet in the semi final and the number 1 and 2 meet in the final. It is easier to follow using the numbers this way too. If the ranking were done with the top four seeds and the rest assigned randomly, then I suppose it's fine and doesn't matter. It certainly is an improvement. How did you do it?

Walter Montego: Fencer's way is one possible way to do it. Your's is another. Another is 1-5 2-6 3-7 4-8, 1-3 2-4. It would be a combination of those 2.

gambler104: You are right about that, but the method I was using lends itself to higher powers of 2 more easily. It also depends on how much importance is placed on the ratings, their accuracy, and the goals of the tournament organizer.

I like to think that the ratings are accurate with the goal to have the best players play each other for the championship and not knock each other out in the early rounds. I'st easy to group the people by adding one to the power of 2 for the number of rounds and then pairing them that way.
8 people is three rounds 2 × 2 × 2 + 1 = 9. 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5 should be the first round pairings. If the rounds will not be reseeded each round, which is the normal procedure, the winner of 1-8 should play the winner of 4-5, and the winner of 2-7 plays the winner of 3-6. It's fairly straight forward to draw the tree graph using the numbers and keeping them like that. A few months ago some peole posted some good links for tournament organizers and also discussion various formats of it. Perhaps someone can remember where it is and maybe add the link to this page's title. I'm willing to bet Fencer made a note of it.

For sixteen players you use 17 as the number, thirty-two uses 33.

Walter Montego: I've got the seeding tables from Pedro Martínez, they might be a little different to yours but I guess it is correct too.

gambler104: *nod* i prefer that type of seeding as well

the problem with random game types though is that you dont know the ranking of the player, so you cant base the seeding on the ranking

(thanks for posting the way of seeding though, i forgot i asked about that :) i didnt know it was different per game type)

Hrqls: It shouldn't be a problem with random games. Wouldn't reseeding the players for the next round be easy enough to do? Or just leave it seeded as it was in the first round and continue the pairings based on the first round seeding?

Marfitalu: is there used 'no average' at the moment ? or is there used the rating at which everyone starts ? (which is 1300 ? or 1500 ? or .. ?)

Marfitalu: but how is are the players seeded when they are norated ?