Parents: The Swiss System for Chess Tournaments

September 8, 2010
Tags: Learning Chess Articles, Teaching Chess Articles

This is the fourth posting in a series of 4 articles comprising A Parent’s Guide to Tournament Chess:

1. Preparing for a Chess Tournament
2. During a Chess Tournament
3. Understanding Chess Ratings
4. The Swiss System for Chess Tournaments

Written by Robert N. Bernard for Wholesale Chess

Here’s a short description of the Swiss System of pairing opponents in chess tournaments. Refer also to the diagram provided.

Step 1: At the beginning of the tournament, rank all the players from highest rating to lowest rating. Unrated players should be ranked lowest. The number given is called the “pairing number”. In the example, Helen has pairing number 1 and David has pairing number 4.

Step 2: Split the list of players into two equally sized groups, where the split occurs between the two middle pairing numbers. If there are an odd number of players, one player is given a “bye”, which means that they get a full point for the round, but they do not have an opponent.

Step 3: Pair the top half of the group with the bottom half of the group, but maintain the rankings in the top and bottom halves. You might expect that for 8 players, 1 would play 8, 2 would play 7, and so forth, but in a Swiss, 1 plays 5, 2 plays 6, etc. Alternate colors so that if 1 gets white, 2 gets black, and so on. Post these pairings on the pairing sheet.

Step 4: Once the round is complete, record the results. 1-0 means white won, 0-1 means black won, and 0.5-0.5 is a draw. In the example, Helen beat Sadie, Mateo beat Dhiren, Julie beat Ming, and Chris beat David.

Step 5: In the next round (and all subsequent rounds), group players again, but this time by their total score. In the example, there are four players with 1 point, and four players with 0 points. Each of these is called a “score group”. Within each score group, use the players’ ranking numbers, and split them again.

Step 6: For each score group, pair the top half of that score group with the bottom half of that score group. In this way, players with the same score will play each other. Try and maintain alternation of colors for each player (so they get white, black, white, black, etc., in each round).

Step 7: Post the pairing sheet with the new pairings. In the example, Chris has white against Helen with black. Notice that both Chris and Helen have the same score (1 point) and that Helen was “due” black this round.

(Click on the image below for full sized image)

Swiss System for Chess Tournaments

Robert N. Bernard is the manager of the New Jersey Knockouts of the United States Chess League, where he started three years ago as the Knockouts’ blogger. For the USCL, he also compiles an unofficial rating list and weekly power rankings. Frequently, he can be found on the Internet Chess Club, where he has a weird tendency to win a lot of their trivia contests. He is also a member of the United State Chess Federation’s Ratings Committee and coaches his son’s chess team. He has a very nice plaque from the 1982 US Amateur Team Championship, where he captained the team that won the Under 1400 prize.