Hello
Our club -like many others - is currently playing tournaments on Lichess. We are 16-20 participants. Unfortunately the pairing does not work very well with this number of participants. Often the same players get paired again and again, sometimes immediately after a game thei playes. This happens although other options would be available. There were situations where after reoud two or three 5 players were shown as "spectators", waiting for their next game. But - after one or two minutes of waiting - I was paired against players I had already played against in my last game. If someone gets paired against the strongest player three times, the other gets the same weaker player in several rouds that is simply bad and provokes displeasure. The winning streak exacerbates this inequality even more.
How can I deal with this problem - what are your experiences?
Hello
we have the same problem.
Could it help, if the two players press PAUSE after their game ?
So they would not be paired again immediately against each other and
start some time later with CONTINUE, if more games ended ?
Hello
Yes, I also recommend the players to take a short break after they had a strong opponent so that they don't have to play two or three times against him. But this workaround is absolutly ugly because firstly they lose time and will not reach a lower number of games. And secondly the Players shouldn't start pausing themself just to avoid certain opponents. This is a unfair action and really not what we want in tournament!
We have added it to a github issue:
github.com/ornicar/lila/issues/6168.
Indeed Lichess tournaments are not suited for the typical club evening tournament. I would recommand to use your normal offline pairing and the messenger of your choice (or your team forum here) to coordinate, until Lichess supports Swiss pairing.
@lovlasthank you very much!
@QEDemonstrandum Such complicated handling with individual games and a separate communication does not work well. Many participants would not want to participate at such a tournament. The tournament room feling with the chat and the view of other players, games etc. would be completely missing. If a game does not work (a player does not challenge the other) a Player has to wait up to 20 Minutes in a rapid tournement - not seeing whats going on. The Partcipants are not in a real room, where we can see then and talk to them. They are online and they join and leave whenever they want. That can't be the solution if you have such an excellent tournament solution like lichess. Just improve the pairings algorithm a little bit (as lolvals now initiated) - and it works perfectly.
I understand that it would require a little bit more effort from participants and therefore would appreciate technical solutions on Lichess. You can still spectate if your game is over (even multiple games) and if you want to talk use Skype (or whatever you prefer).
Yes IT aficionados may be able to do this with all of these tools - but I would like to have all the older players on board too ..and the access for new players should be as easy as possible - without having to explain them which tools they have to use (and possibly first to install).
Cool to see lichess work on it! :-)
@lovlas Perhaps the simplest practical fix would be to implement a rule for all tournaments that no one will ever be paired against whoever they played in their last game.
Or alternatively a rule that no one can ever be paired against anyone they have already played unless there is no one left in the tournament that they have not played.
Either rule should be much easier to code than full blown Swiss pairings, but still adequate to give a good variety of opponents in a small club event.
