My trip up to UMCP's recent high-school tournament (64 teams, unmodified Swiss pairs, central-source) got me to thinking: For normal Swiss, everything has to be central-source (because, obviously, nobody can have byes). But what if you double up rounds? That is to say: play each game twice, consecutively, such that in both rounds 1 and 2, team D plays team E, C plays F, etc.; teams A and H have a bye round one and play each other round 2, in round 2 only; team B plays team G in round 1, but not round 2; team A's pack is read round 1; team B's pack is read round 2. A normal Swiss pair for 2^n teams requires n rounds; full submission would, of course, generate 2^n packets. To play the double-Swiss above would require 2n packets, and therefore (unless I'm missing something critical) would be feasible for any tournament of an integer power of 2 field where 2^n > 2n (8 teams or more). The only problem that catches my eye right now is the high probability of teams' 1-1 records against each other. This could be resolved by total points; or instead, you could play a triple-Swiss similar in idea to the one above, for field sizes 2^n where 2^n > 3n (16+ teams). Also scratching at the back of my mind is something really funky you could do with 24 teams in which teams simultaneously play in two 16-Swiss tournaments at once. Of course, I fully expect these ideas to have critical flaws that I've missed. But I figured I might as well ask. Edmund
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