| Example of how to pair a half point group after the first round. | ||||||||||||||||
| Prepared by Mark Kaprielian | ||||||||||||||||
| 2004-03-03 | ||||||||||||||||
| Actual situation from the MCC March Forward Swiss, March 2nd, 2004 pairings for the 2nd round. | ||||||||||||||||
| Some of the key rules to remember for this example | ||||||||||||||||
| Players may not play each other a second time | ||||||||||||||||
| Players may be swapped to equalize color if they are within 200 points of each other | ||||||||||||||||
| Higher rated player gets due color if all other critera are equal | ||||||||||||||||
| Not allowed to do a "left side" swap, may only swap players on the right hand side if allowed by other rules | ||||||||||||||||
| Players listed on the left hand side are always the player getting white. | ||||||||||||||||
| Note: these are not all the rules of pairing, just the most relevant ones for this example | ||||||||||||||||
| Note: For this example, "Look ahead" pairing rules, if being used, will have no effect so Top down methodology will dominate | ||||||||||||||||
| Step 1 | Put all players in the score group in rating order top to bottom | |||||||||||||||
| Natural Ordering | Color played | |||||||||||||||
| 1 | Edwin F Burnett | 1672 | B | |||||||||||||
| 2 | Matthew W Phelps | 1601 | B | |||||||||||||
| 3 | Menno G Koning | 1597 | W | |||||||||||||
| 4 | James H Rafferty | 1526 | B | |||||||||||||
| 5 | Nikolay Popov | 1407 | W | |||||||||||||
| 6 | Douglas Thompson | 1395 | W | |||||||||||||
| 7 | Harvey G Reed | 1385 | B | |||||||||||||
| 8 | Larry Zhu | 1201 | W | |||||||||||||
| Step 2 | Create the "Natural Pairings" by sliding the bottom half of the group next to the top half | |||||||||||||||
| Natural Pairings ( only concerned with doing the slide, no other factors considered yet) | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Edwin F Burnett | 1672 | B | 5 | Nikolay Popov | 1407 | W | played !! | ||||||||
| 2 | Matthew W Phelps | 1601 | B | 6 | Douglas Thompson | 1395 | W | played !! | ||||||||
| 3 | Menno G Koning | 1597 | W | 7 | Harvey G Reed | 1385 | B | played !! | ||||||||
| 4 | James H Rafferty | 1526 | B | 8 | Larry Zhu | 1201 | W | played !! | ||||||||
| Step 3 | Evaluate the natural Pairings | |||||||||||||||
| All the players have played each other. | ||||||||||||||||
| The colors on the 1st two boards are pefect | ||||||||||||||||
| Swap players 5 and 6 to fix the first two boards to avoid players meeting again. | ||||||||||||||||
| Swap players 7 and 8 to prevent players meeting again, but, colors are bad and other pairings are already very good. | ||||||||||||||||
| Two players have to get the same color again in the bottom two boards. | ||||||||||||||||
| Zhu and Reed are within 200 points so ok to swap. | ||||||||||||||||
| Step 4 | Make adjustments determined above and continue evaluation. | |||||||||||||||
| Pairings with player swaps but not color fix shown yet. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Edwin F Burnett | 1672 | B | 6 | Douglas Thompson | 1395 | W | |||||||||
| 2 | Matthew W Phelps | 1601 | B | 5 | Nikolay Popov | 1407 | W | |||||||||
| 3 | Menno G Koning | 1597 | W | 8 | Larry Zhu | 1201 | W | |||||||||
| 4 | James H Rafferty | 1526 | B | 7 | Harvey G Reed | 1385 | B | |||||||||
| Step 5 | Adjust players that are both due the same color. | |||||||||||||||
| Higher player gets due color when both are due same color so we must swap Koning and Zhu | ||||||||||||||||
| Final pairings | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Edwin F Burnett | 1672 | B | 6 | Douglas Thompson | 1395 | W | |||||||||
| 2 | Matthew W Phelps | 1601 | B | 5 | Nikolay Popov | 1407 | W | |||||||||
| 8 | Larry Zhu | 1201 | W | 3 | Menno G Koning | 1597 | W | |||||||||
| 4 | James H Rafferty | 1526 | B | 7 | Harvey G Reed | 1385 | B | |||||||||