[JulieOwens]

At a tournament, what does knockout (KO) mean? And when they say 1 of 4, and then 2 of 4, etc.?
And where can I find an explanation of Swiss Teams? Do you have to go into those as a foursome?

[Phil]

Hi and welcome. In case one of the tournament commissioners doesnt see this:

Knockout means you are playing head to head matches. If you lose your match, you are out of the event.

Swiss Teams are a live duplicate bridge event that arent typically played on BBO. You can google the meaning and how they are played and scored. For BBO Forums, our events are individual.

1 of 4, 2 of 4 is the quarter you are on. In the knockout stage we play 4 quarters of 16 boards each and then report the score. In my match with crazy4hoop, we have finished 32 boards. Ive played the 3rd quarter and Im waiting for him to play. We are both active on BBO so the match is moving along quickly.

1. The first stage is pool qualifying. This time we had about 55 players. We were in 6 pools of 9 or 10 and you played everyone in your pool. The top 5 or 6 were then seeded into a 32 player bracket.

2. Each stage (pool to KO -->round of 16-->round of 8,etc..) is taking about 2 weeks although each stage is proceeding quicker than the last.

As a player to someone thinking about entering:

1. Don't worry about your personal skill level. This is a great way to see how you measure up against other players and its a great way to identify leaks in your own game. As a matter of fact, I know a local player who CHARGES $20 (well, they bet) for challenges to another player for these reasons.

2. Make sure you understand how challenges work! And make sure you don't have serious commitments over a two month period when this is played. Also make sure you check into the forums frequently enough to see notices about upcoming events, matches, etc... I expect #7 will start up sometime in March and I encourage anyone to sign up, although, PLEASE UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING UP FOR!

All in all, they are great fun and the commissioners need to be thanked for putting these together!

The Forum are a lot more active and fun as a result.

[Vampyr]

You do have to enter Swiss Teams as a foursome. The way these work is that each team plays each round against a team that has a similar record to theirs. This record is usually expressed as Victory Points. So if after two rounds you have 20 VPs out of a possible 40, you will play a team that also have 20 VPs. VPs are what IMPs are converted to. The scale depends on the length of the round.

Swiss Pairs are similar, although here it is % of Matchpoints that is converted into VPs.

[barmar]

I've moved this thread to the General Bridge Discussion forum. These tournament types are not specific to BBO, and not even played much on BBO at all (BBO has Swiss Team support, but we haven't started running them regularly, only a few tests).

[mycroft]

If you're looking at a tournament flyer (I'm going to assume ACBL, and Regional), then KOs are "N session Bracketed Knockout Teams". That means:

• That all the entered teams are sorted somehow into "skill brackets" of 2^N teams (8 for 3-session, 16 for 4-session). In the ACBL, that's done by team average masterpoints. Thus the air quotes around "skill", but it's the best we can do without active knowledge of the players.
  
• Each session, your team of 4 [footnote 1] plays a 24-board [2] match against one[2] of the other teams in the bracket. If you win, even by one IMP, you're still in the event. If you lose, you're out - find another game[3].
  
• Repeat until you win your bracket or you lose, then join another one tomorrow!

So, the two things to understand in the flyer:

• If you enter the event, you must be prepared to play all sessions. You probably won't (only two in each bracket do), but you must be prepared to.
  
• Each differently named KO is a different event (in Penticton, new KOs start every day. In smaller regionals, there may be one Monday-Tuesday, one Wed-Thur, and one Wed-Fri/Sat Mornings. Gatlinburg is a whole other story.) Be careful not to book for two concurrent KOs, or at least have plans for the other teammates if you're still in the old one!

Swiss Teams: Again teams of 4 [1] play, but these are smaller matches (6-9 boards depending on the event and the turnout). Usually these are no longer scored win-loss, but on a sliding scale depending on how big each of your wins (or how embarrassing your losses) are. You have to play all sessions of the event (so if it says 1 of 2, you have to play the same lineup for 2/2). The difference here is that instead of pre-seeding the field into brackets, you start in a random pool[4], and further matches are determined based on your current results (so if you do well, you play the other teams that are currently doing well; if you do badly, you play the other weaker-on-the-day teams).

Does this help?

Footnotes:
[1] or 5, or 6. There are reasons to play a team of more than 4; when you're ready to do that, you'll know why.
[2] or 26 (in Penticton at least), or some other number approved by the event or the tournament organizer. However, since the brackets are not always full (not always do we get an exact 2^N entries, so there are holes), the first session will have some "three-qualify-two" assignments, so you play two "half-matches" of 12 boards each against two teams in that session.
[3] You'll notice on ACBL Regional programs that there is frequently a one-session Swiss scheduled against even sessions of the KO (2 and 4). That gives teams who get knocked out something to do together for a session they had planned on playing with that team anyway.
[4] Some places match the first round non-randomly (Australia does the butcher round, with team 1 playing team N/2+1, 2 vs N/2+2,... N/2 vs N; my local seeds match 1, which leads to match 2 being the butcher round, where the "lose by 4 A team" plays the "lose by 4 C team" (and vice versa for the winners),...)

[Phil]

barmar, on 2017-February-16, 09:21, said:

I've moved this thread to the General Bridge Discussion forum. These tournament types are not specific to BBO, and not even played much on BBO at all (BBO has Swiss Team support, but we haven't started running them regularly, only a few tests).

Since she mentioned terminology that is used in BBF KOs, it seems "BBF Events" is the proper forum.

[barmar]

Here's ACBL's explanation of the different types of team games:

http://www.acbl.org/...-of-team-games/

[JulieOwens]

Thanks so much for all the answers. I am indeed looking at a regional tournament flyer, and it confused me. Now I think I understand. Again, thanks to you all!

[Caitlynne]

An explanation of various types of team events is provided by the ACBL:

http://www.acbl.org/...-of-team-games/

1 of 4 means that there are four sessions planned and 1 means it is the time of the first of those four sessions.

In a KO (Knockout) event, your team plays in the subsequent session only if it wins its assigned match for the current session.

In a Swiss Team event, it depends. A Swiss Team event could feature one or more qualifying sessions to thin the field for one or more final sessions. In that case, the number of sessions your team plays depends on whether it qualifies for the next level. Typically, one or two session Swiss Team events do not have qualifying sessions.

[mlbridge]

Not sure if anyone already mentioned the difference in scoring. But strategy differs slightly from imp versus match point. So if you are planning to play in a tourney, make sure your teammates explain the difference if you have never play in a team game before.

[rmnka447]

Just to be sure, in all team games, four of the members of your team play in each round of a team game. One pair sits East/West at one table, the other pair sits North/South at the other table. Likewise, your opponents fill in the empty spaces at the two tables --their East/West pair playing your North/South pair and their North/South pair playing your East/West pair. Both tables play the same boards. Each table yielding a result for each board. When the round is complete, each team compares the results they got for each board at both tables. So, say, 3 ♠ was bid and made by East at both tables. The team's East/West pair would show a result of +140 while the team's North/South pair would show a -140 for a net result of 0. But if the North/South found a great defense and instead beat 3 ♠ one trick, the team's result would again be +140 for East/West, but also a +50 for North/South giving a net result of +190.

The net result is prorated using a scale called IMPs. The team with the best total IMP results for all the boards of the match wins.

There is one kind of team event that wasn't mentioned. That is the Compact Knockout. It is essentially the same as a Knockout, but conducted over only 2 sessions. It has one restriction that other team events don't. Each team playing in it must have exactly 4 players. Often, these are scheduled on the same day as the 2nd day (3rd and 4th sessions) of a Knockout event to let teams knocked out on the 1st day have a team event to play in.

In all other team events, you need at least 4 players on each team but can have as many as 6. Most people tend to play 4 person teams, but the flexibility is there to have more. Some of us old geezers like to sit out for part of the event to stay fresh. It can also allow more than 4 friends to play together in an event.

One other term you may see, especially for Swiss team events, is it being a "playthrough". Instead of splitting the Swiss team into 2 separate sessions, a playthrough will start at a prescribed time, then continue the event through until all 7 or 8 matches are completed instead of taking a long break between sessions. Often, these Swiss teams will start early (9-11 AM) and include a short lunch break. Some tournaments will provide an optional box lunch in the cost of the entry. A playthrough Swiss is usually done by mid-late afternoon allowing players who travelled a long distance to the tournament to return home at a reasonable time.

Finally, there is a little less time pressure in team events than in pairs events. In pairs events, you have to play quite a few 2 or 3 board rounds, so the director's have to be pretty strict about maintaining completion of each round in a prescribed time. In a typical Swiss, you have to play 7 boards in 45 minutes which allows a little more flexibility. They're almost always a few hands that finish quickly, so there's usually some time available to work through a tough hand, if necessary.

[Vampyr]

rmnka447, on 2017-February-19, 03:04, said:

There is one kind of team event that wasn't mentioned. That is the Compact Knockout. It is essentially the same as a Knockout, but conducted over only 2 sessions. It has one restriction that other team events don't. Each team playing in it must have exactly 4 players. Often, these are scheduled on the same day as the 2nd day (3rd and 4th sessions) of a Knockout event to let teams knocked out on the 1st day have a team event to play in.

Well, not just one; multiple teams was also not mentioned.

In multiple teams one pair from each team is stationary, and the other pair moves around the room. The matches are short -- 2-4 boards, although the same format may be repeated after a break.

The result is determined by total IMPs, or a result is calculated from each short match, or sometimes a hybrid scoring method is used. Multiple teams is popular when an all-play-all event or final is desired.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2017-February-19, 06:29, said:

In multiple teams one pair from each team is stationary, and the other pair moves around the room. The matches are short -- 2-4 boards, although the same format may be repeated after a break.

The result is determined by total IMPs, or a result is calculated from each short match, or sometimes a hybrid scoring method is used. Multiple teams is popular when an all-play-all event or final is desired.

I don't think I've ever encountered this type of game at an ACBL tournament.

Sometimes at Sectionals instead of Swiss Teams we play round-robin teams. The teams are in brackets of 8, and they play 7 matches of 7 or 8 boards, within each bracket. Scoring is similar to Swiss Teams, usually IMPs converted to Victory Points.