Summary of the modified swiss pairing system –

Or - why am I playing who I'm playing?

There are several ways that tournament organizer use to Pair Players (determine which players will play each other) This list includes single elimination, double elimination, Swiss and the system we use for most of our events a Modified Swiss system.

To understand a modified swiss tournament, you have to understand what Swiss is.

Swiss Summary by round

• Round one: All players are paired randomly.
• Round two: the winners of round one will play each other, the losers of round one will play each other
• Round three: the players with 0-2 records play each other, likewise with the 1-1s, and the 2-0s.
• Round four: the 0-3s play each other, as do the 2-1s, the 1-2s, and the 3-0s.

Sometimes, however, it is not possible to pair players with exactly the same records (due to drops or draws), so you may have to play up or down a record.

After an amount of rounds set at the beginning of the tournament (based on the number of players), the player with the best record wins.

Modified Swiss Summary

In a modified swiss tournament, the tournament is the same as Swiss until the end of the last round. At that point the top players (sometimes top 4,8,16, or 32 but usually top 8) go on to play a single elimination tournament (finals). Players in the final rounds play each other based on ranking at of the end of the Swiss portion of the tournament. 1 st place plays 8 th place. 2 nd place player plays 7 th place player. The 3 rd place player plays again 6 th place player and finally 4 th place player plays against the 5 th place player.