Method 1.2 – Manual System vs Computer System and Number of Rounds

We used 7-round swiss-pairing manual system for 第1届碧山杯小学象棋团体赛 in Nov 2003 (completed in 2 full days) as below :

(1) players to report results at counter

(2) manual pairing system

After visited 第1届茶阳杯小学象棋团体赛 at Nanyang Polytechnic in May 2004 (in fact, we visited 茶阳杯小学象棋团体赛 from 2004 to 2008) and decided to use computer pairing system in future years.

For 第2届碧山杯小学象棋团体赛 in Nov 2004, we used 9-round computer pairing system but still having players to report results at counter, from Round 1, we noticed that “players to report results at counter” took up a lot of times (we overlooked this problem under the manual system in 2003) and quite a big delay after Round 1, after assessment on the spot and the input from黄少龙中国象棋大师 (黄教授 mentioned this event in his article 漫谈象棋人才) regarding the usual method used in China, starting Round 2, we assigned a few workers to walk around to collect results from the players, we managed to slowly move back and keep to the original scheduled time at the end of Day 1. (completed in 1.5 days plus)

For 第3届碧山杯小学象棋团体赛 in Nov 2005, we used the same Sevilla 9-round computer pairing system but more workers were assigned to walk around to collect results from the players. (completed in 1.5 days minus)

For 第4届碧山杯小学象棋团体赛 in Nov 2006, we used the same Sevilla but 8-round computer pairing system and more workers were assigned to walk around to collect results from the players. (completed in 1 full day)

In 2003, we had only 7 rounds in 2 days due to manual system but ended up with the first 4 teams having the same major scores. We changed to 9 rounds for 2004 & 2005. For 2006, we changed again to 8 rounds for 2006 and managed to complete within one day.

Over the 4 years from 2003 to 2006, the only constant is “change” for 碧山杯小学象棋团体赛, in our original plan, we plan to organize it at least in alternate years from 2003 to 2007, i.e. minimum 3 times and maximum 5 times, and we missed a proper closing in 2007.