Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2026 9:31 pm
Er, why? How would an underdog win through to play the favourite in the final round in this sort of set up? If those on 4/4 in a 5-round event were in different rating pools, they would not end up meeting. The whole point of a Swiss is that you don't know who you will play as the tournament progresses. It is a feature, not a bug.
EDIT: I may have misunderstood, but to be fair it is not easy to understand what you are proposing here!
(Thank you for acknowledging my contribution.) In that respect, it works much like a Berger system: two players on 4/4 are not necessarily paired against each other in the next round. The Swiss principle, whereby players with the same score are paired from the very start of the tournament, is essentially an algorithmic convention designed to simplify pairings. It is based on the same underlying idea as ladder systems or King of the Hill.
Today, however, there is little reason to adhere rigidly to this principle. As I have already demonstrated with my Berger-Swiss system, modern computing allows us to create tournament formats that are far more dynamic and engaging. Many players find the traditional Swiss "climbing the ladder" mechanism stressful. At a given rating level, a player will typically defeat a lower-rated opponent only to face a stronger opponent in the next round and lose, repeating this cycle from round to round.
In the Rating-Budget Tournament (RBT) System, the tournament leaders will typically be paired against one another regardless, because they are the strongest players. Their rating budgets are always higher than those of lower-rated players. To minimise the remaining budget for each player, the algorithm is naturally drawn toward such pairings. Moreover, because it seeks to schedule roughly half of a player's games within their own rating group, encounters between the leaders become even more likely.
Competing against players of comparable strength is far more engaging than the familiar Swiss pattern of defeating an opponent who is too weak in one round, only to lose to an opponent who is too strong in the next. Many players find this constant up-and-down movement through the field less satisfying than sustained competition among their peers.
Nevertheless, there is no requirement that the two tournament leaders meet. In that respect, RBT is no different from the Dubov Swiss, where the leading players are likewise not guaranteed to face one another.
The obvious advantage of RBT, especially with classical time controls, is predictability: players know both their opponent and their colour in advance. This is a highly valued feature that RBT shares with the Berger system.
That said, it is evident that the system is particularly well suited to rapid and blitz tournaments. It offers a much smoother playing experience, since there is no need to wait for all games in a round to finish, results entered and the next round paired. The entire schedule is already determined in advance, which greatly reduces both delays and administrative workload. As there are typically more rounds in rapid and blitz tournaments, the leaders are almost certain to meet.
