Byes

[ravenflight]

Hi all,

I've asked this before but can't quickly find the thread on my phone and don't remember the answer.

How do you guys handle the byes? How many points do you award them in a 25-0 system?

Last year I awarded 15 points. My logic being it's a 'winning draw' and the person so placed in the draw is in the bottom of the pack.

I guess that isn't necessarily true as the first person to get the bye COULD be a fairly good player.

I must admit that last year I took the first bye (being the organiser) then went on to win the com, and there was one complaint about the numbers of points awarded for a bye.

Thoughts?

[kevinj]

The usual practice here for singles tournaments is to award 20 points for a bye. It's simple and gives some compensation for missing a game. There is a risk that giving this to a good player in the first round will inflate their score, but it also pushes them up the ranking so they should get a tougher draw in the next round.

An alternative that I've used for team competitions is to award a temporary score of 10 points and, at the end of the tournament replace this with the average score from their other games if it's higher than 10.