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PreprintarXiv licencearXiv

The efficacy-competitiveness frontier in the Swiss system

  • László Csató
  • Balázs R. Sziklai
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Abstract

An ideal tournament is both efficacious and attractive: it selects the best player as the winner, but only at the end of the tournament in order to maintain suspense as long as possible. We identify and explore the trade-off between these criteria in Swiss-system chess team tournaments via simulations. Organising more rounds is shown to improve efficacy but increase the probability of a stakeless last round. The 2008 reform in the Chess Olympiad ranking is found to be a questionable move, as the previous rule based on board points determines the efficacy-competitiveness frontier, regardless of whether two or three points are awarded for winning a match. Combining board points and match points is better than using match points only. Our results can help optimise the design of the Swiss system, which, besides chess, is also widely used in e-sports.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{csato2026efficacycompetitiveness,
  title = {{The efficacy-competitiveness frontier in the Swiss system}},
  author = {László Csató and Balázs R. Sziklai},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.01997},
  eprint = {2610.01997},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.01997},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - The efficacy-competitiveness frontier in the Swiss system
AU  - László Csató
AU  - Balázs R. Sziklai
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/01
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.01997
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.01997
AB  - An ideal tournament is both efficacious and attractive: it selects the best player as the winner, but only at the end of the tournament in order to maintain suspense as long as possible. We identify and explore the trade-off between these criteria in Swiss-system chess team tournaments via simulations. Organising more rounds is shown to improve efficacy but increase the probability of a stakeless last round. The 2008 reform in the Chess Olympiad ranking is found to be a questionable move, as the previous rule based on board points determines the efficacy-competitiveness frontier, regardless of whether two or three points are awarded for winning a match. Combining board points and match points is better than using match points only. Our results can help optimise the design of the Swiss system, which, besides chess, is also widely used in e-sports.
ER  -