The introduction of swiss and round robin for tournaments on lichess

I agree with @Wolfram_EP that creating some kind of swiss-arena is nonsense. Maybe fixing some issues with arena is good idea, but it still isn't swiss tournament. And I think that most clubs would be really happy if swiss tournament would be an option to have. Altough Arena is great format for really fast chess with no increment, for other TC it's definitely not that good. Much different number of games because of behaviour of your opponent.
someone just resigns with small disadvantage because his opponent is higher rated and the chance of gaining point is not great so you don't wanna waste your time, someone on the other hand plays till mate and let clocks running, which is big problem in arenas with longer time controls.

I don't even see problem with players leaving the tournament. OTB swiss tournaments have this option implemented as well. You can take 1/2 point BYE for the next round (once or twice during the tournament) before pairings are released, you can join late with 0 points for those rounds you missed (in arena you also don't have some kind of compensation) and you can leave tournament before the end. And because you have fixed number of rounds, you use your time wisely and probably try till the end, because resigning early has no benefit for you.

#86

You’re definitely right, @Arcticpenguin, asking for such a feature for some years may cause some frustration.

On the positive side of it, the endurance of the crowd demonstrates convincingly that this topic is not a flash in the pan. Moreover, this thread is already yet much bigger than its predecessors. Finally, Covid beamed all of us in a different world – different outcomes are to be expected.

Dum spiro spero!

#85 and #89

If I am not mistaken, RR has never been implemented on lichess.

Swiss, however, was released in July 2014: lichess.org/blog/U9b5RDIAADEAU3yM/july-updates; @psuter, the developer, is still playing on lichess.

I could not find when Swiss tournaments were abandoned, but the following reddit post (www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/35h2iv/lichess_now_has_swiss_tournaments/) from 2016 gives the impression that they were still there at that time:

„We've had them for a couple of months now (wow, it feels like less than that!), but for various reasons they haven't been very popular with the crowd. We have changes incoming to how the system is set up so at the very least downtime comes in one huge block instead of many smaller ones, meaning you can go get that sandwich without worrying about forfeiting the tourney.
Also, we did a piss-poor job at advertising them when they came out, so we're thinking of using the changes to justify a new round of advertisement via user messages. Hopefully, we can get a critical mass of users interested in Swiss tournaments this time around. Stay tuned!“

Funny:
Back then, the developers tried to convince the crowd – now the crowd tries to convince the developers!

Thanks for @-ing me @Kwatschewsky, that made me read the entire thread and brought back some good memories :)

My 2cts no one has asked for: in 2014 I was convinced Swiss tournaments would be a great addition. This was mostly because I had played in such tournaments on FICS and thought it worked well there.

@thibault was very helpful and welcoming to a random developer like me, and we got it up and running in what I thought was a very short time.

After the first couple of test tournaments it was apparent they weren't going to be too popular; late joiners were hard to handle well, people were frustrated that the tournament ended as soon as they had played everyone, etc. There was definitely room for improvement in the implementation, but it was going to stay a very marginal option in any case.

I believe Thibault kept them around for as long as they reasonably could. I very vaguely recall, possibly erroneously, that the first marathon tournament led to a redesign of some internals, which made the Swiss tournaments incompatible. Whatever the specifics, the general lesson is that maintaining a feature, even it doesn't change much, is an ongoing cost for developers because things must change around it.

Six years I don't miss them on lichess. I've run multiple Swiss tournaments since (as a matter of fact I'm running one right now for ~60 players), and have come to think that there are too many fine points to get right to be able to build a one-size-fits all solution.

What about just providing an option to disable streak bonus? Is that more viable?

It should be easy to disable berserk (already done) and the streak bonus.
However berserk and the streak bonus have the benefit to enable a later joiner to catch up.
Besides, what is the downside of the streak bonus?
For those 1-3 players who want to win the tournament it makes a difference, but for the hundreds or thousands who just want to play chess it helps them to get more balanced matchups.

Without the streak bonus I can tweak Arena to work for inner team tournaments in classical time controls.
Without streak bonus, a late joiner, early leaver don't get that unfair opportunity.

Without the streak bonus, that other 97x participants stands a more even change to reach a mentionable position in the tournament.
Without that streak bonus, I can have a realistic indication of where I stand in relation to the other participants.
If I only wanted to play chess, why join a tournament??
I join a tournament to test me in a relative short defined framework against other competitors.
Serious chess? In an Arena environment? Seriously... without beserk and streak bonus - possible.

Neither berserk nor the streak bonus affect the chess being played, they only affect the standings and the pairings. The standings are largely irrelevant except for the top 3. The pairings are important to all: it is a good thing to get interesting matchups. I never play a tournament to win it, I only join to play chess. I could play in the lobby, but then I have to play weird time controls and interesting matchups are hard to come by. I often join late just because I have other things to do and I still get interesting matchups once I get a winning streak. If there were no winning streak I would not get interesting matchups and probably would not join a tournament after its start. I never used berserk: if I wanted to play a faster game then I would join a tournament with a faster time control. I acknowledge that very strong players need to berserk the first games to get interesting matchups.

Of course berserk affects the way you play chess. With berserk you go for more risky openings with a chance of quick win.

I never stand a change to reach the first 3 positions in large tournaments.
So my standings don't matter?
Why ever not?
Of course it matters - to ME.
Maybe you're right - there is no point to play tournaments. Not if the standings don't matter. I will seriously reconsider.