Joaz Banbeck wrote:What we need is a more compatible structure - something more like king-of-the-hill - in which new participants can enter easily and retiring participants do not leave gaps.
One way to alleviate the gap problem would be to impose a time limit. Hold the tournament following the same format as it currently does, with one change: If two players cannot play a game within N days (for some predefined positive value of N), they are both:
Option 1.) Eliminated
Option 2.) Eligible to play against the person they *would* play had they won the game they did not complete in N days. They should play this group of person within M days of that person having won their respective round.
Note: For the final game, if they refuse to play within N days, just call it a tie.
To give an example of Option 2, say there are four players, A, B, C, and D, and let's say that N is 4 days and M is 2 days. Then A&B and C&D both have to complete their games within 4 days. Let's say that A&B do, and A wins. Let's also say that C&D don't complete within 4 days. Then both C&D are eligible to play against A within 2 days. If one of them do so within 2 days, whoever posts the game result first has the game that "counts", and the result determines who advances.
There are a couple of issues with Option 2. For example, maybe A refuses to play C when C tries to play against A since D never showed up. Still, at least it gives A a chance to remain in the tournament, even though B never showed up.
Either way, we at most wait for N+M days at a given stage. I don't know if this is ideal, but maybe it could work.
The Winner's Final
- to the situation in which the scheduling issues were resolved before pairing was done.