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Adaptive rounds

A Swiss pool can be drawn in full before the tournament, or round by round as it is played. With adaptive pairing, every team's kickoff times are published up front and never move, but each round's opponents and pitches are decided shortly before it starts, from the results so far. A team registered at the wrong strength finds its level within a round or two, instead of playing the whole day among the wrong opponents.

The price is that parents and coaches do not know the opponent or the pitch until the round is drawn. Some organizers take that for more even matches; for most tournaments a draw made up front is the better fit.

Turning it on​

In the setup wizard's Format step, open More formats, choose Swiss pool, and tick Draw each round from the results so far directly below its card. Review & finish confirms the round count and pairing choice, including the default draw timing for adaptive rounds.

What is published up front​

Every team's kickoff for every round. The pitches for a round are held, but not yet assigned, so on the public page an undrawn match names its teams as To be drawn, and its status gives the time of the draw — Opponent draw scheduled for 10:20. If that time passes and the round has not been drawn yet, it reads Opponent draw pending instead. Each team's page lists its kickoffs the same way, and its path to the final shows the next match as "Next: To be drawn". The mobile app shows the same draw status.

In the admin app an undrawn slot has one name everywhere. The Matches list, the Schedule board and a group's page show it as Teams drawn at 07:55 — the time of its draw — or Teams not drawn yet when no draw time is set. On Manage → Teams a team's next kickoff reads the same way from its side, Opponent drawn at 07:55, and its page lists each held kickoff among its matches at its time, so a Swiss team's day reads as a schedule even before a single opponent is known.

If the pool plays over more than one day, its rounds are spread evenly across the days — five rounds over two days play three on the first and two on the second. A round is never split between days: one that does not fit whole on a day moves to the next.

When a round is drawn​

Automatic draws begin once the schedule is published. Before publication, use Pair now to draw a wave by hand, or Pair all ready waves at the top of the page to draw every wave that is ready in one go. On the adaptive page a wave still to be drawn shows its draw time as Teams drawn at 10:00, and a drawn wave shows Drawn at 09:58 — the actual time of its latest draw.

A round is drawn a set time before it kicks off — 20 minutes by default. In round 1 the teams are paired by the strength they were registered with; from round 2, FairGame recomputes every team's skill rating from the results entered so far, pairs teams of similar skill who have not yet met, and puts each match on the held pitch that means the least walking from where its teams last played. Everyone following either team in the mobile app gets a Next opponent notification with both teams, the kickoff and the pitch. Only a published schedule notifies: a round drawn with Pair now before publication sends nothing. If a wave is drawn again before its notification has gone out, the one for the old pairing is cancelled and the new pairing is sent instead.

Each team's rounds are spaced at least that long apart, so its previous result is normally in before its next draw. A result still missing at draw time simply does not count yet — the round is drawn on time regardless.

Waves​

If your venue has a pitch for every match of a round, the whole round is drawn together. With fewer pitches the round is split into waves that kick off one after another, and a team can only be paired within its own wave, because its kickoff is already published. Every wave holds teams from across the field, from the strongest registered to the weakest, so each team has opponents near its level. Between rounds a team moves at most one wave earlier or later: its company changes every round, but its kickoffs stay about one round apart. With 12-minute matches in five waves of 15 minutes, a round takes 75 minutes, and every team waits between 48 and 78 minutes from its final whistle to its next kickoff, across a rest round too: a team plays the last wave before its rest and the first wave after it.

Because the waves are fixed before the first draw, they are planned so the pool can always be drawn without a rematch while it still has new opponents to give: a wave of two teams is a match settled in advance, and the same two teams never share one again. Each draw also looks ahead. If the most even pairing now would leave a later wave nothing but a rematch, the draw takes the most even pairing that keeps every later wave clear. A club's teams are spread across each round's waves as well, so the draw can keep clubmates apart.

Waves are sized to cover the pitches: a round of 32 matches on 24 pitches is laid out in blocks of eight, so three of them fill the venue at one kickoff and other categories' waves fit alongside. Teams that kick off at the same time always play as one wave — here, 24 matches at the first kickoff and 8 at the next. A round is placed whole or not at all — a category never ends up with half its teams holding a kickoff and the other half without.

If the pitch time runs out before every round has a kickoff, the first round that does not fit is left out, and so is every round after it — a later round is paired from the earlier one's results, so it cannot be played without it. The finish notes name the category and how many of its rounds fit ("Boys 2013: only 3 of its 6 rounds fit in the pitch time; the rest have no kickoff"), with an Open venues button beside Go to the tournament, since more pitch time is the usual fix. The setup checklist keeps Place matches on the schedule open and counts the categories short of matches, and the Control room lists each short category under Needs your attention and counts the matches that do not exist yet in a Missing tile. Add pitches or pitch availability, shorten the matches or the break, or play fewer rounds, then apply the format again.

Draw settings​

At the top of Adaptive rounds:

  • Draw each round … minutes before kickoff — the draw time is also the notice a team gets, so a longer lead gives parents more time to find the pitch, and a shorter one lets the draw see more results. Changing it moves the draw of every round not yet drawn; kickoffs never move. Once the schedule is published, a draw time that has passed is drawn automatically if kickoff is still ahead. Until publication, use Pair now. A lead longer than the published kickoffs leave between a team's final whistle and its next kickoff is refused, with the longest that fits — it would draw a round before that team's previous result is in.
  • Allow rematches — off by default: two teams meet again only when there is no other way to pair the wave and the waves still to come. Switched on, a rematch is allowed whenever it makes a more even match than a new opponent would.

Rests​

For an odd-sized pool, FairGame plans one rest per round across the whole field when it lays out the waves. The lowest registered seed rests in round 1, the next-lowest in round 2, and so on; everyone gets a turn before the rota repeats. Each designated resting team is placed in that round's odd-sized wave.

A resting team's match list on the public page shows Rest round in place of an opponent for that round, and the mobile app shows the same.

An organizer's explicit rest selection overrides this planned rest. Otherwise, the designated team rests if it is still active and available and its wave still has an odd number of teams. If withdrawals or fixed pairings make the designation unavailable, the draw chooses among the remaining unpaired teams: fewest rests first, then longest since the last rest, then lowest current rating. An even-sized wave needs no rest.

Reviewing and overriding​

Adaptive rounds in the sidebar lists every round and wave: when it kicks off, when it is drawn, and — once drawn — each match with the reasons it was made: both teams' skill, the predicted win chance, how even the match is, and the best opponent the home side did not get. Rematches, two teams from the same club and likely one-sided matches are flagged. A round's waves are listed and numbered in kickoff order. A drawn wave's matches are listed in pitch order, so they can be read straight to the pitch marshals. When two venues number their pitches alike, each such pitch also names its venue, and one venue's pitches are listed together. A wave played at more than one venue names the venue on every pitch.

With several categories, each has its own section with jump links to it at the top of the page. Beyond three categories the sections start collapsed; a collapsed section still shows how many of its waves are drawn and which wave draws next.

Until a match in a wave has started you can:

  • Pair now — draw a wave before its time, even while an earlier round is still waiting for results.
  • Pair all ready waves (top of the page) or Pair ready waves (one category) — draw every wave that is ready: a round is only drawn once the rounds before it have results for the teams in it, so one click draws the next round of every category, and the summary, right below the button you used, says which waves were skipped and why. Waves already drawn are left alone.
  • Fix a pairing — choose two teams to play each other; the rest of the wave is paired around them.
  • Select Lock on redraw for some pairings and Pair again — those pairings stay fixed through later redraws until you unlock them; the rest of the wave is drawn again.

A pairing you fix keeps the home and away sides you gave it, and stays fixed through any later redraw of that wave until you unlock it.

A wave can also be paired entirely by hand: fix every match yourself, plus — in a wave with an odd number of teams — the one team resting that round, and Pair now finishes the wave from exactly what you chose, with no call to the rating service at all. This is the way to pair a round when the rating service is unreachable.

If a draw fails​

If a round cannot be drawn on time — the rating service is unreachable, for example — its kickoff times and held pitches stay as published, and FairGame keeps retrying automatically until the round's own kickoff.

If it still has not drawn by kickoff, the wave becomes overdue and reads Kickoff passed, not drawn: FairGame stops retrying it automatically, and the tournament's managers get one email. From there you can pair it by hand from Adaptive rounds — including entirely by hand, as above — or, if the wave no longer needs playing, select Mark abandoned. Abandoning is final: an abandoned wave is never drawn or retried again. It reads Abandoned in the admin app, its matches read Not played on the public page, and the mobile app shows Round abandoned.

Every notification this page describes — a team told its opponent, an organizer told a wave failed — is handed to a delivery queue that keeps retrying on its own schedule until it gets through, so a slow network or a delivery hiccup delays a notification rather than losing it.

The table​

An adaptive pool's table is ranked by skill rating, not points, and shows the rating beside the points. Each round pairs teams of similar skill, so points depend on who a team happened to meet: a strong team that kept meeting strong teams can have fewer points than a middling one that did not. The rating weighs every result by the strength of the opponent, so the table stays fair however many rounds were played — including when a tournament has to stop early, or a team rested a round. You can hide the table altogether, for the whole tournament or one category — see publishing a standings table.

Walkovers​

When a team does not turn up, enter the result with Walkover switched on in the score dialog — the switch is there for every format, not only adaptive pools (see tournament day for entering results). It counts in the standings like any other result, but it is left out of the skill ratings and adaptive pairing: a forfeit says nothing about how the two teams play, and counting it would mis-pair the next round.

A saved walkover is labelled Walkover in the admin app's match lists and on the public page, so nobody mistakes it for a match that was played.

Limits​

  • Two teams do not meet twice while another pairing is possible — in this wave or any wave still to be drawn — unless you allow rematches. A rematch is always flagged.
  • Two teams from the same club are kept apart while the wave allows it. When every other pairing would repeat a match or set another club against itself, the clubmates meet and the pairing is flagged, like a rematch. Teams without a club are unaffected.
  • A club's rating from earlier tournaments is not carried into round 1: it mixes all of a club's teams and age groups, so it says little about one team. The registered strength does that job.