A proposal for a Swiss-draw style tournament system using paired comparison for rank estimation

Many sports, such as gymnastics and figure skating, can be classified as scoring competitions or as interpersonal competitions, such as soccer and baseball. Moreover, round robin tournaments and elimination tournaments are used prominently in tournament systems to rank participants in interpersonal competitions. In a round robin tournament, establishing an order for participant play is simple, but each player must be matched against all other players. Consequently, much time is required to complete a round robin tournament. On the other hand, when using an elimination tournament, it is possible to rank the top competitors by playing fewer games, although it is difficult to identify where participants who lose games fit in the final order. To compensate for these disadvantages, cyclic designs and Swiss system tournaments have been proposed recently. In this study, we propose a new tournament system that utilizes a paired-competition methodology, which is based on the concepts of cyclic designs and Swiss system tournament. Our aim is to eliminate the disadvantages of round robin and elimination tournaments. To this end, we simulate the tournament system proposed, doing so under various conditions. We are able to demonstrate the superiority of this system over conventional tournament systems by comparing the accuracy of the estimated rank order of each tournament system, as well as the number of games required to complete each tournament system.