Pairing Round Three

Q:
Why do you have to wait until round two is over before you can pair round three?
A:
Let’s say the last round had turned out a little differently, and Cuong and Frank had won their matches. Then all eight people would still be in the tournament (with one win and one loss each).

Because the pairing rule says to look at the people below a competitor, you have to know which ones of them are still in the tournament, and you can’t do that until you have all the results from the round.

This, by the way, is why you can’t tell who someone’s next opponent will be while a round is still in progress; you can’t apply the pairing rule.

At this point, you have all the results from round two. Now you can pair up the matches for round three.