Pairing Round Three

Q:

Why do we have to wait until round two is over before we 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, we have to know which ones of them are still in the tournament, and we can't do that until we have all the results from the round.

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

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

We remember the pairing rule: start at the top and find the first person whom you haven't met.

In this case, Alan has already met Bob and the recently-eliminated Cuong, but he hasn't met competitor number four, Donald. We pair them.