If you want your students to have a fair chance of winning a tournament by making them play in a competition of equal strengths, Quad format is the one you should go for!
What is Quad format?
Simply, a Quad is a four-player Round-Robin tournament. If there are twelve players in a tournament, to play in a Quad format, the 12 players are put in order of their ratings.
- Then, the top 4 players (1-4) play a round-robin against each other,
- the next four (5-8) play a round-robin against each other,
- and the bottom four (9-12) play a round-robin against each other.
Each round-robin requires three rounds of play.
What if the total number of players is NOT a multiple of four?
What if there are 14 players? Then the top four (1-4) play each other, the next four (5-8) play each other, and the bottom six (9-14) play a mini-swiss tournament with a total of 3 rounds.
Similarly, if there are 18 players, then there will be 3 sections (1-4, 5-8, 9-12) and the last six players (13-18) playing a mini-swiss.
Benefits of Quad format
The Quad format does not produce an overall winner, but it produces a winner within each Quad. Every player gets to play three rounds against players that are roughly equal in rank, and usually has at least a passing shot at first place within his/her group or section. This gives the players a lot of motivation.
Learn how to conduct Quad tournaments in Chesslang – LINK