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Arimaa >> Site Discussion >> Tournament scheduling change suggestion
(Message started by: Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2008, 8:06am)

Title: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2008, 8:06am
An idea came up in the chat room that I think would make a good change for scheduling both the Continuous Tournament and the World Championship.  Let's shift the scheduling period 24 hours later.  For Asian and European players, this will swap Wednesday times for Monday times, presumably an equal swap of a weekday for a weekday.  For North American players, however, this will swap some Tuesday night times for some Sunday night times.  That will give everyone in all parts of the world a full weekend of time slots along with complementary weekday slots.

Thoughts?

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Arimabuff on Nov 1st, 2008, 9:25am
I am sorry; I really don't think it would be a good idea. There is only a six-hour average time difference between American time and European time. A TWENTY-FOUR hour time switch is more likely to make matters worse than better.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by The_Jeh on Nov 1st, 2008, 9:42am

on 11/01/08 at 09:25:19, Arimabuff wrote:
I am sorry; I really don't think it would be a good idea. There is only a six-hour average time difference between American time and European time. A TWENTY-FOUR hour time switch is more likely to make matters worse than better.


How so? Weekends are generally more free for people than weekdays. If everyone's weekend slots are all available, what is the downside?

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by jdb on Nov 1st, 2008, 9:45am
I think having the entire weekend available for scheduling would be a great idea.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by camelback on Nov 1st, 2008, 10:44am
I welcome this change. I live in West coast and there are no games played after Sunday 3 PM PST. This change will enable using Sunday nights at least within North American players.

So far the number games played in Tue, Wed or Thu is too few, so the impact for other time zones is minimal or none.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Tachyon on Nov 1st, 2008, 10:46am
Sounds like a good Idea Fritz since most people probably only have late evenings and weekends available for play.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by omar on Nov 1st, 2008, 7:03pm
Perhaps even shifting it just 6 hours may be enough to give west coast players some more Sunday evening time.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1st, 2008, 8:54pm

on 11/01/08 at 19:03:43, omar wrote:
Perhaps even shifting it just 6 hours may be enough to give west coast players some more Sunday evening time.

Yes, the reason I suggested shifting it a full 24 hours rather than just 6 was so that a North American tournament coordinator (i.e. you or me so far) could do the pairing for the following round in the evening after the last time slot.  Instead of Sunday night it could be done Monday night.  Shifting just six hours might mean that it was too late to do the pairing Sunday night anyway, meaning it would have to wait until Monday night anyway even if the last game was finished Sunday late.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by chessandgo on Nov 2nd, 2008, 5:10am
+1

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by aaaa on Jan 27th, 2010, 2:54pm
With all those Monday games, it appears that the shift of 24 hours has turned out to be a change that has been a bit unfriendly towards spectators. Perhaps it should have been 12 hours instead, that is with the scheduling window starting at Wednesday noon GMT.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 27th, 2010, 5:28pm
If a Monday game time maximizes the joint preferences of the players, then shifting the window of available game times will force players to choose a less favorable time.  However, there could be room to make spectators happier without making players unhappier.  My experience from using the scheduler is that it is rare for a pair of players to have only one time slot that maximizes their joint preferences.  Jointly, they usually have about six best time slots.  Of this best set, the algorithm chooses the latest time slot, i.e. Monday if available.  Why not instead choose the slot closest to the middle of the weekend?  That should replace some Monday games with weekend games when (and only when) an equally good weekend time is available.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by aaaa on Jan 30th, 2010, 11:53am

on 01/27/10 at 17:28:54, Fritzlein wrote:
If a Monday game time maximizes the joint preferences of the players, then shifting the window of available game times will force players to choose a less favorable time.

I have a hard time believing that it's not the case that the vast majority of the games that have been scheduled on Monday are simply on that day on account of the preference the scheduling code has for later time slots. The scheduling window is almost a multiple of 24 hours, so it seems to me that it would be pretty much a wash, with most lost time slots being ones on a weekday that are replaced with equivalent ones on another. For whom would a 12-hours shift earlier be a disadvantage? Hawaiians who don't mind staying up late? Or is Mondays-off such a common occurrence?


Quote:
Why not instead choose the slot closest to the middle of the weekend?

I believe that would require a nontrivial change to the scheduling code.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 30th, 2010, 4:39pm

on 01/30/10 at 11:53:38, aaaa wrote:
I believe that would require a nontrivial change to the scheduling code.

Really?  It isn't as simple as taking the set of time slots that are jointly most preferred by the pair of players and sorting it by distance from the middle of the weekend?  I know that optimal set is already created by the existing code, because it is displayed in the output of the pairing program.  I'm not programming whiz, but I don't immediately see what more is required than sorting that list differently.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 30th, 2010, 4:58pm
Ah, wait, I am probably remembering of Omar's old scheduling code.  I forgot that you re-implemented the algorithm.  Now that Omar's code has been replaced by yours, you are of course the authority on what is or isn't a trivial change.

Title: Re: Tournament scheduling change suggestion
Post by aaaa on Jan 30th, 2010, 6:48pm
No, I hadn't replaced the code; I had merely modified it. But now that I think about it, I was mistaken in thinking that it's hard. I remember that the code used to be erroneous in that it could pick less-preferred time slots as a result of avoiding simultaneous games, meaning that the list can thus be ordered in any way before it is given to the algorithm responsible for avoiding simultaneous games.



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