District 25
NEBridge - Knock-In Knock-Out

The Knock-In Knock-Out

When is it? Thursday and Friday, February 13-14, at the Presidential Regional in Sturbridge, MA.

Who can play? Anyone.

Who will get gold points? All four members of every team that makes it to Friday's head-to-head matches – just like in a Monster Knockout. In the top brackets the awards will be 100% gold. The lowest brackets will get a mixture of red and gold, but all who play on Friday are guaranteed some gold. 

So, what's the big deal? The size of the brackets. In all Monster Knockouts the brackets have between nine and sixteen teams. In this event most brackets – and all of the lowest brackets – will have only five teams! This is a unique opportunity, and this may be the last time the event is offered.

Wait, are you saying that … Yes! In most brackets four out of the five teams will get to play one another on Friday for first, second, third, and fourth place. In all brackets all sixteen players who play on Friday will be guaranteed gold points. 

How will the four teams get selected? The format for Thursday's games will be a Round-Robin with Swiss scoring. Every team will play every other team in its bracket. The four teams with the most victory points will advance.

How does a five-way Round-Robin work? I'm glad that you asked. Each team plays a match against each of the other four teams over the course of Thursday. Many different schedules are possible. Here is one:

Team # Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4
NS 1 EW 2 EW 3 EW 4 EW 5
NS 2 EW 4 EW 1 EW 5 EW 3
NS 3 EW 1 EW 5 EW 2 EW 4
NS 4 EW 5 EW 2 EW 3 EW 1
NS 5 EW 3 EW 4 EW 1 EW 2

At the end of Round 1 and Round 3, the East-West teams take the boards that they have played to their North-South teammates. At the end of Round 2 and Round 4, scores are reported to the director. The director converts them to victory points and posts them on a matrix such as this:

Team # 1 2 3 4 5 Scores
1 xxx 15 8     23
2 5 xxx   11   16
3 12   xxx   15 27
4   9   xxx 11 20
5     5 9 xxx 14

The Scores column shown above list results at the halfway point using a 20-point VP scale. Team 1 has played Team 2 and Team 3; Team 2 has played Team 1 and Team 4, etc. After the afternoon matches the directors will fill in the blank cells, and the Scores column will reflect the final results.

The top four teams will then play head-to-head matches on Friday to determine first, second, third, and fourth places using the usual knockout format.