It's round-robin match play. The old RR style play cut to the top 24, then everyone bowled everyone else once, then had a position round before cutting to the top five for the show. The new style cuts to 32, everyone bowls eight games against eight different people, then a position round to cut to 16. Then eight more games against eight different people (though possibly against someone you've bowled against already), then a PR to cut to the top five.
At the beginning of the year, they said that the matches would be "meaningful" but didn't elaborate. The
Swiss-system might be used to create meaningful pairings, but I don't really know how they do it.
Edit: The relevant part of the Swiss system:
quote:
The first round is either drawn at random or seeded according to rating. Players who win receive a point, those who draw receive half a point and losers receive no points. Win, lose or draw, all players proceed to the next round where winners are pitted against winners, losers are pitted against losers and so on. In subsequent rounds, players face opponents with the same (or almost the same) score. No player is paired up against the same opponent twice however.
SH
Edited on 2/16/2007 3:27 PM