Answers.Body: <p>Funnily enough Swiss Manager has a similar feature called &quot;accelerated pairings&quot; which can be used in Swiss tournaments where there is the possibility of norms but because there are many weaker/lower rated players there is a risk of norm-seekers playing too many lower rated players and thereby ruining their norm chances.</p>
  <p>What happens with accelerated pairings is that the top half of the field is &quot;loaned&quot; an extra one or two points for the first 2 or 3 rounds to effectively split the tournament into two separate tournaments. When the loaned points are removed after 2 or 3 rounds the weaker players will have fewer points than the norm seekers and so will not jeopardise their chances.</p>
  <p>Unfortunately there is no generalisation to the case you want. Unfortunate because it would involve few extra clicks and a lot less work.</p>
  <p>There <em>is</em> a way to achieve what you are after but it involves a lot more work. That is by using &quot;forbidden pairings&quot;. This is an option in the pairings menu. If you select this then it gives you a list of players. You select one of them and you get another list of opponents that you can ban from being paired against that player.</p>
  <p>So, if players A, B and C are your U6 players then for each of A, B and C select the players not in {A, B, C} and tick the forbidden pairing box. If D, E and F are U8 then for each of these players do the same sort of thing. You should see that pairings between them and {A, B, C} are already forbidden.</p>
  <p>Then after 3 rounds (or however many rounds you use for separation) go back into forbidden pairings and remove all of them.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-08-18T20:07:21.930Z
Answers.Text: Can "forbidden pairings" be read from a file?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ian Ringrose
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-08-18T20:14:00.090Z
Answers.Text: Can points be set for each player at start of tournament, so the 1st 3 rounds are run by hand outside of Swiss Manager?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ian Ringrose
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-08-21T22:24:24.400Z
Answers.Text: @IanRingrose No, forbidden pairings cannot be loaded from a file. Yes, points can be set for each player at the start of a tournament but it is not straightforward in SM because such a tournament cannot be FIDE rated. You would need to know what hoops to jump through to get it to work. There would be no point in pairing the first 3 rounds by hand. Why bark yourself if you have a dog.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brian Towers
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-08-22T08:54:36.443Z
Answers.Text: I was thinking the first 3 rounds could be run as independent tournaments for each category of players in SM, then set it up as a single tournament using these results.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ian Ringrose
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-08-22T09:00:52.907Z
Answers.Text: In many way I expect the best pairing system for the requirements would be to pair each player with the player with the closest age who have the same number of points while keeping to the fundamental swiss rules.  (Could make a nice A level comp sci project for a child to write.)
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ian Ringrose
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-08-18T15:42:26.013Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-08-18T15:42:26.013Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brian Towers
Body: <p>I’m using Swiss-Manager for our tournament and I would like to create automatic pairings based on player categories (U6, U8, U10, etc.). Here’s what I’ve done so far and the issue I’m facing:</p>
  <p>Player Categories: I have assigned players to their types (U6, U8, U10, etc.) and categories (G6, G8, G10, etc.).</p>
  <p>Pairing Process: I want to generate pairings for each category separately. However, I can’t find an option to filter or separate players by category before generating the pairings.</p>
  <p>I want to do this rather than run a separate tournament for each category because I’m organizing a single tournament with about 38 participants spread across categories like U8, U10, U12, U14, and 12 players over 20 years old.</p>
  <p>I want to pair players within the same category for at least the first three rounds to rank them based on their performance. This way, players are sorted according to their results within their group before we proceed with the usual pairing system for the remaining rounds. By doing this, I can ensure fair competition within each category at the start</p>
  
Tags: <software><swiss-pairing><arbiters><pairing>
Title: How to Automatically Pair Players by Category in Swiss-Manager?
ThreadText: # How to Automatically Pair Players by Category in Swiss-Manager?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2024-08-17)
  
  I’m using Swiss-Manager for our tournament and I would like to create automatic pairings based on player categories (U6, U8, U10, etc.). Here’s what I’ve done so far and the issue I’m facing:
  
  Player Categories: I have assigned players to their types (U6, U8, U10, etc.) and categories (G6, G8, G10, etc.).
  
  Pairing Process: I want to generate pairings for each category separately. However, I can’t find an option to filter or separate players by category before generating the pairings.
  
  I want to do this rather than run a separate tournament for each category because I’m organizing a single tournament with about 38 participants spread across categories like U8, U10, U12, U14, and 12 players over 20 years old.
  
  I want to pair players within the same category for at least the first three rounds to rank them based on their performance. This way, players are sorted according to their results within their group before we proceed with the usual pairing system for the remaining rounds. By doing this, I can ensure fair competition within each category at the start
  
  **Tags:** software, swiss-pairing, arbiters, pairing
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2024-08-18. Score: 1
  
  Funnily enough Swiss Manager has a similar feature called "accelerated pairings" which can be used in Swiss tournaments where there is the possibility of norms but because there are many weaker/lower rated players there is a risk of norm-seekers playing too many lower rated players and thereby ruining their norm chances.
  
  What happens with accelerated pairings is that the top half of the field is "loaned" an extra one or two points for the first 2 or 3 rounds to effectively split the tournament into two separate tournaments. When the loaned points are removed after 2 or 3 rounds the weaker players will have fewer points than the norm seekers and so will not jeopardise their chances.
  
  Unfortunately there is no generalisation to the case you want. Unfortunate because it would involve few extra clicks and a lot less work.
  
  There *is* a way to achieve what you are after but it involves a lot more work. That is by using "forbidden pairings". This is an option in the pairings menu. If you select this then it gives you a list of players. You select one of them and you get another list of opponents that you can ban from being paired against that player.
  
  So, if players A, B and C are your U6 players then for each of A, B and C select the players not in {A, B, C} and tick the forbidden pairing box. If D, E and F are U8 then for each of these players do the same sort of thing. You should see that pairings between them and {A, B, C} are already forbidden.
  
  Then after 3 rounds (or however many rounds you use for separation) go back into forbidden pairings and remove all of them.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: Can "forbidden pairings" be read from a file?  
  > **username_2**: Can points be set for each player at start of tournament, so the 1st 3 rounds are run by hand outside of Swiss Manager?  
  > **username_1**: @IanRingrose No, forbidden pairings cannot be loaded from a file. Yes, points can be set for each player at the start of a tournament but it is not straightforward in SM because such a tournament cannot be FIDE rated. You would need to know what hoops to jump through to get it to work. There would be no point in pairing the first 3 rounds by hand. Why bark yourself if you have a dog.  
  > **username_2**: I was thinking the first 3 rounds could be run as independent tournaments for each category of players in SM, then set it up as a single tournament using these results.  
  > **username_2**: In many way I expect the best pairing system for the requirements would be to pair each player with the player with the closest age who have the same number of points while keeping to the fundamental swiss rules.  (Could make a nice A level comp sci project for a child to write.)  
  
  ---
  
  