Tournaments
Losing a round does not
end your evening.
28Arena tournaments run on the Swiss system — the format chess congresses have used for a century. Nobody is knocked out. Everybody plays every round. You are simply paired against a team on a similar record, so the matches get harder as you win and easier as you do not.
The shape of an evening
Five rounds, then a cut.
Everyone plays all five. The best records go through to a knockout.
- Round 1
- Round 2
- Round 3
- Round 4
- Round 5
- Top 8
- Semi-final
- Final
Round one is drawn
Teams are split by combined rating and paired across the split, so the first round is not two favourites knocking each other out.
Every round after is earned
You face a team on the same score. Win and you meet somebody better; lose and you meet somebody in the same position.
Never the same team twice
The pairing engine avoids rematches. Where it cannot, it says so in the round notes rather than doing it quietly.
Standings and tie-breaks
Two teams on the same score are not equal.
Most rounds end with several teams on identical records, so Swiss needs a way to rank them. 28Arena publishes the order it uses before the tournament starts, and applies it in that order, every time.
Match points — A win is worth one, a draw a half.
Buchholz — The combined score of everybody you played. A hard road counts for more.
Buchholz cut one — The same, with your weakest opponent discarded.
Head to head — If you met, the winner is ahead.
Card point difference — How comfortably you won, not just that you did.
Contracts made — How often you delivered on a bid you took.
Pairings and tie-breaks are generated by the server and written to a published tournament log. Nothing about the draw is a matter of opinion, and nothing about it can be changed after the fact.
Standings
Round 3 of 5| 1 | Kerala Kings | 3–0 | 3.0 |
| 2 | Ace Hunters | 3–0 | 3.0 |
| 3 | Card Masters | 2–1 | 2.0 |
| 4 | Your teamYou | 2–1 | 2.0 |
| 5 | Royal 28 | 2–1 | 2.0 |
| 6 | Trivandrum Jacks | 1–2 | 1.0 |
| 7 | Backwater Bids | 1–2 | 1.0 |
| 8 | The Concealed | 0–3 | 0.0 |
An illustration of the standings screen.
The details
What to expect on the night.
- You enter as a pair
- A tournament team is two players. Bring a partner, or find one first — the duo you enter with is the duo you play every round with.
- Byes happen, and they count
- With an odd number of teams somebody sits out a round. A bye is worth a win, and the engine will not give the same team two.
- Rounds have a ready window
- When a round is paired you get a short window to take your seats. Miss it and the round is forfeited — so the tournament does not stall on one absent team.
- The cut is published up front
- How many teams advance is part of the tournament settings and visible before you register. Usually the top eight.
- The knockout is single elimination
- After the Swiss rounds it becomes a bracket. From there, losing does end your evening.
- Results feed your rating
- Tournament matches are rated like any other, so a good run shows up on the ladder as well as in the standings.
Related: how ratings work, the world rankings and the full rules of 28.
Find a partner. Enter the next one.
Tournaments are listed in the lobby with their format, their cut and the time they start.