I Have not played in a tournament yet but would quite like to, however....I am a 'no more than 10 games at a time' kind of chap (my brain can't cope with any more) and usually have 7 or 8 on the go, which I am comfortable with. So my question is; how many games would I be taking on if, for example, I entered a banded threesome with 10 groups of 3. I would presumably have 27 potential opponents? So how many of them would I be playing at any one time? How does it work, in a nutshell...

I just started a three-some. So I play only four games against two players. Try that!

Originally posted by Indonesia Phil
I Have not played in a tournament yet but would quite like to, however....I am a 'no more than 10 games at a time' kind of chap (my brain can't cope with any more) and usually have 7 or 8 on the go, which I am comfortable with. So my question is; how many games would I be taking on if, for example, I entered a banded threesome with 10 groups of 3. I w ...[text shortened]... s? So how many of them would I be playing at any one time? How does it work, in a nutshell...

Ah, then I misunderstood. I assumed that one was banded together with 2 others with whom one would then form a team who played everybody else, (in other groups of 3) whereas those 2 become you opponents; got it. So what happens if by some miracle one were to win ones' group; is that it or do you then go on to play the other group winners?

As far as I'm aware you go onto the next round and then the same pairings happen (I.e. same number of games) until the final round when you win :-) You should still play the same number of games each round as far as I know. I've only won one tournament so I have limited experience in reaching the end... Good luck to ya!

Thanks, now I get it.....

It gets a little more complicated if there are drawn scores in early rounds.
This results in more than one player going through.
In fact you can get all 3 people going through if they all get the same score

so instead of a nice number divisible by 3, there start to be "overhangs" or whatever they are called. So sometimes one or 2 groups in the 2nd round does need to be a 4.

Finally, in the final round of a 27, where there should be 3 players you can end up with even more.
In fact I have 2 of these types of tournaments which have ballooned to 5 in the final round, which means you end up with 8 games in each final!

I am not sure if you can get even more - worst case might be 7 or 8 perhaps depending on how the algorithm works! eek...

as it happens i just had a 3-some tournament go into round 3 with 6 players, and it seems they split that into 2 groups of 3.
So there will be an extra round in this case, and it could be that only 2 make it into the final.

Whatever the numbers in each round, groups are the same size as the original groups, except for the overhangs where they occur. Sometimes you can get several "final" rounds because the final two keep winning one game each ...