PGN round tag

[hgm]

What is the preferable form of a PGN round tag?

Specifcally, when I do a round robin with 8 participants and 2 games per pairing, and repeat that for 5 'cycles'... How would people prefer the round tag to appear for the second game between A and B in the Mth round (from 7) of the Nth cycle? Should it be called round M or round N? Or perhaps round N.M, or even N.M.2?

When I do a multi-gauntlet of 2 players (A and B) each against 10 opponents, with 2 games per pairing... What constitutes a round now? I would play them in the order where A and B both play opponent 1 twice, then 2 twice. Is round 1 now the four games A-1, 1-A, B-1, 1-B? Should I call A-1 and B-1 round 1.1 and 1-A, 1-B round 1.2? And what if I repeat this multi-gauntlet for several cycles? (E.g. each cycle starting from a different Nunn position.) Should I prefix the cycle number?

Another, only slightly related question:
Would it be preferable to play multi-gauntlets 'diagonally'? I.e. a multi-gauntlet for 4 engines A-D could be played as A-4 B-3, C-2, D-1, A-5, B-4, C-3, D-2, A-6, B-5, ... This to avoid having one player to play two games simultaneously, in case concurrency is used. In the diagonal scheme games played by A-D are spaced out by 4, and games by 1-N by 5, minimizing the chance simultaneous play is needed.

Currently XBoard uses the number of the game in the pairing in the round tag, (accumulating through tourney cycles) when you let it play an engine tournament, and this seems something that is certainly not wanted.

[bob]

What is the preferable form of a PGN round tag?

Specifcally, when I do a round robin with 8 participants and 2 games per pairing, and repeat that for 5 'cycles'... How would people prefer the round tag to appear for the second game between A and B in the Mth round (from 7) of the Nth cycle? Should it be called round M or round N? Or perhaps round N.M, or even N.M.2?

When I do a multi-gauntlet of 2 players (A and B) each against 10 opponents, with 2 games per pairing... What constitutes a round now? I would play them in the order where A and B both play opponent 1 twice, then 2 twice. Is round 1 now the four games A-1, 1-A, B-1, 1-B? Should I call A-1 and B-1 round 1.1 and 1-A, 1-B round 1.2? And what if I repeat this multi-gauntlet for several cycles? (E.g. each cycle starting from a different Nunn position.) Should I prefix the cycle number?

Another, only slightly related question:
Would it be preferable to play multi-gauntlets 'diagonally'? I.e. a multi-gauntlet for 4 engines A-D could be played as A-4 B-3, C-2, D-1, A-5, B-4, C-3, D-2, A-6, B-5, ... This to avoid having one player to play two games simultaneously, in case concurrency is used. In the diagonal scheme games played by A-D are spaced out by 4, and games by 1-N by 5, minimizing the chance simultaneous play is needed.

Currently XBoard uses the number of the game in the pairing in the round tag, (accumulating through tourney cycles) when you let it play an engine tournament, and this seems something that is certainly not wanted.

I think the original intent was to indicate the game number. In a single event, a player should have a round 1, 2, 3, ..., N. But that is for normal tournaments. Your matches are a bit different. For me, it doesn't matter. I just parse the round number and save it. I don't use it for anything. I suppose someone might want to use it as a search target to say "show me the 1st game xxx played in this event, then the 2nd, etc." And they might use the round number for that..

[UncombedCoconut]

For me, it doesn't matter. I just parse the round number and save it. I don't use it for anything. I suppose someone might want to use it as a search target to say "show me the 1st game xxx played in this event, then the 2nd, etc." And they might use the round number for that..

Agreed. It should only have to be machine-parsable as a unique identifier. It's nice for it to be comparable for sorting purposes, but to that end tuples are much easier on humans and only slightly harder on computers (depending on the programming language).