Tournament format - Name editted (Critique)

The annual European clash of Nations.

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Tripleskull
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Tournament format - Name editted (Critique)

Post by Tripleskull »

Please put forward your critique here - be it positive or negative.

The point of this post is to optimize on future tournament, so be clear about what was great or not so great, and maybe why it was great or not so great.

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jj
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Re: Critique

Post by jj »

so let me be the first

pairings round 1 : the top teams play each other, don't know why and don't know who decided that. Gegster wasn't aware of it either.

sound system ; the quality was really not good, this is a minor detail.

for me and the rest of the team there were no negative points, we enjoyed the weekend. thx again mates.
jj captain of team germ...eeuh belgium :lol:

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Geggster
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Re: Critique

Post by Geggster »

Terrific effort from the Danes to put on a great event - and a very reasonably priced one in a very expensive country. So great job.

I do dimly recall the seeding situation being discussed in advance (although not a result of a vote) and also 7 games was always a possibility.

I wasn't particularly for or against the 7th game - but I do think that that was agreed too late. That would be my main criticism.

I also think that the 7th game should have called into question any prior vote on the seeding. Let me explain.

Seeding the supposed best teams in a six-round tournament ensures that none of those strong teams get off to a terrific result which the rest, who might not play any of the supposed weaker teams, might struggle to bridge. Understood - I'm not for seeding as it limits the chances of playing against certain countries (which we should embrace) but I get it.

A 7th round can play havoc with the scheduling, as we saw, but where you've specifically forced the supposed stronger teams together in the first round seeding, then those stronger teams (assuming they migrate to the top over six rounds) have one less potential opponent in the last round. Now as it happened, the top three tables were full of strong teams in contention for the podium, which is only right, but that was possibly because France had managed to avoid many of the top-placed teams until then. Had France scored points throughout - and therefore likely already played many other of the top teams, then we could easily have faced all the top teams playing potentially lower ranked teams - or worse still, just one of the top teams getting a lower-half opponent.

As a case in point, there was no seeding in Biarritz and only six games however the first round paired all of the six countries together that would have been seeded if seeding had not been voted against in the captain's meeting. So it was as if seeding had still taken place. England played all of the countries that finished 2nd-7th. So if there had been a 7th round, we would have played the 8th placed team. This was only one event and it was only 12 teams, I believe, but seeding will only remove potential ties from the later rounds.

So I guess I'm saying if over 7 rounds you can expect each of the stronger teams to play one or two of the weaker ones, shouldn't it be early on, where Swiss can even out any big advantage they may have got by playing a succession of second-placed teams. Rather than forcing the supposed better teams together early allowing them less "choice" in the latter stages, when it really matters.

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Re: Critique

Post by Topper »

Yes I agree with you Paul - we had never seen that coming and it hadn´t been posted by anyone in the rule discussion post here:
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=32746

Especially we hadn´t seen that six or seven games would change the thought on the seeding at the start.

Just to explain the thought behind it JJ, the idea was to make a batch of the best placed teams, on average over the last five years, in one batch and the rest in the other.
In the discussion (both above and in the PMs) the arguments were mostly to make the tournament as fair for everyone - high or low seated - as possible.

About the time issue - I think perhaps we made a mistake by saying we can´t agree on the rules without knowing the team captains, and that proved a tad difficult, especially for some countries.
However are there any great ideas on how to do this forward? As the rules were both discussed and forwarded along time in advance.

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Re: Critique

Post by Da_Great_MC »

Topper wrote:About the time issue - I think perhaps we made a mistake by saying we can´t agree on the rules without knowing the team captains, and that proved a tad difficult, especially for some countries.
However are there any great ideas on how to do this forward? As the rules were both discussed and forwarded along time in advance.
Yes. You send out a mail and include a reasonable deadline. Make sure you get a confirmation that they have received the original mailing

When you reach the deadline, people / captains / countries that haven't answered don't get their opinion added to the debate and/or don't get their vote counted.

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Re: Critique

Post by Topper »

Da_Great_MC wrote:
Topper wrote:About the time issue - I think perhaps we made a mistake by saying we can´t agree on the rules without knowing the team captains, and that proved a tad difficult, especially for some countries.
However are there any great ideas on how to do this forward? As the rules were both discussed and forwarded along time in advance.
Yes. You send out a mail and include a reasonable deadline. Make sure you get a confirmation that they have received the original mailing

When you reach the deadline, people / captains / countries that haven't answered don't get their opinion added to the debate and/or don't get their vote counted.
Okay, good idea, however is there a catch here? The captain isn´t certain to get the information he needs as we don´t know who it is, and can in that way be left out in the cold, or?
It is most likely to affect new countries I think, but still. Is it an imaginary issue or a real one?

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Re: Critique

Post by lauth81 »

I second the notion that 7 games in an Eurobowl are a bad idea.

You have to think of the Eurobowl, because it's a team event, as a (in this case) 14 player tournament, not a 100+ player tournament.

7 games for 100+ players make perfect sense - it allows one more round of swiss pairings to give a clear winner, but with 14 teams and 5 -7 strong teams this leads to skewing of the results if one of these top teams plays more than one of the "weaker" teams.

I can see why people wanted to play 7 games, after all most want to play as much as possible, but it's not the event for it.

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Re: Critique

Post by KFoged »

lauth81 wrote:I second the notion that 7 games in an Eurobowl are a bad idea.

You have to think of the Eurobowl, because it's a team event, as a (in this case) 14 player tournament, not a 100+ player tournament.

7 games for 100+ players make perfect sense - it allows one more round of swiss pairings to give a clear winner, but with 14 teams and 5 -7 strong teams this leads to skewing of the results if one of these top teams plays more than one of the "weaker" teams.

I can see why people wanted to play 7 games, after all most want to play as much as possible, but it's not the event for it.
And in NAFC this year with 180+ their was only one with 5 wins after round 5... ;)

I second Geegesters points (and was actually saying it the most of the weekend - between my crying for better luck)

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Re: Critique

Post by remy »

Three observations:

- As said before, a swiss-system is used to rank a lot of players with few rounds. Here, with 7 rounds and only 14 teams, it is probably not the most efficient system.

- #1 vs #2, #3 vs #4, #5 vs #6 etc at each round if not a correct swiss-system, especially when a win can give you a lot of points.The ranking sampling can be easily biased by early games.

- The rule that two teams can never oppose each other twice is understandable (and asked by everyone) but it implies huge constraints in the latter games.

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Re: Critique

Post by Tripleskull »

lauth81 wrote:I second the notion that 7 games in an Eurobowl are a bad idea.

You have to think of the Eurobowl, because it's a team event, as a (in this case) 14 player tournament, not a 100+ player tournament.

7 games for 100+ players make perfect sense - it allows one more round of swiss pairings to give a clear winner, but with 14 teams and 5 -7 strong teams this leads to skewing of the results if one of these top teams plays more than one of the "weaker" teams.

I can see why people wanted to play 7 games, after all most want to play as much as possible, but it's not the event for it.
Im sorry to be pedantic but the notion that 7 games in an Eurobowl is a bad idea has not been put forward.

The notion that 7 games and the seeding in the first round I lay flat down to. I think the seeding was my idea - it was terrible, and I have thankfully been educated about its flaws especially in combination with 7 games.

I suggest that we consider treating the team matches like regular matches giving 2 or 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. The tiebreaker could be the overall results then. When you consider the tournament a 14 player tournament it does not really make sense that some wins are so much more worth than others - especially because it is typically the wins against small nations that are worth much.

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Critique

Post by Oventa »

@tripleskull
Please See lauths comment as post tournament critique
Germany voted against 7 games, but i think we also did not see the issue of the matchups on game7
But now that we know, I also think 7 games is out for future eurobowls, unless somebody comes up with a fix for that.

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Re: Critique

Post by Tripleskull »

Oventa wrote:@tripleskull
Please See lauths comment as post tournament critique
Germany voted against 7 games, but i think we also did not see the issue of the matchups on game7
But now that we know, I also think 7 games is out for future eurobowls, unless somebody comes up with a fix for that.
I do. And I respect the opinion. I was just pointing out, that geggster, Im assuming it was hes post the seconding referred to, was not about seven games being to much. Personally I think that seven games can be fine without the seeding. But I have been wrong before, so I'm going to try to be more humble in the future.

I also understand the point about it being only a 14 player tournament. I got the inspiration for my suggested change to the point system from this point.

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Re: Critique

Post by Purplegoo »

I think the Danes did a fabulous job in almost all aspects, kudos. The beer, the venue, the campsite, the gifts, all top notch.

The only thing I think we could have been clearer over was perhaps on the rules (I.e. 7 games, tier skills, seeding, etc.). I'm not sure a TFF forum thread discussion or vote was the best move there; perhaps all of this could have been solved 6 months ago with the captains voting in private after consulting their teams. If it had been super clear there was democratic agreement on the way in, no one could moan now! ;)

For me, the more games the better in terms of the right team winning, but the seeding diluted that. You have to balance that against fun (why we are all there).... It's tricky. Perhaps next year a whole week is required for everyone to play everyone! :)

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Re: Critique

Post by Northernknight »

How about preliminary group stage followed by aknockout stage. That way the best teams will be left and the results being done head to head. Any results against weaker teams wouldn't matter by the playoff round. The remaining teams would play some kind of ranking games against each other. Could even use Friday night for a game if more time is needed.

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Re: Critique

Post by Geggster »

I was not saying 7 games was too much for the overall system. Just that seeding can provide more complications than a random first round draw, especially where 7 games are to be played.

The main objection I have for 7 games is less socialising, but I recall we were all fairly social this last weekend so perhaps that is unfounded.

I also considered a group stage followed by knockout. You could arrange for the top 8 to play QFs, SFs and then a final. You could also arrange for those that played in the early rounds to avoid each other until the final. It might be fairer that way but it would be less fun. Those eliminated would have less to play for and the knockout rounds might become boring once the round is settled.

In the current format, it would appear that the size of the wins becomes critically important (and that's right). But given there is a lot of randomness to who a nation plays, and the varying levels of skill between nation, perhaps more weight should be given to the result of the tie.

I think a team that goes 601 should likely finish ahead of a team that finishes 412. Perhaps adding weight to a winning team would help with that (I think it was Tripleskulls that mooted this earlier this week).

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