Tournament format - Name editted (Critique)

[remy]

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.

You can still play the ranking matches for the team eliminated during the knockout rounds and have all the teams play the same number of rounds.

If one wants to keep a swiss-systeam with 7 rounds, at minimum you have to:

- use the traditional 2 points fro win, 1 point for draw and use the individual results for tie-breaking.

- use a correct method pairing, not #1 vs #2, #3 vs #4, #5 vs #6 ...

- use correct tie-breakers. I think the results of the EurOpen are misleading (no offence to the winner, it is just a theoretical point of view). Thanks to the swiss method all the 5 best players plays against each other. Among them, 4 have the same number of points so one has all the information to rank them:
- player A has 0 win, 2 draw and 1 loss = 2 points
- player B has 0 win, 2 draw and 1 loss = 2 points
- player C has 2 wins, 0 draw and 1 loss = 4 points
- player D has 1 win, 2 draw and 0 loss = 4 points

The correct ranking should be:
#1 and #2 C and D with an other tie-breaker
#3 and #4 A and B with an other tie-breaker

But the official result is #1 A, #2 B, #3 C and #4 D. I guess the referee rather use (TD+casualties) for tie-breaking, but I think that the mutual information must have the priority.

[Tripleskull]

Personally I am strongly against a knock out stage. It would completely destroy the fun for me to play without a shot at the win in the last two rounds even with a good result in the first five.

I think remi's suggestion sounds about right, but what is a "correct method parring"? Isn't swiss draw all about 1 vs 2 ...? Id go for random in the first round as I have stated before.

[Topper]

But the official result is #1 A, #2 B, #3 C and #4 D. I guess the referee rather use (TD+casualties) for tie-breaking, but I think that the mutual information must have the priority.

What do you mean here? The tie-breaker system at this EB was mutual meeting over TD+Cas. Not sure what "mutual information is"

- use a correct method pairing, not #1 vs #2, #3 vs #4, #5 vs #6 ...

As Tripleskull asks what is the correct way to do it? Isn´t that exactly what swiss-draw means? (i.e. 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 etc)

@Purplegoo

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.

Hehe that would need the teams to know who was their team captain. We waited for them to figure out - admittedly too long.
But we did actually do this early on about the basic rules to the captains we knew (back in April I can see from the PMs)
But no it should have been a closed vote, not one for all to see. However I have no idea if that is possible to do. And we wanted the captains to see the result.

[Northernknight]

What about splitting the tournament in two with a top division and a bottom one. With relegation and promotion each year.

[Turin]

That would reduce the possibilities of which countries you can play against, thus it would be a bad idea. Part of the fun at the EB is that you play against players from n different countries (n = # of games at the EB), and don't have to worry about the all to common experience of being one out of 3 Austrians there and have to play against both the fellas you arrived with instead of the 57 other coaches. Each year at the EB (as well as at the NAFWC for that matter) I get diceraped by a French coach, but I wouldn't want to not playing against the French team just because they are at the top division while we are at the bottom one.

[mepmuff]

A way to play more rounds with swiss and end with top matches:

Let's say we have 14 teams, of which there are 6 real contenders. Without upsets those 6 should all play eachother in the last 5 rounds, so any draws before that should be fixed so they don't meet. After that, you go swiss.

One way to do this:
With 7 rounds you could rank the nations 1 through 14 and preset the matchups for rounds 1 and 2 like:
round 1) 1 vs 14, 2 vs 13, 3 vs 12, etc
round 2) 1 vs 13, 2 vs 14, 3 vs 11, etc
Or you can still do a random draw rounds 1 and 2 with a system that won't allow the top teams to meet.
Given no upsets teams 1 through 6 should be in the top half at this point and going swiss from here should mean the winner will have 5 tough rounds to play from there on in.

[Tripleskull]

A way to play more rounds with swiss and end with top matches:

Let's say we have 14 teams, of which there are 6 real contenders. Without upsets those 6 should all play eachother in the last 5 rounds, so any draws before that should be fixed so they don't meet. After that, you go swiss.

One way to do this:
With 7 rounds you could rank the nations 1 through 14 and preset the matchups for rounds 1 and 2 like:
round 1) 1 vs 14, 2 vs 13, 3 vs 12, etc
round 2) 1 vs 13, 2 vs 14, 3 vs 11, etc
Or you can still do a random draw rounds 1 and 2 with a system that won't allow the top teams to meet.
Given no upsets teams 1 through 6 should be in the top half at this point and going swiss from here should mean the winner will have 5 tough rounds to play from there on in.

I think you will reach the goal by seven rounds of swiss and random draw in the first round. If on top of that you reward team wins instead og individual. I think to system will be as good as it gets.

[Joemanji]

Okay,

I think we need to consider the real problem. I don't think it is the way the draw works (swiss, seeding etc.). Whatever system we dream up (other than everyone plays everyone over 13 rounds) will have wrinkles and someone will get a better draw. That is unavoidable.

I think the problem is the reward for losing a round. So Team A loses narrowly, then loses again. Losing should be bad, but the actual result of these losses is that Team A gets a couple of easier rounds and can make up ground by scoring 8 or 8.5 rounds whilst the other big teams are squeaking 5.5. Denmark sat on the top table playing hard round after hard round.

We could award nation vs nation wins only and use individual games as a tiebreaker. I personally really hate that idea, I love the Ryder Cup style where every game counts for something on the board.

So how about upping the nation bonus from 1/0.5/0 to 3/1/0?

This would mean a nation that wins four rounds 4.5 v 3.5 totals 30 points. Whereas a nation than loses two rounds 5 v 3 and wins two 7 v 1 totals 26.

This would go some way to removing the 'false reward' for losing an early round or two.

[Tripleskull]

We could award nation vs nation wins only and use individual games as a tiebreaker. I personally really hate that idea, I love the Ryder Cup style where every game counts for something on the board.

I think you might underestimate how much the tie breaker would mean in a system like this. I think every game would in deed still count for a lot.

I like your suggestion non the less. So for me its two good options.

[remy]

But the official result is #1 A, #2 B, #3 C and #4 D. I guess the referee rather use (TD+casualties) for tie-breaking, but I think that the mutual information must have the priority.

What do you mean here? The tie-breaker system at this EB was mutual meeting over TD+Cas. Not sure what "mutual information is"

If the tie-breaker was mutual meeting, thus I do not understand why the ranking is not (These points and TD+Cas can be calculated because all the games between these players have been played):
#1 C 4 points and +8 TD+Cas
#2 D 4 points and -4 TD+Cas
#3 B 2 points and 0 TD+Cas
#4 A 2 points and -4 TD+Cas

- use a correct method pairing, not #1 vs #2, #3 vs #4, #5 vs #6 ...

As Tripleskull asks what is the correct way to do it? Isn´t that exactly what swiss-draw means? (i.e. 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 etc)

The correct way to do is to group the players by score, divide the group in two parts and pair the first player of group A against the first player of group B etc. So If you have 6 players with 2 wins at he second round of a tournament, the pairing should be:
#1 vs #4
#2 vs #5
#3 vs #6

[remy]

Next year, if the same teams will participate to the Eurobowl, the first round has to follow the final ranking of the 2012 Eurobowl, with this pairing:

France - Sweden
Italy - Belgium
Denmark - Netherlands
England - Finland
Spain - Wales
Germany - Scotland
Austria - Switzerland

If all the favorites win their games (again, no offense), then the second round will be something like that:

France-Spain
Italy-Germany
Denmark-Austria
England-Sweden
Belgium-Wales
Netherlands-Scotland
Finland-Switzerland

Third round:
France-Denmark
Italy-England
Spain-Sweden
Germany-Belgium
Austria-Netherlands
Finland-Scotland
Wales-Switzerland

Fourth round:
France-Italy
(...)
Scotland-Switzerland

At the end of the fourth round, we have only one team with four victory, France. With seven rounds, Eurobowl has three "bonus "round to better sample the true ranking and resolves draw match and/or tests the teams regularity.

[Niebling]

Joe, I dont understand how giving 3 point for a team win changes anything? I mean France won as many games as we did. The problem is when you lose.
Losning early would still be better, you would just Get 11 points vs a less strong team insted of 9.
But what if we where to add a point cap on a round?

Say we Make it 2 point for a team win 1 point for a draw but we max it at 8 points in a round.
This would narrow the gap a team could catch up when they have a bad start it would lesson the effect of a strong team Steam Rolling someone

[Purplegoo]

There is a real danger with all of this (rules, hosting, etc.) of really over complicating matters where there is no need in the afterglow of last weekend. As Joe says, any BB tournament with any ruleset will have a guy / team that gets a favourable run in comparison to another. Just a fact of life we sign up to when we play.

In the case of rules, straight Swiss isn't perfect, but there are reasons 99% of events use it. Perhaps the dust should settle for a while before we start advocating tinkering / experimenting too much and really throwing things out of whack? Most of the time, simple rules for a drinking holiday with the odd game of this silly Blood Bowl thing thrown in are for the best.

[Thadrin]

PGoo wins the thread.

Honestly, as far as I can see the system we have WORKS. I don't think that it stretches to 7 games though, not when we're realistically looking at a maximum of 16 to 18 entrants (assuming this year's entrants all return, we regain Hungary and Portugal...that's still only 16 teams. I imagine there is potential for 2 more, though I've no idea where they'd be from.)

Maybe a bonus point for winning by 4 or more points (6-2 or better) would help spread things out a bit. I think we were on the wrong end of that a couple of times.

Really not sure that any sort of seeding is a good idea. Teams vary - three years ago Belgium were last and Scotland were only a half point behind England in 5th. This year those positions were reversed. There are indutibly a group of consistently very strong nations - England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Denmark - but the rest of us can hold our own too. We didn't this year, next year who knows.

[Da_Great_MC]

I think the system is good as it is, even though Team Belgium found itself on the receiving end last weekend.

7 rounds
no seedings / fixed draw at any point during the tournament
each individual victory counts for a point + 1 point for the team that eventually wins the clash