Most of us have been to a tournament or at least followed the results of "popular" tournaments.
We see the same 6 people winning every tournament...
We see the same 6 people going 0-5 every tournament...
If it's competition that you seek or just having fun playing some ASL,
Stay tuned and read on with an open mind.
I'll define competition not simply playing the game at a tournament but ACTUALLY being somewhat Competitive!!
The following concept will be generally suited for at least 16+ player participation tournament.
The GENERAL IDEA:
Give players that aren't Masters of the game, a "gamesman" chance of improving/winning/having a good time (equating to maybe a 2-3 WL ratio).
NOTE: If wins and losses mean nothing to you, STOP READING and go on to another thread.)
SPLIT your group of players into Div A and Div B. Both will be seeded in their respective divisions.
BOTH will compete independently. Sort of like PRO and AAA.
There will be placement awards for each division. Keeping this simple division in mind....Let's Proceed.
These are the results of a recent tournament. PAIRINGS and RESULTS to the 3rd round are discussed.
The left side pairings are the ACTUAL tournament and the Right Side are Pairing for the DIV A/B
Column titles:
Rating (should be obvious as to what this means)
Eb- Expected Win
Gain- Expected Gain/Loss for the Loser of the match (Reverse those numbers for the winner) i.e. the first match in Round 1. Player 1982 will look to earn 2 AREA points for a win and lose 30 points for a loss.
I've highlighted "random" Average player participants and compared their Eb (expected win rates in the 2 groupings)
As you see #1467 increases his Eb from 4.9% to a whopping 61.5% by virtue of being in Division B. A similarly rated player, 1453, almost a 40% increase in Eb, and even the lowest rated player nearly doubles his win chance. All this because of simply pairing the players with their competitive "peers".
NOTE: 9 out of 10 of the ACTUAL pairings is over a 70% Eb (win expectation) vs the 3 out of 10 in the DIVISION pairings. Also, the top 3 competitors relative Eb doesn't change very much at all. So, they have high probabilities to win their games as you compare the ACTUAL to DIVISION values. Their game isn't "jeopardized"
Let's go to Round 2 USING the results of the ACTUAL tournament to seed.
Competitor 1507, EVEN still being in the DIV A ranking playing the top 10 players STILL has an increased chance of winning.
Competitor 1467 Maintains about a 55% Eb in both Pairings.
HOWEVER, look at competitor 1344, a whopping 44% Eb AFTER losing his first Round Game. DIVISION B, 2nd round will Pair him "more competitively"
These players will end up winning more games, increasing their AREA ratings and have the opportunity to start playing and ENJOYING more Competitive games as the number of "Fair Tournaments" they go to increases. Instead of being 1-4 most of the time... they will go to 3-2 representing their skills and learning those 2-5 things per game instead of losing on Turn 2 to the Masters of the Tournament. Lower rated players likely will not understand how they lost the game vs the Masters and thereby LOSE the potential to learn to improve.
IMPROVE by playing someone slightly better than you to be able to face that challenge.
Let's go to Round 3 and Final Thoughts.
Let's start with the Masters. Players in the DIV A will still see those HIGH Eb values throughout the tournament (one could argue, AS they should).
Look at the top Bright RED values, for the top 3 players their Eb has ONLY changed by at most 7% even after removing the entire bottom half of rated players from their competition pool. LOOK at the Top Master...1% change in Round 3 and from Rounds 1&2 Only a 6% variance. This DIVISION pairing changes NOTHING for the top players OTHER than potentially giving them slightly more competitive games.
NOW the ENTIRE POINT to this concept that will likely be wholly ignored after this thread is dead or locked....
COMPARE the ACTUAL and DIVISION games in terms of Competitive play
ACTUAL: ALL but one game (57%) are in the mid to high 60%ile even into the 70%ile of Eb IN THE 3RD ROUND!!
DIVISION pairings: From the 3rd best player in the entire competition to the worst rated player in the entire competition AVG a 52.5% Eb value meaning, The 3rd round for most players has the highest competitive value, and hence MEANING and Learning potential for 80% of the games of the tournament.
Players would likely not drop out as often...Win more games as the competition becomes REAL. AND thereby seek to increase the FUN and Excitement (i.e. bring some other players) to this Wonderful game of ours.
One more thing that isn't covered here but you can extrapolate it from even the above data.
MORE players will earn more AREA POINTS thus raising their AREA ratings by DEFAULT using this Pairing method. They will win more games and will go up an average of 50 points over 2 tournaments.
Everyone likes to increase their AREA rating....why not actually give them a chance to????
We see the same 6 people winning every tournament...
We see the same 6 people going 0-5 every tournament...
If it's competition that you seek or just having fun playing some ASL,
Stay tuned and read on with an open mind.
I'll define competition not simply playing the game at a tournament but ACTUALLY being somewhat Competitive!!
The following concept will be generally suited for at least 16+ player participation tournament.
The GENERAL IDEA:
Give players that aren't Masters of the game, a "gamesman" chance of improving/winning/having a good time (equating to maybe a 2-3 WL ratio).
NOTE: If wins and losses mean nothing to you, STOP READING and go on to another thread.)
SPLIT your group of players into Div A and Div B. Both will be seeded in their respective divisions.
BOTH will compete independently. Sort of like PRO and AAA.
There will be placement awards for each division. Keeping this simple division in mind....Let's Proceed.
These are the results of a recent tournament. PAIRINGS and RESULTS to the 3rd round are discussed.
The left side pairings are the ACTUAL tournament and the Right Side are Pairing for the DIV A/B
Column titles:
Rating (should be obvious as to what this means)
Eb- Expected Win
Gain- Expected Gain/Loss for the Loser of the match (Reverse those numbers for the winner) i.e. the first match in Round 1. Player 1982 will look to earn 2 AREA points for a win and lose 30 points for a loss.
I've highlighted "random" Average player participants and compared their Eb (expected win rates in the 2 groupings)
As you see #1467 increases his Eb from 4.9% to a whopping 61.5% by virtue of being in Division B. A similarly rated player, 1453, almost a 40% increase in Eb, and even the lowest rated player nearly doubles his win chance. All this because of simply pairing the players with their competitive "peers".
NOTE: 9 out of 10 of the ACTUAL pairings is over a 70% Eb (win expectation) vs the 3 out of 10 in the DIVISION pairings. Also, the top 3 competitors relative Eb doesn't change very much at all. So, they have high probabilities to win their games as you compare the ACTUAL to DIVISION values. Their game isn't "jeopardized"
Let's go to Round 2 USING the results of the ACTUAL tournament to seed.
Competitor 1507, EVEN still being in the DIV A ranking playing the top 10 players STILL has an increased chance of winning.
Competitor 1467 Maintains about a 55% Eb in both Pairings.
HOWEVER, look at competitor 1344, a whopping 44% Eb AFTER losing his first Round Game. DIVISION B, 2nd round will Pair him "more competitively"
These players will end up winning more games, increasing their AREA ratings and have the opportunity to start playing and ENJOYING more Competitive games as the number of "Fair Tournaments" they go to increases. Instead of being 1-4 most of the time... they will go to 3-2 representing their skills and learning those 2-5 things per game instead of losing on Turn 2 to the Masters of the Tournament. Lower rated players likely will not understand how they lost the game vs the Masters and thereby LOSE the potential to learn to improve.
IMPROVE by playing someone slightly better than you to be able to face that challenge.
Let's go to Round 3 and Final Thoughts.
Let's start with the Masters. Players in the DIV A will still see those HIGH Eb values throughout the tournament (one could argue, AS they should).
Look at the top Bright RED values, for the top 3 players their Eb has ONLY changed by at most 7% even after removing the entire bottom half of rated players from their competition pool. LOOK at the Top Master...1% change in Round 3 and from Rounds 1&2 Only a 6% variance. This DIVISION pairing changes NOTHING for the top players OTHER than potentially giving them slightly more competitive games.
NOW the ENTIRE POINT to this concept that will likely be wholly ignored after this thread is dead or locked....
COMPARE the ACTUAL and DIVISION games in terms of Competitive play
ACTUAL: ALL but one game (57%) are in the mid to high 60%ile even into the 70%ile of Eb IN THE 3RD ROUND!!
DIVISION pairings: From the 3rd best player in the entire competition to the worst rated player in the entire competition AVG a 52.5% Eb value meaning, The 3rd round for most players has the highest competitive value, and hence MEANING and Learning potential for 80% of the games of the tournament.
Players would likely not drop out as often...Win more games as the competition becomes REAL. AND thereby seek to increase the FUN and Excitement (i.e. bring some other players) to this Wonderful game of ours.
One more thing that isn't covered here but you can extrapolate it from even the above data.
MORE players will earn more AREA POINTS thus raising their AREA ratings by DEFAULT using this Pairing method. They will win more games and will go up an average of 50 points over 2 tournaments.
Everyone likes to increase their AREA rating....why not actually give them a chance to????