A moderate amount of debate has existed for some time in our community about tournament design. A number of criticisms are leveled at the current set of procedures for conducting a tournament in existence. My goal in writing this is to aggregate these voices and put forth my proposed alternative to current procedures.
Defining the ideal tournament design
Before beginning, I feel that it is probably a good idea to look at just what an ideal tournament should be, in order to compare current and potentially future practices against this mold.
As such, I feel that an ideal tournament should:
Be fair — the ideal tournament should provide to competitors a level playing field to the furthest extent possible.
Be reliable — the ideal tournament should return the absolute best competitors in a given pool of fellow competitors as the top placers. The ideal tournament design should also establish a way for these top competitors to prove their position by their play. As such, each and every game in the ideal tournament should be meaningful and contributory to the aforementioned goal.
Be entertaining — the ideal tournament must be conducted in a way that is meaningful and entertaining for the spectating community, while still maintaining the integrity of the previous two points.
Be efficient — the ideal tournament should be easily explained and understood. It is also important that the ideal tournament be reproducible and able to be used by more than one event series or organization. It follows that once an ideal tournament design is achieved, all events seek to employ or at least emulate its design. To achieve this, the ideal tournament design should avoid excessive complexity.
A survey of current tournament practices
The single-elimination tournament
The most basic tournament design is the single-elimination tournament. In a single-elimination tournament, the competitors are paired against each other in a bracket. Winners of each individual match in a bracket move on, while the losers of each individual match are immediately knocked out of tournament contention.
The simplicity of the single-elimination tournament is hedged against by a number of problems. First, single-elimination tournament design can run against the first and second tenets of an ideal tournament: fairness and reliability.
The position of any competitor within a given elimination tournament bracket at its outset is defined as a seed in that tournament. The determination of how seeds are distributed amongst a given competitor pool is the classic problem of any elimination tournament, and is most acute in the single-elimination tournament, because of the unforgiving nature of the winner-take-all approach inherent in its design. As such, tournament organizers must make a conscious decision: should they attempt to determine a fair and accurate seeding of competitors into the bracket, or should they establish seeds randomly?
Attempting to seed competitors based on past results can run into a number of problems. With the ubiquity of tournaments in the modern competitive field, how are prior results of a given player to be accurately compared with the prior results of another player? Tournaments and events in the current structure are so varied, and the establishment of seeds based on these results inevitably results in some biasing. The only really viable way for a tournament organizer to claim impartiality in decisions of seeding is if only prior results in tournaments conducted by the tournament organizer are used in the calculation.
Random seeding has its own set of problems. In seeking to be fair, random assignment of seeds into a single-elimination tournament creates unbalanced brackets and severely limits the ability of any tournament conducted in this way to produce the best of the competitor pool as the ultimate winner. Random seeding introduces the perverse possibility of the top competitors meeting in the early stages of the tournament and being knocked out, while relatively weaker players may have an easier road to the finals.
The harsh nature of single-elimination also significantly reduces the number of potentially broadcasted games an eventual loser plays in a tournament. In the field of competitive gaming, this means a significant lack of face time and return on investment present in the system. A player can be 'one and done' and out of sight very early in a tournament.
The double-elimination tournament
The structure of the double-elimination tournament seeks to address some of the issues inherent with the single-elimination tournament and discussed above. A double-elimination tournament bracket is divided into two distinct parts: an upper (winner's) bracket, and a lower (loser's) bracket. All competitors are initially included in the winner's bracket, and match play proceeds similarly to a single-elimination tournament with one significant difference. In a double-elimination tournament, competitors are not immediately knocked out of tournament contention after a single match loss. Competitors who lose a match in the winner's bracket are placed into the loser's bracket, where they are given a second chance in the tournament in what is essentially a single-elimination procedure where they meet other competitors who have been knocked out of the winner's bracket. The distinction between the winner's and loser's bracket ends at the grand final, where the last competitor left in the winner's bracket meets the last competitor left in the losers bracket, determining the ultimate winner of the tournament.
There are a number of advantages to double-elimination tournament procedure. First, the forgiving nature of the tournament design hedges against the potential unfairness present in standard single-elimination design, especially if bracket seeds are inaccurately determined or are determined at random. Second, the existence of the loser's bracket builds the third place match directly into the design of the tournament, where it is an extra, seemingly 'meaningless' match in regular single-elimination procedure. Third, the problem isolated above of potentially reduced return on investment is much mitigated as players have a second chance in the tournament after their initial match loss in the winner's bracket.
However, double-elimination procedure also has a number of problems inherent in its design. The greatest problem confronting double-elimination procedure is the sheer number of games required to conduct it. This problem becomes larger as the number of tournament entrants increases, severely reducing the scalability of any double-elimination tournament. This large number of games required also works against fairness as well, as the competitor coming out of the lower bracket will almost certainly have played a substantially larger number of matches against their winner bracket counterpart. This difference in number of games played makes the conclusion of a double-elimination tournament, especially ones conducted 'offline,' tests of endurance and strength, not necessarily in-game skill.
This endurance problem is supercharged when fairness is articulated as justifying artificial intervention by tournament organizers. The most visible example of this is the 'extended series' rule employed by Major League Gaming. The 'extended series' rule establishes that if two competitors are matched up against each other for a second time within a given tournament, the match is extended into a larger best-of-X series with the match score from the previous game being taken into account. As such, if two competitors met previously in a tournament, with the score being 3 to 2, upon their second meeting, the results from this best-of-5 translate into the new match beginning at 3 to 2 in a best-of-11. The merits of 'extended series' have been debated to death, but it is clear that its existence remains controversial in our community, and its existence is made possible because of double-elimination procedure.
It is important, I feel, to make a distinction between 'extended series' and the normal conduction of double-elimination here. In the grand finals of a double-elimination tournament, the fact that the competitor coming out of the loser's bracket has two win two best-of-X matches in order to win is often confused by many in our community as being part of the 'extended series' rule. This is incorrect. The fact is the winner of the loser's bracket, having lost a match for the first time in the grand finals, is thus knocked into the same loser's bracket within which the competitor coming from it was given a second chance in the tournament. It would be fundamentally unfair to the winner's bracket competitor to not be given that same second chance that was afforded to the loser's bracket competitor in the first place. To deny the winner's bracket competitor this second chance is to impeach the integrity and suitability of double-elimination procedure in the first place. This is where this aside becomes more pertinent to the subject of this writing. I do agree that this presents a significant challenge to the use of double-elimination on the part of tournament organizers. It is fashionable in tournament design to increase the numbers of games required to win an individual match at certain stages during conduction of an elimination tournament. Grand finals of a tournament are oftentimes long series under best-of-5 or greater conditions. This can make the grand finals of a tournament inordinately long and potentially significantly disadvantageous for the competitor coming out of the loser's bracket. Take, for example, Team Liquid's performance at the IPL Team Arena Challenge 3 Main Event, where that team had to win two best-of-9s, an endurance feat conceded even by team management as an improbable event.
If timecoding does not work, skip to 3m 40s in the video
Finally, there is the elephant in the room regarding the appeal of broadcasting loser's bracket games in the first place. The large number of loser's bracket games inherent in the double-elimination system ensure that a good deal of loser's bracket games will be shown on any tournament broadcast. It seems to be hard, however, to make loser's bracket games compelling enough for the viewership unless the players in the loser's bracket are popular, or the loser's bracket is finally concluding and the grand final approaches. As such, double-elimination procedure places stress on the broadcasters to make the long process of concluding a double-elimination tournament compelling for the viewership through the construction of story lines.
Groups into elimination
The establishment of a group stage in tournament design, on its face, seeks to ameliorate the inherent problem of determining fair and accurate seeding for competitors in an elimination tournament.
In typical group stage procedure, a given competitor pool is divided up into one or more groups of competitors. Competitors in these groups play each other in round-robin procedure, where each competitor in a group plays all of the other competitors in a group once. At the conclusion of the round-robin, competitors within groups are ranked, and from these rankings players may be seeded into or eliminated from an elimination bracket to follow.
Group stage into elimination is rapidly becoming the procedure of choice for tournament organizers in our community. Yet, its current articulation is imperfect for a number of reasons. First, the procedure for which the division of competitors into groups is conducted is oftentimes unknown to the public and, not to mention, the competitors themselves. This division can be done in three ways:
Group selection — in group selection, the competitors themselves decide the group composition, usually with certain restrictions or through a draw of some kind. There are two chief advantages to this procedure: first, the process is transparent to the players, and second, group selection offers the tournament organizer the opportunity to develop compelling pre-show content for their event
Tournament choice — in tournament choice, the process is rendered completely opaque, and the composition of groups is determined, perhaps arbitrarily, by the tournament organizers. The most debilitating disadvantage for this procedure is the existence of a potential for corruption and matchfixing, as the opaque nature of this procedure allows decisions to be made which can influence tournament results in a way in which a limited number of people have knowledge that is unavailable to most prior to the start of an event.
Random assignment — group compositions, when using this procedure, are determined randomly. This should be weighed against group selection as the only two legitimate ways of determining group composition within the options outlined here.
Ironically, it is the existence of multiple groups themselves in current tournament fashion that undermines current group stage into elimination tournament procedure. Let me explain.
Group subdivisions are an imperfect sampling of what is already a limited competitor pool. The existence of a 'group of death,' in which the best competitors in a tournament are seemingly placed within a single group and will thus knock each other out is a persistent problem. Where a competitor ends up being placed into groups also matters substantially, because the racial composition of a group in StarCraft II competition drastically changes play style and competitive level. For example, if a competitor whose weakest matchup is the mirror matchup, and is placed into a group completely consisting of said competitor's mirror races, the chances for this competitor to make it out of groups are predictably slim indeed. Contrast this example with a different situation, where a competitor is placed into a group consisting of other competitors whose played race is advantageous to said competitor; the chances of said competitor making it out of groups is predictably high indeed. As a final point, the incongruity of play and strength inherent in multiple groups make it hard to accurately determine of results within one group accurately represent the strength of the competitors within specific group compositions.
The best way to eliminate this problem with the group stage is to only have a group of one, with the entire competitor pool in a single group. The most limiting factor preventing the implementation of this is scalability: as the number of tournament entrants increases, the number of games required to conduct a round-robin group procedure increases as well. At a certain point, the number of games required would make the group stage massively inefficient and undesirable from the standpoint of a tournament organizer.
Another way to mitigate this issue is to have a very large number of entrants into a tournament, such that groups can be made up of a suitably large number of competitors whose composition is much more balanced than what traditional groups of four can offer to a tournament. Time constraints and number of games required to be played are dealt with articulating and presenting this group play as an actual 'season' as part of a league. What the North American Star League does, in this regard, is the most successful implementation of such a procedure in the current mold of tournaments and events in our community. This procedure is what makes the North American Star League an actual league, and an overwhelming majority of their actual content is the broadcast of each and every single game in this group play, culminating in their offline finals at the very end.
There is also a problem which, I feel, is similar to the loser's bracket problem with double-elimination tournaments. Group stages can often times feel extraneous and unimportant relative to the elimination bracket stage of a tournament. Organizations that draw out group stages into an actual league, such as the North American Star League, largely eliminate this problem, in my view, by making the group stage a compelling reason as to why you are tuning into their broadcast into the first place. I've also heard of some tournaments held with competitive gaming titles that are not StarCraft II skipping the broadcast of the group stage entirely, showing only the elimination bracket in their broadcasts. This might be an option that is worth exploring perhaps in our community as well. Ultimately, I feel, this problem, as well as the one mentioned previously about double-elimination, can largely be handled by the skill of the people a tournament organizer has working for them in making compelling story lines and content for the viewership to consume.
Bracketception
'Bracketception' is a word I've just made up. It refers, however, to tournament design practices that go from elimination bracket into elimination bracket into elimination bracket. Take, for example, the 2012 MLG Pro Circuit Summer Championship in Raleigh held last month. In this tournament, an extremely large double-elimination open bracket led into a 'group play' that was really just another double-elimination bracket of invites plus 'seeds' from the open bracket play and then, after that, concluded by leading into yet another double-elimination championship bracket to decide the winner at the very end.
THIS. IS. BRACKETCEPTION!
It is hard to see the advantage this tournament structure has over the more traditional tournament structures available to the tournament organizer, unless they consider making Liquipedia's job in covering their tournament brackets that much harder an advantage. At any rate, fairness is not something necessarily demonstrated or introduced into a system through added complexity.
Swiss tournament
The Swiss tournament is not a common sight in our community, but I will mention it here because it influences the design of my chosen alternative to the tournament structures listed so far in this writing.
In a Swiss tournament, competitors are paired off to face against each other over several rounds of competition. After every round, winners are paired against other winners of the round previous, and the same goes for the losers of each round as well. No two competitors are allowed to meet more than once in a given tournament. At the end of the rounds, the top ranked competitor based on wins and perhaps other tiebreakers is declared the winner, with other placements in the tournament going to the respective competitors and their ranks determined from in-round play.
The main advantage of this procedure is that a clear winner is established by the tournament, as well as a clear ranking of the competitor pool and thus a clear loser too. The number of matches required to establish this ranking is generally equal to or only slightly more than a traditional elimination tournament.
The main disadvantage to this procedure is the sheer lack of hype and excitement inherent in it. Elimination tournaments, by their very nature, clearly show the competitor pool being whittled down to a chosen few; the elimination part of elimination tournaments gives these tournaments an added excitement outside of the games being played and the competitors playing them. Swiss tournaments, on the other hand, have no clear winner until the very end, generally. It is also hard to construct compelling story lines for a competitor's run in a Swiss tournament.
An alternative: introducing Tabulation procedure
Overview
For the remainder of this writing I will describe a tournament procedure I have had much experience with over the last couple of years and of which I feel does a very good job harnessing the advantages of the above systems (except 'bracketception,' of course) while mitigating the attendant negatives of the use of said systems independently.
'Tabulation' is a word borrowed from the world of the academic debate activity in the United States. In essence, the tournament design I describe here is a modified Swiss tournament where rounds are cut off after a certain point, determining the composition of and seeds within an elimination bracket. 'Tabulation' is the process conducted by 'tab' rooms at debate tournaments, where the results of each round are tabulated in order to determine pairings for the next round in the preliminaries.
Prelims
The goal of the preliminary rounds (prelims) is to determine who gets to make it into the elimination bracket after their conclusion. Not all competitors who enter into the tournament will make it to the elimination stage (elims); depending on how many rounds a tournament organizer wants to conduct, only the top 32 to 16 competitors make it (or 'break' out) into the elimination brackets.
The prelims are essentially a group stage, with all of the competitors placed into a single group. The two rounds of pairings are randomly assigned (and can be released to the competitors and the public before the start of the tournament), with following rounds conducted as so:
Competitors play the same or similarly ranked competitors only — this essentially means that certain bracket classes will be established through group play. Thus, a competitor with a record of 2-0 is part of the 2-0 bracket class and will end up being paired against another competitor of the same rank. If there is a non-even number of competitors in a certain bracket class, the top ranked competitor from the bracket class immediately below the one in question will be 'pulled up' to the higher bracket class in order to fill the space.
High-high power-matching procedure — what this means is that top rank in a certain bracket class will meet second rank in a bracket class, and so forth. The point of the preliminary stage is to prove whether or not competitors deserve their seed at the end.
Tiebreakers — in the following order: (1) head-to-head matches won, (2) head-to-head games won, (3) total matches won, (4) total games won
These rules ensure that the preliminary stage is made up of matches that accurately determine the skill of a given competitor relative to their rivals at a given tournament.
Elims
The elimination bracket procedure for this system is a fairly-straightforward single-elimination bracket seeded based on the tabulation rankings established in preliminary play. Seeds will be power-protected: thus 1st seed hits 64th, 2nd hits 63rd, etc. This gives an incentive to players in the preliminary stage to ensure they get the highest seed possible.
Why single-elimination versus double-elimination? I'm of the opinion that once solid seeds have been established by a tournament via preliminary play, there exists no need to add the complexity and second chances to competitors given in double-elimination procedure. Simply put, if you manage to be top seed in this tournament, but you manage to lose to the 64th seed in the first round of elims, you deserved the loss because based on preliminary play, the 64th seed's victory against you in elims was a huge upset.
To avoid the issues of having to determine rankings throughout the elimination bracket, awards and prizes should be given out (past first and second place) to competitors who are semifinalists, quarterfinalists, and so forth equally based on their final respective elimination stage reached. If this is not an option, consolation matches should be played outside of the broadcast, in general.
Advantages and disadvantages of Tabulation
The principal advantage of this procedure, in my opinion, is the ability to demonstrate, through tournament play, a fair and accurate ranking of the skill of all tournament entrants at a given time. This advantage does not just benefit the tournament organizer in developing fair seeds into an elimination bracket, because it would fundamentally alter the way we can determine overall player skill throughout a long period of time. If multiple major and premier tournaments adopted this procedure, the ability to analyze aggregate and relative player skill will become much more reliable.
It also simplifies tournament structure, and above all gets rid of the perceived need to have things such as double-elimination second chances and the 'extended series' rule based on the inadequacies of a given tournament structure.
There are also a number of disadvantages to this procedure, however. Chief among these is the actual tabulation of the preliminary matches. A computer program or spreadsheet would probably be the most efficient and accurate means by which to calculate the tabulations. Hand tabulation of tournament results will end up bogging down the system. Along the same vein, all matches in a certain round must conclude until tabulation of results and the creation of pairings for the next round can be released to the competitors and the public. Stalemated games, connection drops, and their like in one individual match might just end up influencing the entire tournament, bringing it to a potential standstill.
The system of tabulation might also be too complicated for easy explanation to the viewership of a tournament. However, I feel that this disadvantage is at least already present in current groups into elimination tournaments. With apt explanation on the part of the public faces of the tournament, I feel like this should not actually be much of a problem.
In terms of entertainment, I know for a fact that the limitation of knowledge as to who is hitting whom in the next preliminary stage is a moment of excitement (and sometimes dread) for many in the community from which I am transplanting this tournament procedure. The pairings themselves, and their eventual release, can become part of the tournament story line, bringing tension to the event and making it more compelling for the viewership. The ability to determine relative skill of competitors at any given time during the preliminary proceedings also enables tournament organizers to strategically deploy their broadcasters onto games that will be certain to be good.
This limited information also acts as a significant hedge against players attempting to game the system and not play their best based on knowledge of who they are going to hit in the next rounds (and especially in the elimination rounds). This situation has many a time mired a tournament in controversy, and is best avoided whenever possible through the structure of the tournament itself.
Tabulation also provides a guaranteed number of rounds for each entrant: they will at least be playing all rounds of the prelims, meaning there is no symptom of 'one and done' or 'two and done' that is possible in the elimination tournament structures. This guaranteed number of rounds (translated into a typical tournament, this would be about two days of still being in actual contention) assures a certain level of return on investment for competitors and their teams, making it more palatable for their sponsors.
Finally, Tabulation procedure gives tournament organizers another significant advantage in the broadcast of preliminary group stage rounds compared to traditional groups to elimination tournament structures. When the last few rounds come along, broadcasters can focus on the middle of the pack, those on the cusp of being able to break out into elimination bracket contention, rather than focusing only on those who will for sure make it into the elimination rounds.
Conclusion
Whew, this has been quite a long writing, and the first of its kind from me here on Team Liquid at least. Let me know what you think about my analysis and Tabulation procedure itself in the comments below. I'd appreciate it if you read the entire post before replying, and please try not to get hung up on debating the merits of extended series.
First off, let me say it was a good write up. I think you covered the basic concepts well, but I found it to be lacking in weighing format and participants against a time scale. Some tournaments mutually excludes certain formats.
For instance there can be little doubt that the korean format (code S/OSL) is by far superior in; 1. fairness, the screening process to maintain talent works throughout the system but isnt a safe card (for instance the old Code S was a bit too "safe" 2. reliability, scheduled matches that you can prepare for, hence prepare your strategies and bring your A-game 3. entertainment (understood in its most definitive term - the best starcraft - and not favorite vs. underdog, korean vs. foreigner, etc.)
However their format solely works with A) fewer than 64 player and B) their lenght extends over a month or more. This allows players to prepare, fans to tune in to primetime on most dates and each player (at least from ro16) has a "storyline". This makes for the best games possible, and even better it does so in the context of a story. This format creates anticipation, which is amazing for any type of tournament.
This format would obviously not work for the likes of MLG, DH, Assembly, etc. They orient themselves against "broader" tournaments and recruitment, which im positive about. But with no anticipation, encouragement of "robot-play" rather than mindful play and abundance of mediocre matches makes it inferior IMO.
As far as fairness goes you could argue that DH is a fair tournament, but "running the gauntlet" and making the tournament an endurance contest, at least partially, goes against the notion of a strategy game.
On September 18 2012 10:08 Aphasie wrote: First off, let me say it was a good write up. I think you covered the basic concepts well, but I found it to be lacking in weighing format and participants against a time scale. Some tournaments mutually excludes certain formats.
For instance there can be little doubt that the korean format (code S/OSL) is by far superior in; 1. fairness, the screening process to maintain talent works throughout the system but isnt a safe card (for instance the old Code S was a bit too "safe" 2. reliability, scheduled matches that you can prepare for, hence prepare your strategies and bring your A-game 3. entertainment (understood in its most definitive term - the best starcraft - and not favorite vs. underdog, korean vs. foreigner, etc.)
However their format solely works with A) fewer than 64 player and B) their lenght extends over a month or more. This allows players to prepare, fans to tune in to primetime on most dates and each player (at least from ro16) has a "storyline". This makes for the best games possible, and even better it does so in the context of a story. This format creates anticipation, which is amazing for any type of tournament.
This format would obviously not work for the likes of MLG, DH, Assembly, etc. They orient themselves against "broader" tournaments and recruitment, which im positive about. But with no anticipation, encouragement of "robot-play" rather than mindful play and abundance of mediocre matches makes it inferior IMO.
As far as fairness goes you could argue that DH is a fair tournament, but "running the gauntlet" and making the tournament an endurance contest, at least partially, goes against the notion of a strategy game.
My 2 cents
I don't advocate the OSL / GSL tournament structure at the end. However, I'll agree that the structure I actually do explain is probably best suited for one-off tournaments. If a tournament series is thinking of making an actual league, I isolate NASL as the best example for actually doing this in a way that works pretty well.
Returning once again to my system, in debate points are given to placings are certain tournaments, granting access to a large national tournament that will determine the overall greatest within a given 'circuit' of events within a year; this could be the basis for events to have a large number of events that compare against the dual tournament structures of OSL and GSL. The system is also uniquely developed such that it can take place over the course of a weekend if needed.
I like the idea, but it would only work in invitational-only tournaments. I think in some ways NASL is very similar to this because they have stages with large groups.
I really don't like the standard 4 man-groups in most tournaments, because groups of death destroy the landscape of the tournament results without giving enough credit to the players that may have very well played at top-4 caliber.
Tabulation is a very nice way to manage large groups. It can also be successfully applied on multiple groups in my opinion.
The tournament that first enters my head that would be perfect for a tabulation-based pre-lims is DreamHack (the recent summer one) because it's an invitational with a very large pool of players.
They had 32 groups of 4 players each... Instead they could have had 4 groups of 32 players each with tabulation and then advanced the top 8 in each group into a standard 4-player round-robin stage (with convincing seeding coming from a 32 player group stage,) and from there had their top 16.
It would have been easier than keeping track of a group stage with 32 different groups, and it would have avoided the fact that 3 consecutive stages are bound to create several groups of death at different stages in the tournament.
On September 18 2012 10:24 Kiarip wrote: I like the idea, but it would only work in invitational-only tournaments. I think in some ways NASL is very similar to this because they have stages with large groups.
I don't think so. The structure of tabulation would make it such that the group stage can also be the 'open bracket' of the event. Regardless of how they got there, each and every player in the pool is going to have to prove they belong.
At a certain point (say like more than 256) perhaps more rounds are going to need to be added to the prelims or more people are going to have to be able to break out into elims.
On September 18 2012 10:24 Kiarip wrote: I like the idea, but it would only work in invitational-only tournaments. I think in some ways NASL is very similar to this because they have stages with large groups.
I don't think so. The structure of tabulation would make it such that the group stage can also be the 'open bracket' of the event. Regardless of how they got there, each and every player in the pool is going to have to prove they belong.
but then too many games would have to be played in a very "swiss"ish style (no story-line, hard to understand the actual value of each lost/won match because you're not sure who each player has yet to play) to arrive at a small enough pool of players for the final bracket
edit: on the other hand, i agree it's not a bad way to deal with the open bracket, as long as there are enough computers available to play all the matches, and another round is introduced for further elimination.
Good, except its extremely strung out. I had to drag myself through it.
Also you didn't talk about BoX and how it affects fairness, reliability and efficiency.
Edit: I would like dynamic BoX series. Lets say in a Bo7 if player A starts 2-0 then the series would turn into a Bo5 with score's carried over. It would increase efficiency while negligibly affecting reliability and fairness. However only Bo7's and larger could use this.
On September 18 2012 11:43 iTzSnypah wrote: Good, except its extremely strung out. I had to drag myself through it.
Also you didn't talk about BoX and how it affects fairness, reliability and efficiency.
BoX isnt the issue though, and it's generally decided that Bo1 in elim is bad, Bo3 is somewhat standard, Bo5 is better, Bo7-9 is pushing it and Bo11+ is ridiculous. Larger tournament design choices than BoX have a bigger effect on play.
In the tournament structure I introduce, I generally think prelims should be Bo3. Elims should probably be Bo5 through to finals, depending on time constraints.
On September 18 2012 11:43 iTzSnypah wrote: Edit: I would like dynamic BoX series. Lets say in a Bo7 if player A starts 2-0 then the series would turn into a Bo5 with score's carried over. It would increase efficiency while negligibly affecting reliability and fairness. However only Bo7's and larger could use this.
the point is to avoid extended series because of good tournament design in the first place
I suspect the biggest issue is going to be time, since a Bo3 series could last anywhere from half an hour to three times that, or possibly worse. If the tournament was sufficiently large, I could see the prelim stage taking longer than an entire standard weekend tournament. It might be beneficial to run the prelims as an online stage of the tournament before gathering everyone into a LAN finals, as NASL and The International do. The algorithm makes a lot of sense though, and should be able to run faster than a global round robin would.
Just some thoughts.
I may try this (on a smaller scale) with my school's starcraft club, just to see how it runs.
On September 18 2012 12:40 dangthatsright wrote: I suspect the biggest issue is going to be time, since a Bo3 series could last anywhere from half an hour to three times that, or possibly worse. If the tournament was sufficiently large, I could see the prelim stage taking longer than an entire standard weekend tournament. It might be beneficial to run the prelims as an online stage of the tournament before gathering everyone into a LAN finals, as NASL and The International do. The algorithm makes a lot of sense though, and should be able to run faster than a global round robin would.
Just some thoughts.
I may try this (on a smaller scale) with my school's starcraft club, just to see how it runs.
Yeah that is one potential problem with the system. I will say that the system itself is transplanted from an activity where the normal length of a round is about 2 hours or so, and rarely do Bo3s last that long at all. It can happen though.
Let me know how it works out for you, I'd be interested to see how it works in real action.
Echoing dangthatsright's comment, the time problem is unfortunately a crippling one in the SC2 context. This format works for debate because all debates technically should occur within the same length of time given standardized speech and prep times. Not so for SC2. Games can range from 3 minutes of a 6pool to 1 hour and 15 minutes of a late-late-late-game TvT. A tournament proceeding at the pace of its slowest games (likely TvTs) would be impossibly lengthy, or at the least, have huge downtime for a multitude of players who all await the results of one game.
Casting would also be a problem, having too many games to follow. While there is a similar problem with, say, open brackets in MLG, this format would exacerbate the issue come the latter half of prelims where power-matching ensures a multitude of big-name matchups.
Also, I'm not sure how ties would be resolved. A set number of prelims does not guarantee the exact number of elim rounds that you want - while debate has speaker points, tiebreaks would be harder to resolve in SC2. Beyond winrates of opponents (which can also tie), I'm not too sure what else would be used as a tiebreaker.
On September 18 2012 13:30 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: Echoing dangthatsright's comment, the time problem is unfortunately a crippling one in the SC2 context. This format works for debate because all debates technically should occur within the same length of time given standardized speech and prep times. Not so for SC2. Games can range from 3 minutes of a 6pool to 1 hour and 15 minutes of a late-late-late-game TvT. A tournament proceeding at the pace of its slowest games (likely TvTs) would be impossibly lengthy, or at the least, have huge downtime for a multitude of players who all await the results of one game.
I do agree that time is an issue in holding back rounds. It is, however, pretty rare that StarCraft II games last that long; the risk, of course is always there. The longest debate rounds (and delays) are scheduled to take place within 2 hours or so.
Perhaps the solution is to get away from the Bo3 format and adopt the debate round robin approach of having a panel of two judges in the back of the room. As such, a round would consist of two games, and these games operate as the 'ballots' for tabulation purposes. 2-0 could be a win, 1-1 could be a tie, and 0-2 could be rated as a loss for a secondary tiebreak in this new two round system.
Because of the format change, more rounds can be loaded into the preliminaries, from say six to like nine. Even with your stated length of 1hr 15mins, two games like that would be 2hrs and 30 minutes, introducing half an hour of delay.
Also, I'm not sure how ties would be resolved. A set number of prelims does not guarantee the exact number of elim rounds that you want - while debate has speaker points, tiebreaks would be harder to resolve in SC2. Beyond winrates of opponents (which can also tie), I'm not too sure what else would be used as a tiebreaker.
What I have in what I wrote is directly taken from MLG's tiebreaking procedures. They have been sufficient for that organization thus far, but if anyone has additional viable tiebreaking procedures for StarCraft II other than the ones listed, lemme know.
Casting would also be a problem, having too many games to follow. While there is a similar problem with, say, open brackets in MLG, this format would exacerbate the issue come the latter half of prelims where power-matching ensures a multitude of big-name matchups.
This isn't an issue with the system, only an issue with the organization and its lack of streams and hiring casters. You cannot possibly fault a tournament system for delivering too many good matches can you? And also in latter half of prelims, broadcast should focus on the break rounds at any rate, which are limited in number and much easier to choose from.
I mean I guess mitigating tactics can include: (1) having off-site casting like DreamHack; (2) having more on-site casting and streams (a la MLG).
On September 18 2012 11:43 iTzSnypah wrote: Edit: I would like dynamic BoX series. Lets say in a Bo7 if player A starts 2-0 then the series would turn into a Bo5 with score's carried over. It would increase efficiency while negligibly affecting reliability and fairness. However only Bo7's and larger could use this.
the point is to avoid extended series because of good tournament design in the first place
I meant that if a player in a bo7 goes 2-0 the bo7 turns into a bo5 (aka the person that went 2-0 only has to win 1 more game instead of two).
hmm, I'd like to point out that a double-elim tournament doesn't "increase the number of games exponentially"; it just doubles them.
In single elim, you need to play enough matches for all but 1 player to lose once = players - 1. In double elim, you need to play enough matches for all but 1 player to lose twice = 2*players - 1 if the winner loses once; if not, then 2*players-2.
(The reason why the double-elim bracket you posted looks so huge is because there are 64 players )
I do agree that a Swiss/modified Swiss (like your tabulation-style) tournament might be better, though it does remove the ability to guess who you're going to play next. Admittedly, in dropping to losers' brackets, this might not be clear anyway...
On September 18 2012 11:43 iTzSnypah wrote: Edit: I would like dynamic BoX series. Lets say in a Bo7 if player A starts 2-0 then the series would turn into a Bo5 with score's carried over. It would increase efficiency while negligibly affecting reliability and fairness. However only Bo7's and larger could use this.
the point is to avoid extended series because of good tournament design in the first place
I meant that if a player in a bo7 goes 2-0 the bo7 turns into a bo5 (aka the person that went 2-0 only has to win 1 more game instead of two).
I don't understand why this is at all desirable. You are artificially changing the format of the tournament in favor of a certain player simply because someone has gone 2-0 in what was slated to be a Bo7.
On September 18 2012 15:50 ]343[ wrote: hmm, I'd like to point out that a double-elim tournament doesn't "increase the number of games exponentially"; it just doubles them.
In single elim, you need to play enough matches for all but 1 player to lose once = players - 1. In double elim, you need to play enough matches for all but 1 player to lose twice = 2*players - 1 if the winner loses once; if not, then 2*players-2.
Woops, yeah you are right, I'll make the appropriate edit.
(The reason why the double-elim bracket you posted looks so huge is because there are 64 players )
The only double-elim tournament I remember linking here isn't just huge because there are 64 players. It's huge because there's an elim bracket into an elim bracket into an elim bracket: bracketception.
Why is this better than a straight double elimination bracket? Consider a tournament with the cutoff and number of swiss rounds such that anyone with 0 or 1 loss makes the cut and anyone with 2 or more losses is eliminated. (7 rounds of swiss with 256 people, cutting to 16, should accomplish this.) Now a double elimination bracket accomplishes the same thing, except if MLG uses your format, they have to host hundreds of useless games at the same time the real tournament is happening. Instead, MLG would be better off just eliminating everyone else, since they have no interest in discerning the 134th best player in the room from the 135th. You touch on this but just shrug it off; I really think you should take it more seriously. I obviously don't have any authority over this, but if I had to guess I would say your suggestion is an impossibility based on scheduling and logistics along. And removing the unnecessary games, your prelim is at this point no different from a predetermined bracket, besides the perfect knowledge about future rounds. I also disagree with your opinion on this, since it seems to me a lot of hype is generated by "omg Naniwa is gonna play Flash in round 2!!!", but that's not so important.
Even if you cut players after they lose twice due to logistics, I don't see why you would want to switch to a single elimination bracket instead of just continuing with a double elimination bracket! I don't see why that's worth invalidating the fact that, say, the 2nd place person with 7-0 performed a lot better than the 3rd place person with 6-1, yet they share almost equally valuable seeding. Meanwhile, 16th place is also 6-1, and how reliable are the tiebreakers going to be? You bring up a set of tiebreakers that are basically totally valueless, since most people in the 6-1 bracket won't have played each other, and the difference in games won can be at most 1. (Assuming bo3s) So it's quite possible the 16th seed is a better player than the 3rd seed, and had a better tournament even, but lost out because they went 0-2 vs Stephano at 6-0 instead of 1-2 vs some newbie in the 1-0 bracket. Other swiss tournaments have better tiebreak systems which solve the tiebreaker problem, at least, so I'd borrow from there. The average of your opponents' match win percentages is the best one that I know. Roughly, this is the sum of your points in each round, as someone who went WWWWWWL should've had a harder run than someone who went LWWWWWW, and should be rewarded for it.
You say that because the 1st seed gets to play the lowest seed, that means the 1st seed deserves to be eliminated if they lose to the 64th seed, let's say. Yet in your tournament, it's perfectly reasonable that two players could play the exact same players, and have the exact same records against them, yet one player (say the 1st seed) could be eliminated while the other player is still in the tournament. To quickly visualize this, imagine Idra is 7-0 and Huk is 6-1, losing only to Stephano early on in the tournament, and Stephano is 6-1 as well. It's perfectly reasonable that Idra loses to Stephano in the first round of single elimination and is out of the tournament, while Huk beats one of Idra's old opponents and advances, even though both of their results are identical up to that point. I don't see how you can classify a tournament like this as fair, when Huk is advancing over Idra simply because he was fortunate enough to run into Stephano before the single elimination.
Your tournament also suffers from some problems that group stage + open bracket solves that I think you didn't mention. The biggest one is that the open bracket can be played in the background while the group stage plays. That way, people will be able to watch the stars duke it out while the unknown v unknown matches play themselves out. In your tournament, the early broadcast would end up being a bunch of slight variations on that game where Sase built a 10 nexus wall against a little kid. The formula tournaments seem to be trying to hit to me is having stars playing meaningful games in the early stages and having an exciting final day, hopefully with many of the stars still around. Your tournament structure doesn't seem to produce as many meaningful games between stars, since lots of their games will be either noob bashing or just for seeding. Then if you cut to a large single-elimination bracket, it's definitely possible all of the stars will fall out, and you'll be left with an underwhelming final few matches. Tournaments really don't want this to happen, and the MLG approach to group stages is a great way to prevent it.
I don't want this post to ramble on, so I'll stop here for now. I'd just like to say that I find this topic really interesting and I think MLG is making great strides toward finding the best tournament structures, even if they are a little more complicated than they might need to be.
On September 18 2012 16:14 huameng wrote: Why is this better than a straight double elimination bracket? Consider a tournament with the cutoff and number of swiss rounds such that anyone with 0 or 1 loss makes the cut and anyone with 2 or more losses is eliminated. (7 rounds of swiss with 256 people, cutting to 16, should accomplish this.) Now a double elimination bracket accomplishes the same thing, except if MLG uses your format, they have to host hundreds of useless games at the same time the real tournament is happening. Instead, MLG would be better off just eliminating everyone else, since they have no interest in discerning the 134th best player in the room from the 135th. You touch on this but just shrug it off; I really think you should take it more seriously.
I isolate a number of problems with straight double-elimination:
How do you determine seeds for the double elimination bracket? Seeds still matter, despite having a second chance in the tournament, because being put into the loser's bracket places you at a fundamental disadvantage for the rest of the tournament.
How do you deal with issues of fairness such as the perceived need for extended series and also the need for the lower bracket competitor in the grand finals to have to win two BoX to finally win.
Your cutoff does not work. In general:
6 round tournament: most 4-2s break
7 round tournament: 4-2s and some 4-3s break
8 round tournament: 5-3s break (maybe some 4-4s)
9 round tournament: 6-3s break (maybe some 5-4s)
And the current MLG system is double-elimination into double-elimination into double-elimination. Please explain to me why this makes sense over even your own suggestion, which is a straight double-elimination tournament. All of Liquipedia wonders.
I obviously don't have any authority over this, but if I had to guess I would say your suggestion is an impossibility based on scheduling and logistics along.
The procedure is designed to take place over two days (faster than the regular three) and with equal to or less than the number of matches compared to regular groups to elimination.
And removing the unnecessary games, your prelim is at this point no different from a predetermined bracket, besides the perfect knowledge about future rounds.
Which fundamentally makes it different from a predetermined bracket.
Even if you cut players after they lose twice due to logistics, I don't see why you would want to switch to a single elimination bracket instead of just continuing with a double elimination bracket! I don't see why that's worth invalidating the fact that, say, the 2nd place person with 7-0 performed a lot better than the 3rd place person with 6-1, yet they share almost equally valuable seeding. Meanwhile, 16th place is also 6-1, and how reliable are the tiebreakers going to be? You bring up a set of tiebreakers that are basically totally valueless, since most people in the 6-1 bracket won't have played each other, and the difference in games won can be at most 1.
Except most everyone who has made it to 6-1 will have potentially hit: 0-0, 1-0 or 0-1, 1-1 or 2-0, 2-1 or 3-0, 3-1 or 4-0, 4-1, or 5-0, 5-1 or 6-0, and 6-1 because of the design. It is true it is not guaranteed that everyone 6-1 will hit everyone else who is 6-1, but this is the point of modified swiss: to get around having to hit every single person in a given pool. Depending on the number of entrants into the tournament, which is left undefined in your example, yes 16th might be 6-1, but the number of players would probably be really high for something like that to happen. You are exaggerating to make a point.
The set of tiebreakers I put forth is directly taken from MLG, and it seems to have worked for them thus far in determining ranks in round-robin groups.
Single-elimination is preferred because it does not disadvantage a theoretical lower bracket competitor in the grand finals, and because seeding has been determined in-tournament for it.
You say that because the 1st seed gets to play the lowest seed, that means the 1st seed deserves to be eliminated if they lose to the 64th seed, let's say. Yet in your tournament, it's perfectly reasonable that two players could play the exact same players, and have the exact same records against them, yet one player (say the 1st seed) could be eliminated while the other player is still in the tournament. To quickly visualize this, imagine Idra is 7-0 and Huk is 6-1, losing only to Stephano early on in the tournament, and Stephano is 6-1 as well. It's perfectly reasonable that Idra loses to Stephano in the first round of single elimination and is out of the tournament, while Huk beats one of Idra's old opponents and advances, even though both of their results are identical up to that point. I don't see how you can classify a tournament like this as fair, when Huk is advancing over Idra simply because he was fortunate enough to run into Stephano before the single elimination.
HuK wouldn't be playing Stephano under my system and with your theoretical, because 6-1 bracket would be playing someone 4-3 in elims.
Your tournament also suffers from some problems that group stage + open bracket solves that I think you didn't mention. The biggest one is that the open bracket can be played in the background while the group stage plays. That way, people will be able to watch the stars duke it out while the unknown v unknown matches play themselves out. In your tournament, the early broadcast would end up being a bunch of slight variations on that game where Sase built a 10 nexus wall against a little kid. The formula tournaments seem to be trying to hit to me is having stars playing meaningful games in the early stages and having an exciting final day, hopefully with many of the stars still around. Your tournament structure doesn't seem to produce as many meaningful games between stars, since lots of their games will be either noob bashing or just for seeding. Then if you cut to a large single-elimination bracket, it's definitely possible all of the stars will fall out, and you'll be left with an underwhelming final few matches. Tournaments really don't want this to happen, and the MLG approach to group stages is a great way to prevent it.
The beauty of this system is it eliminates the need for a separation between an open bracket and the group stage entirely because in effect both are conducted in the same procedure. The way people end up playing their games is based on the current state of play existent, this is not meaningfully affected by tournament design unless the tournament is made up of a series of Bo1s.
High-high power matching ensures that the top players are hitting top players throughout the preliminary bracket. Only an upper tier of players in the player pool make it into elimination, 'stars' is a codeword for 'popular' in this. Whether someone deserves to remain a 'star' if they consistently lose either in prelims or elims is something beyond the scope of this writing.
In my opinion, the best tournament format is what I'll detail below. I understand that it's constrained since there will need to be a large number of computers, but if it's possible, I really think it's the best format. For instance, I really wish that the GSL Prelims will be a swiss tournament but it's probably not done for logistical reasons. Maybe they could've made it an online tournament?
Prelims A swiss style tournament where each game is a bo1. The number of rounds determined by the number of competitors. Lets say it has around 9 to 11 rounds. Tiebreaks may be settled by tiebreak systems, head-to-head or playoffs. The advantage of a Swiss tournament is that it is very good in determining the top half of a tournament - star players will eventually play each other, but they won't eliminate each other.
Group Top 32 from the prelims advances into the group stages. The seedings of the groups will be determined by their performance in the swiss tournament. You can even give advantages to the winner where they can pick a player, etc. The group stages will be done in the GSL format, i.e. bo3 double elimination. I like having groups for ro32 and ro16.
Finals Top 8 plays single elimination bo5 with a bo7 finals.
On September 18 2012 17:47 Azzur wrote: In my opinion, the best tournament format is what I'll detail below. I understand that it's constrained since there will need to be a large number of computers, but if it's possible, I really think it's the best format. For instance, I really wish that the GSL Prelims will be a swiss tournament but it's probably not done for logistical reasons. Maybe they could've made it an online tournament?
Prelims A swiss style tournament where each game is a bo1. The number of rounds determined by the number of competitors. Lets say it has around 9 to 11 rounds. Tiebreaks may be settled by tiebreak systems, head-to-head or playoffs. The advantage of a Swiss tournament is that it is very good in determining the top half of a tournament - star players will eventually play each other, but they won't eliminate each other.
Group Top 32 from the prelims advances into the group stages. The seedings of the groups will be determined by their performance in the swiss tournament. You can even give advantages to the winner where they can pick a player, etc. The group stages will be done in the GSL format, i.e. bo3 double elimination. I like having groups for ro32 and ro16.
Finals Top 8 plays single elimination bo5 with a bo7 finals.
The problem I have with each match being Bo1 is that it influences a player's strategy to be more 'cheesy.' I also don't see the need to have double-elimination in any group to elimination tournament structure, be it traditional or modified swiss.
On September 18 2012 17:49 itsjustatank wrote: The problem I have with each match being Bo1 is that it influences a player's strategy to be more 'cheesy.'
bo1 being a more cheesy format is a myth. The reason it may possibly occur is that if the players are nervous (i.e. the game will make or break them), they may want to play a short game. You can have cheesy games in a bo3 or a bo1 - I remember watching one of the current GSL ro32 groups where it was essentially a cheese-fest. In a swiss tournament, each game is not make-or-break. Anyways, the purpose of the swiss tournament bo1 is to not pick a winner, but rather pick the top32.
On September 18 2012 17:47 Azzur wrote: In my opinion, the best tournament format is what I'll detail below. I understand that it's constrained since there will need to be a large number of computers, but if it's possible, I really think it's the best format. For instance, I really wish that the GSL Prelims will be a swiss tournament but it's probably not done for logistical reasons. Maybe they could've made it an online tournament?
Prelims A swiss style tournament where each game is a bo1. The number of rounds determined by the number of competitors. Lets say it has around 9 to 11 rounds. Tiebreaks may be settled by tiebreak systems, head-to-head or playoffs. The advantage of a Swiss tournament is that it is very good in determining the top half of a tournament - star players will eventually play each other, but they won't eliminate each other.
Group Top 32 from the prelims advances into the group stages. The seedings of the groups will be determined by their performance in the swiss tournament. You can even give advantages to the winner where they can pick a player, etc. The group stages will be done in the GSL format, i.e. bo3 double elimination. I like having groups for ro32 and ro16.
Finals Top 8 plays single elimination bo5 with a bo7 finals.
The problem I have with each match being Bo1 is that it influences a player's strategy to be more 'cheesy.' I also don't see the need to have double-elimination in any group to elimination tournament structure, be it traditional or modified swiss.
The double elimination group stage into single elimination finals GSL concept (originated from the MSL), is a proven format and is much liked by both fans and players. So much so that many major tournaments are now using this format. I consider the format for 32 players "solved" unless another format can prove it's worth.
The only thing we need to solve is how to determine the top 32 players. I argue that the swiss format is the best format is determining a top bracket because each game is not a make-or-break one and the many rounds requires player versatility.
The current GSL format for the top 32 (Code S, A and B) is ok, but I argue that the prelims is a pretty cut throat affair with many star players missing out if they have one bad match or are matched against each other. Hence, I believe the swiss prelims is more "fair". However, of course, the downside of a swiss is the number of computers needed.
You might be right about Bo1 being more cheesy actually being a myth, I still prefer at least two games per round however because match wins can operate as a tiebreaker. This makes it easier to determine seeding for those who break out.
On September 18 2012 17:47 Azzur wrote: In my opinion, the best tournament format is what I'll detail below. I understand that it's constrained since there will need to be a large number of computers, but if it's possible, I really think it's the best format. For instance, I really wish that the GSL Prelims will be a swiss tournament but it's probably not done for logistical reasons. Maybe they could've made it an online tournament?
Prelims A swiss style tournament where each game is a bo1. The number of rounds determined by the number of competitors. Lets say it has around 9 to 11 rounds. Tiebreaks may be settled by tiebreak systems, head-to-head or playoffs. The advantage of a Swiss tournament is that it is very good in determining the top half of a tournament - star players will eventually play each other, but they won't eliminate each other.
Group Top 32 from the prelims advances into the group stages. The seedings of the groups will be determined by their performance in the swiss tournament. You can even give advantages to the winner where they can pick a player, etc. The group stages will be done in the GSL format, i.e. bo3 double elimination. I like having groups for ro32 and ro16.
Finals Top 8 plays single elimination bo5 with a bo7 finals.
The problem I have with each match being Bo1 is that it influences a player's strategy to be more 'cheesy.' I also don't see the need to have double-elimination in any group to elimination tournament structure, be it traditional or modified swiss.
The double elimination group stage into single elimination finals GSL concept (originated from the MSL), is a proven format and is much liked by both fans and players. So much so that many major tournaments are now using this format. I consider the format for 32 players "solved" unless another format can prove it's worth.
The only thing we need to solve is how to determine the top 32 players. I argue that the swiss format is the best format is determining a top bracket because each game is not a make-or-break one and the many rounds requires player versatility.
Essentially stating that something has always been done this way and cannot be changed is not constructive. There is no point in having group stage at all really if double-elimination is the follow up. Double-elimination impeaches the integrity of the seeds and indeed the entire group stage proceeding.
On September 18 2012 18:01 itsjustatank wrote: You might be right about Bo1 being more cheesy actually being a myth, I still prefer at least two games per round however because match wins can operate as a tiebreaker. This makes it easier to determine seeding for those who break out.
On September 18 2012 17:47 Azzur wrote: In my opinion, the best tournament format is what I'll detail below. I understand that it's constrained since there will need to be a large number of computers, but if it's possible, I really think it's the best format. For instance, I really wish that the GSL Prelims will be a swiss tournament but it's probably not done for logistical reasons. Maybe they could've made it an online tournament?
Prelims A swiss style tournament where each game is a bo1. The number of rounds determined by the number of competitors. Lets say it has around 9 to 11 rounds. Tiebreaks may be settled by tiebreak systems, head-to-head or playoffs. The advantage of a Swiss tournament is that it is very good in determining the top half of a tournament - star players will eventually play each other, but they won't eliminate each other.
Group Top 32 from the prelims advances into the group stages. The seedings of the groups will be determined by their performance in the swiss tournament. You can even give advantages to the winner where they can pick a player, etc. The group stages will be done in the GSL format, i.e. bo3 double elimination. I like having groups for ro32 and ro16.
Finals Top 8 plays single elimination bo5 with a bo7 finals.
The problem I have with each match being Bo1 is that it influences a player's strategy to be more 'cheesy.' I also don't see the need to have double-elimination in any group to elimination tournament structure, be it traditional or modified swiss.
The double elimination group stage into single elimination finals GSL concept (originated from the MSL), is a proven format and is much liked by both fans and players. So much so that many major tournaments are now using this format. I consider the format for 32 players "solved" unless another format can prove it's worth.
The only thing we need to solve is how to determine the top 32 players. I argue that the swiss format is the best format is determining a top bracket because each game is not a make-or-break one and the many rounds requires player versatility.
Essentially stating that something has always been done this way and cannot be changed is not constructive. There is no point in having group stage at all really if double-elimination is the follow up. Double-elimination impeaches the integrity of the seeds and indeed the entire group stage proceeding.
Double elimination is not the follow up - the group is a double elimination but the finals (top 8) is single elimination.
If you're talking about the group format being double elimination as affecting the integrity of the seeds, I do acknowledge that this is a possible issue. Hence, some tournaments give special privileges to the group winner (e.g. dreamhack, where the group winner goes directly into the ro8). Alternatively, group winners can be given special privileges, e.g. picking rights.
On September 18 2012 18:01 itsjustatank wrote: You might be right about Bo1 being more cheesy actually being a myth, I still prefer at least two games per round however because match wins can operate as a tiebreaker. This makes it easier to determine seeding for those who break out.
On September 18 2012 18:00 Azzur wrote:
On September 18 2012 17:49 itsjustatank wrote:
On September 18 2012 17:47 Azzur wrote: In my opinion, the best tournament format is what I'll detail below. I understand that it's constrained since there will need to be a large number of computers, but if it's possible, I really think it's the best format. For instance, I really wish that the GSL Prelims will be a swiss tournament but it's probably not done for logistical reasons. Maybe they could've made it an online tournament?
Prelims A swiss style tournament where each game is a bo1. The number of rounds determined by the number of competitors. Lets say it has around 9 to 11 rounds. Tiebreaks may be settled by tiebreak systems, head-to-head or playoffs. The advantage of a Swiss tournament is that it is very good in determining the top half of a tournament - star players will eventually play each other, but they won't eliminate each other.
Group Top 32 from the prelims advances into the group stages. The seedings of the groups will be determined by their performance in the swiss tournament. You can even give advantages to the winner where they can pick a player, etc. The group stages will be done in the GSL format, i.e. bo3 double elimination. I like having groups for ro32 and ro16.
Finals Top 8 plays single elimination bo5 with a bo7 finals.
The problem I have with each match being Bo1 is that it influences a player's strategy to be more 'cheesy.' I also don't see the need to have double-elimination in any group to elimination tournament structure, be it traditional or modified swiss.
The double elimination group stage into single elimination finals GSL concept (originated from the MSL), is a proven format and is much liked by both fans and players. So much so that many major tournaments are now using this format. I consider the format for 32 players "solved" unless another format can prove it's worth.
The only thing we need to solve is how to determine the top 32 players. I argue that the swiss format is the best format is determining a top bracket because each game is not a make-or-break one and the many rounds requires player versatility.
Essentially stating that something has always been done this way and cannot be changed is not constructive. There is no point in having group stage at all really if double-elimination is the follow up. Double-elimination impeaches the integrity of the seeds and indeed the entire group stage proceeding.
Double elimination is not the follow up - the group is a double elimination but the finals (top 8) is single elimination.
If you're talking about the group format being double elimination as affecting the integrity of the seeds, I do acknowledge that this is a possible issue. Hence, some tournaments give special privileges to the group winner (e.g. dreamhack, where the group winner goes directly into the ro8). Alternatively, group winners can be given special privileges, e.g. picking rights.
Calling a double-elimination tournament a group stage has its own issues in terms of semantics. A group stage is inherently a round-robin or swiss procedure. Calling it a group stage is a vestige from a time when people with poor English skills named stages in a tournament. In addition, giving the group winner special privileges other than their seed into a given bracket is way too much intervention on the part of a tournament design.
The design is also way too complex. Swiss into double into single, when Swiss into single using seeds and breaks from Swiss could be executed much more simply in the first place. Playing out a 'group' as a double-elimination eliminates the need for the first tier Swiss procedure in the first place, just run the 'group' as a whole and pick the the top required for the single-elimination. It's almost as egregious as double into double into double.
If this is objectionable, then examine the fact that you've already determined seeding for the entire player field through Swiss.
You reminded me of the time where i played MtG at tournaments where the Swiss style is always used. Awesome write up. Ill try to test your tournament style in some little tournaments. Thanks a lot
I think the problem I have with Double elim brackets are that they are very often anticlimactic. Not just the huge winners bracket advantage, but that the LB finalist has almost always previously played the WB finalist, and previously lost to them. Rematches in such short notice are generally pretty unexciting since everyone goes "Oh well vortix/vibe/creator already lost to stephano/scarlett/squirtle" (even if, in the end, creator beat squirtle in the grand finals of WCS korea, I just wasn't that hyped by it since I'd already watched the exact match a few days earlier)
Also I'd be interested in seeing a percentage of double elim grand finals that are rematches of the WB finals, which is even worse since they're only played a few hours previous in a typical weekend tourney.
There are so many different formats that are possible, especially with a setup that is 1v1, as StarCraft 2 is.
I had hoped to make a similar article to run down some good possibilities, but it'll take time to read through everything you've wrote again to process everything. Tabulation is an interesting idea similar to a concept I have drawn out on an old notepad. Still not sure where it'll take me though.
Even though group of deaths do occur in the first round of tournaments, I just wanted to note that they are less likely than two top contenders meeting at the first round in a bracket, forcing one of them to drop out.
On September 18 2012 20:45 bbm wrote: I think the problem I have with Double elim brackets are that they are very often anticlimactic. Not just the huge winners bracket advantage, but that the LB finalist has almost always previously played the WB finalist, and previously lost to them. Rematches in such short notice are generally pretty unexciting since everyone goes "Oh well vortix/vibe/creator already lost to stephano/scarlett/squirtle" (even if, in the end, creator beat squirtle in the grand finals of WCS korea, I just wasn't that hyped by it since I'd already watched the exact match a few days earlier)
Also I'd be interested in seeing a percentage of double elim grand finals that are rematches of the WB finals, which is even worse since they're only played a few hours previous in a typical weekend tourney.
This is indeed a huge problem with double-elimination, coupled with the fact that the lower bracket competitor has to win two BoX to beat the competitor from the upper bracket. The cards are heavily stacked against the lower bracket player.
There is one activity that regularly uses double-elimination and manages to make the road to the grand finals exciting though, and that is fighting games. This is because the crowd at the event provides hype to the matchups because of the existence generally of previous storyline and intrigue. Commentators on stream also do a good job generally of emphasizing this hype to the stream viewers. In the end, making a tournament exciting is greatly influenced when a tournament organizer is able to articulate and explain the tournament structure to the viewership in a way that makes it compelling to them and keeps them engaged.
On September 18 2012 22:23 JustPassingBy wrote: Even though group of deaths do occur in the first round of tournaments, I just wanted to note that they are less likely than two top contenders meeting at the first round in a bracket, forcing one of them to drop out.
While less likely, having a single group for the prelims and conducting either a round-robin or modified Swiss procedure eliminates the problem entirely.
In competitive Magic the Gathering, this format is used almost exclusively, except it's called modified swiss (cut to top 8 single elimination).
As others have pointed out, if you want to play Bo3 for your swiss rounds, it'll take forever. Not only do you have rounds that might last a really long time for a long series holding everyone else up, but it'll take a ton of rounds. MtG Pro Tours with a few hundred people usually have 12 or 13 or more rounds. Besides this major drawback, I totally favor this format as more exciting and more fair than any other for a limited time mass player event like MLG or Dreamhack or whatever.
edit: I should add that two game series or one game matches are wayyyy better in a swiss environment. Top players will not cheese each other because cheese isn't good at the top level.
And as already pointed out against double-elim... most players drop after they have 2 or more losses anyway, so MLG doesn't have to run a bunch of extraneous matches. This hardly affects the admin overhead of running the event anyway.
A bit of a one-off comment, but I think with the community's insistence that extended series are horrible a clear stand for drama > fairness has been established.
Why high-high and not high-low for intra-record pairings? Assuming the speaker point equivalent is map score. at the end of the day having (in round 4) 9-0's knocking each other down a series seems less preferable than having a 9-0 rewarded by facing a (theoretically) easier opponent who has gone 6-3.
It would be interesting to see something like this occur for 5 rounds and then break to the outrounds/playoffs.
On September 19 2012 18:23 Shaetan wrote: Why high-high and not high-low for intra-record pairings? Assuming the speaker point equivalent is map score. at the end of the day having (in round 4) 9-0's knocking each other down a series seems less preferable than having a 9-0 rewarded by facing a (theoretically) easier opponent who has gone 6-3.
It would be interesting to see something like this occur for 5 rounds and then break to the outrounds/playoffs.
Basically, because I'm following NDT procedure. High-high might seem a bit harsh, but I prefer it to high-low throughout or alternating high-high and high-low for one big reason: I want to limit interventionism in rewarding players to the power-protection they receive in elims. High-high also ensures that the people who break are the absolute best, and it ensures good, competitive, rounds in the prelims.
I've talked to a number of big tournament directors in debate over the years, and I've never gotten concrete answers as to why they pick high-low over high-high, or why they alternate rounds; it's basically just custom. In a similar vein, anyone who wants to use this system is free to use other power-matching types as well.
Be fair — the ideal tournament should provide to competitors a level playing field to the furthest extent possible.
Be reliable — the ideal tournament should return the absolute best competitors in a given pool of fellow competitors as the top placers. The ideal tournament design should also establish a way for these top competitors to prove their position by their play. As such, each and every game in the ideal tournament should be meaningful and contributory to the aforementioned goal.
Be entertaining — the ideal tournament must be conducted in a way that is meaningful and entertaining for the spectating community, while still maintaining the integrity of the previous two points.
Be efficient — the ideal tournament should be easily explained and understood. It is also important that the ideal tournament be reproducible and able to be used by more than one event series or organization. It follows that once an ideal tournament design is achieved, all events seek to employ or at least emulate its design. To achieve this, the ideal tournament design should avoid excessive complexity.
1- I feel that seeding is very important to this aspect. It prevents two top teams from eliminating each other early on. It also allows for more exciting and high level finals. 2/4- I feel like both of these can be covered with good management and planning. With both good management and planning you can be both reliable and efficient. Granted you picked an efficient tournament format. That being said, idk if MLG will ever release a simple tournament bracket. 3- If you can get good casters, good quality production, and advertising, as long as the games are good and at a high enough level I think they should be entertaining.
I loved the Swiss style tournaments back when I used to play a ton of TFT. The automatic B.net Tournament system used to match you up in much the same way -- you always got matched up with people of the same record, or it would broaden the search for similar records after so long. Many times I would open a tournament 1-0, get matched up against people WAY too hard for me, go 1-2, then pull back and end up 5-2 before running into harder people again and finishing the night 5-3. After a prelim where you played 8 games as quickly as you could, they seeded the top 16 into a tournament where 1 winner emerged. (A larger tournament could of course seed more people into the bracket to have more games to cast)
It was fun playing night after night, working my way up from finishing 5-3 every night, to finishing 6-2 because I was finally able to take games off of the top tier players, and eventually hitting that 7-0 mark and seeding high into the tournament bracket.
In short, it does accurately gauge your skill. The reason why MLG won't implement it is because they do NOT design tournaments to be fun and fair to play in (at least, not since Dallas 2011). Since the Columbus 2011 MLG and beyond, the entire focus of the tournament is to always have 2 big names playing against each other, so there's always a game on people are interested in watching. That's the whole reason the Group Stages were invented in the first place -- Nobody was tuning in on Friday night to watch IdrA go up against random Diamond ladder scrub, where interesting games weren't even a possibility until Sunday night. But IdrA vs. MC right off the bat? Plus neither of them had any chance to be eliminated and could be seen multiple times through the weekend? That's what made MLG take off, and was a smart business move, fairness of the tourney be damned.
Swiss style would, again, mean that there's no games worth watching until either late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, when the 4-0 and 5-0 people start facing off against each other. And once again, when the top 32/64/128 were seeded into a bracket, there would be a couple of rounds before your big names started playing against each other again. It would almost surely end up being the best player who emerged victorious, but there would be a lot of "dead air" where nobody is watching inbetween.
Side Note: The MLG format was, again, changed for viewability reasons. In the old format, watching the 2nd/3rd place match play out, you were more or less watching to see who was going to get trounced by the #1 seed -- one guy having already been sent down to the losers bracket by that #1 seed, thereby forcing an extended series the #2 guy would likely not be able to recover from, and the other having fought through many more games and being exhausted going into the finals. With 2 semi-finals, and a Finals + 3rd/4th place match instead, it's a much more compelling ending to the tournament. More compelling to the viewership, and even HARDER for an open bracket player to break into, seeing as how they had to change the group play to be harder for an Open Bracket player to even make it in.
MLG is one of the most entertaining tournaments to watch, but one of the least accessible and most punishing as a player trying to come in from the Open bracket and make a name for yourself. The Swiss/Tabulation style is one of the most fair to the player, but much harder to make good storylines emerge from for 100% of the time. When the best game currently going off is <insert your favorite pro> vs. <random ladder hero>, it doesn't matter if it's Tastosis on ecstacy casting it, nobody's going to watch it, because the outcome is predetermined.
On September 20 2012 22:22 ArcticFox wrote: Swiss style would, again, mean that there's no games worth watching until either late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, when the 4-0 and 5-0 people start facing off against each other. And once again, when the top 32/64/128 were seeded into a bracket, there would be a couple of rounds before your big names started playing against each other again. It would almost surely end up being the best player who emerged victorious, but there would be a lot of "dead air" where nobody is watching inbetween..
This might only be a problem with the first two randomly assigned and preset rounds. Afterwards, high-high power matching begins to ensure that the top people consistently hit each other in a race to the top. Nearer the end, we get to see the break rounds, where people on the cusp of making it into elimination contention can be featured.
And only the top players make it in. If they are not big names so be it. Our community has to examine whether it is strength of play which matters or big names. Modified-Swiss procedure at least lets any player who breaks out prove their worth, unlike other tournament procedures where a lot of luck and intervention can get you a long way.
On September 20 2012 22:22 ArcticFox wrote: Swiss style would, again, mean that there's no games worth watching until either late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, when the 4-0 and 5-0 people start facing off against each other. And once again, when the top 32/64/128 were seeded into a bracket, there would be a couple of rounds before your big names started playing against each other again. It would almost surely end up being the best player who emerged victorious, but there would be a lot of "dead air" where nobody is watching inbetween..
This might only be a problem with the first two randomly assigned and preset rounds. Afterwards, high-high power matching begins to ensure that the top people consistently hit each other in a race to the top. Nearer the end, we get to see the break rounds, where people on the cusp of making it into elimination contention can be featured.
And only the top players make it in. If they are not big names so be it. Our community has to examine whether it is strength of play which matters or big names. Modified-Swiss procedure at least lets any player who breaks out prove their worth, unlike other tournament procedures where a lot of luck and intervention can get you a long way.
Fair or not, the big names are what gets people to tune in and watch.
Also, I'm not sure if you've seen the inner workings of the MLG Open Bracket, which is what a full Modified-Swiss system would be, but the first round of the Open Bracket with 256 players in it takes 4 hours to get through, by rotating people in and out. Which means Round 2 of a Swiss system would *also* take another 4 hours. That means it would take the entirety of Day 1 to get through 2 rounds, meaning it would be Saturday morning before we saw our first 2-0 vs. 2-0 matches come up. Either that, or it would require MLG to double the amount of machines they have, which would double their cost (or require them to convince Alienware to pony up for twice as many PCs), and require them to find twice as much floorspace for just SC2.
Again, for fairness and making sure the best players rise to the top, I like this idea. For practicality and viewability? It would be really hard to sell.
O do understand the points being made in favor of double elimination tournaments for broadcasters etc. From a competitive standpoint, I feel like the single elimination format works the best. If you win you win if you lose you lose. What's unfair about that?
On September 20 2012 22:22 ArcticFox wrote: Swiss style would, again, mean that there's no games worth watching until either late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, when the 4-0 and 5-0 people start facing off against each other. And once again, when the top 32/64/128 were seeded into a bracket, there would be a couple of rounds before your big names started playing against each other again. It would almost surely end up being the best player who emerged victorious, but there would be a lot of "dead air" where nobody is watching inbetween..
This might only be a problem with the first two randomly assigned and preset rounds. Afterwards, high-high power matching begins to ensure that the top people consistently hit each other in a race to the top. Nearer the end, we get to see the break rounds, where people on the cusp of making it into elimination contention can be featured.
And only the top players make it in. If they are not big names so be it. Our community has to examine whether it is strength of play which matters or big names. Modified-Swiss procedure at least lets any player who breaks out prove their worth, unlike other tournament procedures where a lot of luck and intervention can get you a long way.
Fair or not, the big names are what gets people to tune in and watch.
Also, I'm not sure if you've seen the inner workings of the MLG Open Bracket, which is what a full Modified-Swiss system would be, but the first round of the Open Bracket with 256 players in it takes 4 hours to get through, by rotating people in and out. Which means Round 2 of a Swiss system would *also* take another 4 hours. That means it would take the entirety of Day 1 to get through 2 rounds, meaning it would be Saturday morning before we saw our first 2-0 vs. 2-0 matches come up. Either that, or it would require MLG to double the amount of machines they have, which would double their cost (or require them to convince Alienware to pony up for twice as many PCs), and require them to find twice as much floorspace for just SC2.
Again, for fairness and making sure the best players rise to the top, I like this idea. For practicality and viewability? It would be really hard to sell.
Infrastructure inefficiencies that limit even the conduction of a flawed system are the tournament organizer's problem in your example, not mine. You assume a steady state that is unchangeable. If a tournament organizer needs to have extra computers or admins to get a proper tournament procedure in place, they should do it because it isn't impossible to do especially at the scale of event you are talking about.
I'm sick of tournament organizers making lopsided groups. The MLG bracket was 3 ridiculously hard brackets and 1 really easy one.
Now in Dreamhack Grubby wins his group 3-0 and his reward for doing good in the first group stage is to be paired up with Stephano and Taeja in the 2nd group stage. That doesn't make any sense at all.
I realise I'm obviously late to the party, but I just happened to stumble upon this blog today and I somehow find the mechanics of tournament formats intriguing, so I'll add my two cents nonetheless. More to the point, two observations:
First, with Starcraft tournaments being the way they are, with always just two players who always either win or lose, wouldn't the format in the OP basically turn into a double, triple or N-multiple elimination bracket, depending on the point of cut-off, with the only exception being that the seed from the winners' bracket to the losers' bracket are not mixed into the bracket itself (as usual), but rather played high-high (also depicted in the second image)? I've made an illustration to show it. (I'm crap at using photoshop and stuff, so I did it the old-fashioned way, sorry).
Second, since win and lose are the only possible outcomes of a match, there's actually a 100% predictability to the player's path up until the point where there's an odd number of players with an equal score, which shouldn't happen for a very long time, given a huge pool of initial players, and probably shouldn't happen at all before the Tabulation format is left in favour of the single-elimination playoffs. Another illustration (which also shows the point where predictability fails, in round 4 given 16 initial players and a cut-off at an equivalent of double elimination). A box equals matches and not players:
I don't really mean to argue either for or against the Tabulation format, I just wanted to point out how it's not that different from N-multiple elimination and also that it's not that unpredictable and can easily (if you're well-prepared, at least) be done without spreadsheets or computers. Also, with it being predictable, players can prepare their games better, although one completely loses the excitement of having the next competitors announced.
All this given that there's no finer point of it that I missed and that I analyzed this correctly, of course
Edit: Also, as long as there's 100% predictability, there's no need to wait for everyone to finish their round before moving onto the next.
Your analysis ignores the crucial factor of how one gets seeded into a single- double- or n- elimination bracket matters quite heavily on how you fare in the tournament. If you already have proper seeds going into a tournament, the tournament should of course be a single-elimination tournament based on your seeds. However, if you do not have seeds going into the tournament, random assignment to an elimination bracket is unacceptable. Group stage into elimination (the current regime) and tabulation seek to remedy this problem.
On September 21 2012 01:10 swanized wrote: O do understand the points being made in favor of double elimination tournaments for broadcasters etc. From a competitive standpoint, I feel like the single elimination format works the best. If you win you win if you lose you lose. What's unfair about that?
The above also answers this question as well. If you read the text however, I do not advocate double-elimination at all.
I've been thinking about a good format for my sports club yearly championship (table tennis). So far, we used round-robins with knockout phases after (but a few separate tourneys (A,B,C) for different levels as skill differences are huge). So I noted a couple things I wanted to improve: - anyone should be able to win the whole thing - the number of rounds is limited as everything is to be played on 1 day/night - the number of participants is unknown in advance (until the day before) - every participant should play a 'good' number of matches, nobody wants to play 2 games and then be done - there should be a deciding final
This thread actually gave me an idea, why don't we play a Swiss system with all the players (say 5 rounds for up to 32 players), then release the players in stages into a single-elim tournament (bottom 8 vs 8, then next 4, then another 4, etc) while the rest continue with the Swiss? You can theoretically still win after the swiss part, you always play at least 6 games, and you play mostly opponents that are near your level. I'm most worried about the mechanics of the Swiss style tournament on the spot (having computers there is awkward) and the middle section of the Swiss result table not being very accurate. What dyou guys think about this?
On November 06 2012 19:23 aseq wrote: I've been thinking about a good format for my sports club yearly championship (table tennis). So far, we used round-robins with knockout phases after (but a few separate tourneys (A,B,C) for different levels as skill differences are huge). So I noted a couple things I wanted to improve: - anyone should be able to win the whole thing - the number of rounds is limited as everything is to be played on 1 day/night - the number of participants is unknown in advance (until the day before) - every participant should play a 'good' number of matches, nobody wants to play 2 games and then be done - there should be a deciding final
This thread actually gave me an idea, why don't we play a Swiss system with all the players (say 5 rounds for up to 32 players), then release the players in stages into a single-elim tournament (bottom 8 vs 8, then next 4, then another 4, etc) while the rest continue with the Swiss? You can theoretically still win after the swiss part, you always play at least 6 games, and you play mostly opponents that are near your level. I'm most worried about the mechanics of the Swiss style tournament on the spot (having computers there is awkward) and the middle section of the Swiss result table not being very accurate. What dyou guys think about this?
Not sure why you would continue with the Swiss, except to let eliminated players have something to do after being effectively eliminated. If you are going to continue with the Swiss, then it should just be pure Swiss because that is the absolute best and most fair way to determine a winner. If you are going to use Swiss for seeding, then what I described in the OP works.
Yup, my reasons to do it like that would be: - The higher-ranked players need something to do while the rest play their knockout rounds. Can't have them waiting for up to 2 hours. - I do want the knockout rounds, because I want to have a grand final at the end. Swiss systems just don't have good endings - things can even be decided before the last game. We're not world class level, so finding the best player is important, but just as important is an exciting tournament finale.
I also looked into McMahon, which seems interesting as we don't have that much time (but might raise some complaints from people). I'm not certain what you pick yet, I have plenty of time left, only I'd hoped this thread would have picked up a lot better to find more inspiration .
I don't think you understand the system. There are two parts of the system I describe here, for clarity I'm going to approach it as a two-day tournament: 1) preliminaries using a swiss system to determine seeding for 2) the next day's elimination-brackets. If you didn't make it to the elim rounds on day 2, there is nothing for you to do because you are out of the tournament.
On November 09 2012 14:38 itsjustatank wrote: I don't think you understand the system. There are two parts of the system I describe here, for clarity I'm going to approach it as a two-day tournament: 1) preliminaries using a swiss system to determine seeding for 2) the next day's elimination-brackets. If you didn't make it to the elim rounds on day 2, there is nothing for you to do because you are out of the tournament.
I perfectly understand that. And that's precisely why I'm looking at making some changes. As Swiss doesn't yield too great results in the middle of the pack, #9 after the Swiss (in case of 3rounds of knockout) is going to feel left out. Also, I don't want more than half of my players being done and out after half the tournament. That's why I'm proposing to extend the knockout to all the players (like the MLG, but not as long). And because of the gap in time, then get the top players to continue the Swiss.
On November 09 2012 14:38 itsjustatank wrote: I don't think you understand the system. There are two parts of the system I describe here, for clarity I'm going to approach it as a two-day tournament: 1) preliminaries using a swiss system to determine seeding for 2) the next day's elimination-brackets. If you didn't make it to the elim rounds on day 2, there is nothing for you to do because you are out of the tournament.
I perfectly understand that. And that's precisely why I'm looking at making some changes. As Swiss doesn't yield too great results in the middle of the pack, #9 after the Swiss (in case of 3rounds of knockout) is going to feel left out. Also, I don't want more than half of my players being done and out after half the tournament. That's why I'm proposing to extend the knockout to all the players (like the MLG, but not as long). And because of the gap in time, then get the top players to continue the Swiss.
You cannot fairly seed an elimination tournament in this way. People who are in the bottom and get sent to the elim bracket have less accurate placements in the tournament that they could have gained back through more rounds in swiss. Players at the top are punished by having to play fundamentally more games than people being sent to the elimination bracket early. All of this in the name of 'letting people have things to do.' It's not a fair or efficient system, it is needlessly complicated for an advantage that hasn't been articulated.
On November 09 2012 14:38 itsjustatank wrote: I don't think you understand the system. There are two parts of the system I describe here, for clarity I'm going to approach it as a two-day tournament: 1) preliminaries using a swiss system to determine seeding for 2) the next day's elimination-brackets. If you didn't make it to the elim rounds on day 2, there is nothing for you to do because you are out of the tournament.
I perfectly understand that. And that's precisely why I'm looking at making some changes. As Swiss doesn't yield too great results in the middle of the pack, #9 after the Swiss (in case of 3rounds of knockout) is going to feel left out. Also, I don't want more than half of my players being done and out after half the tournament. That's why I'm proposing to extend the knockout to all the players (like the MLG, but not as long). And because of the gap in time, then get the top players to continue the Swiss.
You cannot fairly seed an elimination tournament in this way. People who are in the bottom and get sent to the elim bracket have less accurate placements in the tournament that they could have gained back through more rounds in swiss. Players at the top are punished by having to play fundamentally more games than people being sent to the elimination bracket early. All of this in the name of 'letting people have things to do.' It's not a fair or efficient system, it is needlessly complicated for an advantage that hasn't been articulated.
Okay. I did mean that people who stay in the Swiss play 1 round per round the people in the elimination bracket play. So they don't play more games (you play the same amount until you get kicked out in elims). Like in the MLG, people who end lower in the bracket have a long(er) way to go in the elimination part. True, it may not have any benefits finding the eventual winner, but I don't see how this would be 'less fair' than just having your Swiss into top 8 elim method.
On November 09 2012 14:38 itsjustatank wrote: I don't think you understand the system. There are two parts of the system I describe here, for clarity I'm going to approach it as a two-day tournament: 1) preliminaries using a swiss system to determine seeding for 2) the next day's elimination-brackets. If you didn't make it to the elim rounds on day 2, there is nothing for you to do because you are out of the tournament.
I perfectly understand that. And that's precisely why I'm looking at making some changes. As Swiss doesn't yield too great results in the middle of the pack, #9 after the Swiss (in case of 3rounds of knockout) is going to feel left out. Also, I don't want more than half of my players being done and out after half the tournament. That's why I'm proposing to extend the knockout to all the players (like the MLG, but not as long). And because of the gap in time, then get the top players to continue the Swiss.
You cannot fairly seed an elimination tournament in this way. People who are in the bottom and get sent to the elim bracket have less accurate placements in the tournament that they could have gained back through more rounds in swiss. Players at the top are punished by having to play fundamentally more games than people being sent to the elimination bracket early. All of this in the name of 'letting people have things to do.' It's not a fair or efficient system, it is needlessly complicated for an advantage that hasn't been articulated.
Okay. I did mean that people who stay in the Swiss play 1 round per round the people in the elimination bracket play. So they don't play more games (you play the same amount until you get kicked out in elims). Like in the MLG, people who end lower in the bracket have a long(er) way to go in the elimination part. True, it may not have any benefits finding the eventual winner, but I don't see how this would be 'less fair' than just having your Swiss into top 8 elim method.
It's less fair because the system makes no sense in terms of determining the real winner of a tournament. You have people playing meaningless games and tiring themselves out in extra Swiss rounds just so 'they have something to do.'
In particular, you lose the very reason why Swiss rounds are conducted in preliminaries in the first place. Determining accurate and fair seeding prior to an elimination bracket would provide substantial benefits for the top seeded players who proved those seeds in preliminary play. You eliminate that.
Well, I would like to know if you have any better alternatives for my tournament, then. So far you're only saying it makes no sense, but providing little reasoning.
In Swiss, ranking gets better with the amount of games you play. Since you only play people at approx your level, even cutting of half of the players and continuing will IMPROVE the ranking of the remainging players, as higher players don't have anything to do with lower players anyway. The longer you continue, the closer you're getting to a round-robin, which is ideal, but not feasible timewise. So getting them to play on in the Swiss system will get better results.
I read this part about 8 times, but I don't get what you're trying to say in your second paragraph. How am I stopping top players from getting the best seeds? I'm not. The people who stay in the Swiss for longest get the best seeds, and also have to play the fewest elimination games. That's a substantial benefit.
You don't play people approximate to your level in your system because you arbitrarily send a group of players to the elimination bracket in the middle of Swiss play. This fundamentally changes who can hit who in further Swiss rounds and the dynamics of the games that follow. My alternative is the system I present in this blog time and time again, which is to conduct a fixed set of Swiss rounds and seed a single-elimination tournament based on performance in those rounds. I don't know why you are dead-set on adding entropy into the Swiss system just so people 'have something to do.' It tanks the benefits of using Swiss in the preliminaries in the first place. At the point where any tournament would consider using your system, it would be better off just randomly seeding a double-elimination bracket.
Okay, your system is more fair, i'll give you that. Mind you, is isn't a big change i'm proposing. I think you're mistaken saying it's about as good as double-elim, since it's simply not that different from yours. Discrete advantages would be:
- There would be no #1 vs #64 games in the first round of elim...which are boring. My proposal gets lower skilled players to beat up on the next guy each time. - I'm not really breaking into the Swiss system, removing players from it. I'm adding more rounds after it for the top players (yes, which are optional). - Top players can afford a slip-up at anytime but the last 2 or 3 games, instead of 5.
So, removing the extra swiss rounds (which seem to madden you greatly ), but making the single-elim a bit skewed (adding players in multiple stages in some yet-to-be-decided manner), what would you say to that?
On November 11 2012 12:21 aseq wrote: Okay, your system is more fair, i'll give you that. Mind you, is isn't a big change i'm proposing. I think you're mistaken saying it's about as good as double-elim, since it's simply not that different from yours.
...
- I'm not really breaking into the Swiss system, removing players from it. I'm adding more rounds after it for the top players (yes, which are optional).
...
So, removing the extra swiss rounds (which seem to madden you greatly ), but making the single-elim a bit skewed (adding players in multiple stages in some yet-to-be-decided manner), what would you say to that?
I still don't understand their function for the elimination tournament to follow. Right now it just sounds like extra showmatches to be played before elimination matches start. You yourself don't seem to particularly be able to explain how to add people to the elimination bracket in stages.
The reason why what you propose is not optimal is that someone can end up going 0-2 in the tournament's first two rounds, but fight back to 4-2 and break (assuming six rounds total). If you send them to the elimination bracket early based on that initial bad performance, you rob them of the chance to redeem themselves in later Swiss rounds. And this is made uniquely worse, because the first set of rounds for Swiss are randomly assigned. Only through a full set of Swiss rounds can we accurately determine seeding into an elimination bracket fairly.
You also lose the storyline generated when you show break rounds in the later stages of the tournament, watching people fight for a spot in the elimination bracket.
On November 11 2012 12:21 aseq wrote: - There would be no #1 vs #64 games in the first round of elim...which are boring. My proposal gets lower skilled players to beat up on the next guy each time.
One of the departures my system takes from standard Swiss is that it does not clear the entire pool to the elimination bracket (although I guess clearing the entire field can be done using my system, if so desired). In the activity from which I am porting this procedure over, we generally clear about half of the player pool, eliminating every one else below that point from tournament contention.
In this way, top seed will not hit the absolute worst person in the tournament, but rather they will hit the lowest person to clear (who comes from the middle of the pack).
On November 11 2012 12:21 aseq wrote: - Top players can afford a slip-up at anytime but the last 2 or 3 games, instead of 5.
Top players in the last rounds of Swiss don't really slip up. They will clear no matter what in my system. They may lose top seed, but the whole point of power matching is to determine whether players deserve to be in elimination bracket contention, and to determine where they deserve to be seeded.
Okay, clear. I think I want everyone to take part in the elim too, so that's why this may not be the best idea, then. I also think that for my purposes, only a seed is too small a reward for ending on top after Swiss (esp. so when the field is very level). In many tournaments, the Swiss by itself determines the winner already. That's why I was thinking of the layered approach.
Thanks anyway for the write-up and explanation, I'll think about it some more and discuss with others.
On November 12 2012 22:46 aseq wrote: Okay, clear. I think I want everyone to take part in the elim too, so that's why this may not be the best idea, then. I also think that for my purposes, only a seed is too small a reward for ending on top after Swiss (esp. so when the field is very level). In many tournaments, the Swiss by itself determines the winner already. That's why I was thinking of the layered approach.
Thanks anyway for the write-up and explanation, I'll think about it some more and discuss with others.
If the player field is small enough, then I think everyone should clear. I wrote this procedure with about 128-64 players in mind. If only a seed is too small, consider perhaps something I didn't mention in my OP: granting top seeds a BYE in the elim's first stage.
Some tournaments in competitive gaming do something similar. Not really a fan of it because it seems very interventionist, but it's an option.