Cactus Game Design Message Boards

from the response of the thread i think we can agree that such an issue has at least been questioned and strongly deserves attention

But it's a threshhold for a reason.  A four-round ten player tournament is no different than one with 14 or 16 players, in that four rounds will determine a winner, in most circumstances going undefeated is not 100% required, and in the one case where it is, the winner defeated everyone in front of him, no one else was undefeated, and there are so many different scenarios once you have 16+ players that the number of rounds before every one-loss player gets one crack at the champion could as much as double the play time.

Heckuva run on sentence, dude.  

The problem with the threshold argument is that the probabilities of being able to win with one loss drop quickly as the number of players over the thresh hold increase and they drop to 0 when you end up with 2ⁿ -1 or 2ⁿ playing. So we agree that at the top end of the count where the number of players equals 2ⁿ (or 2ⁿ - 1) a Swiss-paired tournament is equivalent to a one and done tournament when it comes to winning.

"Thank you for putting in your long drive to get to Regionals. Unfortunately, if you get a horrendous three-LS draw in round one, your chance of winning the tournament is zero. Have fun, guys."

As far as doubling the play time goes, here's what I suggested...

For State and higher can we up the minimum number of required rounds to be at least one more than is listed currently.

I can't see that in the general case adding a single round is going to double play time. Nor can I understand why anyone would think that I am asking that "every one-loss player gets one crack at the champion."

Don't you have to pull the plug at some point?  I can see the logic in recommending extra rounds in certain situations but I don't agree with the idea of changing the rule to fit the exception.

I understand that. In the specific case under discussion I am asking that we pull the plug at State, Regional, and National tournaments. I feel the extra round should be granted for these tournaments precisely because Cactus limits the availability of these tournaments. This means a player can lose his/her only chance at a State/Regional title solely because he had a single horrible draw in one game.

My personal preference would be to change the thresholds for all tournaments from 8 (3), 16 (4), 32 (5), 64 (6) to 6 (3), 12 (4), 24 (5), 48 (6). This would, however, most likely end up upping the number of rounds at a significant number of Locals and Districts, and I understand that it could add to the burdens of the host.

As always, Rob has a good point.  Hosts can have the extra round if they want.  And as a host, I think I will try to start doing this.

How do you figure that the person playing either of the top two players in the second round placing are the best players in that category? 

hey,
It is not quite as apparent in a game to only 5 points, but if we played to 10,000 points, it would be quite clear that the top player (getting 9,993 points in the first game) and the 2nd best player (getting 9,225 points in the first game) would be playing against each other in the second round. This is the design of swiss style - not just another pairing.

I'm fine with declaring the top player in n rounds (the minimum required for single-elimination), and I'm fine declaring the top player in n+1 rounds - they should be able to beat the 1+n th/st best player in the additional round.

The next-player-in-the-line doesn't have an argument at this point regarding not having the chance to play the top player.  They are paired according to their performance - their wins and their losses are to lower-ranked players compared to the top player. They had their chance, and the strength of swiss style shines through in that they end up closer to the bottom of the pack.

I totally see the need at some times to run only the minimum number (thanx, Rob for the perspective!), but I would love to see the tournament guide encourage the additional round(s) based on the 2nd-3rd place players position in the system.
L8er,
Gil

Quote from: The Schaef on June 30, 2009, 11:53:54 AM

A four-round ten player tournament is no different than one with 14 or 16 players, in that four rounds will determine a winner, in most circumstances going undefeated is not 100% required

Actually I think that most of the time the winner will be undefeated.  After 1 round, there would be 5 undefeated players matching up.  After 2 rounds, there would be 2-3 undefeated players matching up.  After 3 rounds there would be 1-2 undefeated players matching up.  If that number was 2, then there would have to be an undefeated player.  The only way for this to not be the case is if someone lost a game, worked their way back up to the championship game in the 4th round and defeated the last undefeated player (or multiple timeouts).

Based on the experience of people who have been to a lot of tournaments (Pol, Kirk, etc.), this just doesn't happen very often.

Hey Prof, here are some numbers that lend credence to your belief.  Chris Bany has the scoring sheets for a bunch of past Nationals posted on the web at http://www.covenantgames.com/nationals/nationals.htm . Looking at that data we have the following results...


So, in the thirteen two-player events (we have records for) from Nationals dating back to 2002, there have been two cases where we didn't have an undefeated player remaining after the minimum number of rounds were played. In slightly more than half the cases (six of eleven) did the player who was undefeated go on to win the tournament.