Author Topic: Top Cut (Read 38144 times)

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #25 on:** September 01, 2012, 09:45:39 AM »

Quote from: ReyZen on September 01, 2012, 02:17:39 AM

If my calculations are correct (based on the spreadsheet) ---

If my calculations are correct, using a 5-2 cut the following players would have made it into the play-off...
Brian Jones
Jay Chambers
John Earley
Jonathan Greeson
Josh Brinkman
Martin Miller
Matt Townsend
Daniel Huisinga
Chris Ericson
Alex Olijar
Alex Lewis
Blake Maust

The only final top-ten player not making the cut at that point would have been Connor Magras.

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It was priceless to see John, Connor, and Jay make it to Top 10 just because they were blessed with a Swiss Style tournament.

Sadly, Alex Lewis and Blake Maust were penalized by the Swiss Style compared to where they had been with a 5-2 cut. Wouldn't it have also been priceless to see Alex and Jay near the top of the standings at the end? Tournament format changes invariably lead to the people getting moved around in the standings. For every player who is blessed by a particular format there will be another player who is hurt by the choice. That is why picking a specific case and using that as a reason to keep Swiss is a flawed argument.

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Connor won by just 1 LS differential over the other 21-pointers, but that was enough to land him 4th place.

Connor played two players (Martin Miller and Alex Olijar) who ended up in the top 10. He was 1-1 with a -3 LS differential in those two matches. For comparison here are the number of games played against the top ten by the other 21-point winners.

Matt Townsend 5
Daniel Huisinga 2
Chris Ericson 6
Alex Olijar 5
Josh Brinkman 6
Jay Chambers 1

This whole discussion about top cut was relaunched by the lack of any standard for resolving the ties that the Swiss inevitably produces. What place would Connor have taken at the Northeast Regionals? Can anyone tell me why the LS differential was the chosen as the tie-break criterion at Nationals?

That I can even ask the last two questions with a straight face is *precisely* the problem. The fact that determining major tournament placing is so arbitrary that you have to have a conference call between the PtB to determine the results--and then completely different standards are used at other major tournaments--is a joke. More than that it is totally unfair to all of the players who should know ahead of time what they need to do to place.

The top cut (whether straight or X-2 style) resolves the tie breaker issue once and for all in a clean and fair manner. So if you are a proponent for Swiss Style only, how do you propose to resolve the tie breaker issue?

YourMathTeacher · « **Reply #26 on:** September 01, 2012, 10:26:09 AM »

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 01, 2012, 09:45:39 AM

So if you are a proponent for Swiss Style only, how do you propose to resolve the tie breaker issue?

We have no tie-breaker issues down here, so I propose you do what you want at your tournaments, and you let those of us who want to, continue using a system that works just fine.

Again, I am not opposed to having Top Cut be an option, but there is no need to make it mandatory, except at Nats.

galadgawyn · « **Reply #27 on:** September 01, 2012, 10:59:20 AM »

I don't really care about top cut one way or another. I just want good, positive, healthy competition and if it promotes that then I'm all for it.

This might be totally impratical but just throwing this out there that if we simply played more rounds that would probably make it clearer as to who is at the top. If we had 20 rounds then all the top players would have played lots of games against other top players and I doubt there would be as many tie-breaker issues. Maybe we could try this with best of 3 for the 20th anniversary or something like that to have a clear winner. Of course at some point it would become a test of endurance as opposed to skill.

The other option is to have more than 1 Nats a year like Golf or Tennis where you have multiple major tournaments that add to the years total.

I think the unfortunate reality is that we don't have enough players to have some of the better competitive options available. I'm still hoping that maybe someday we'll get there.

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #28 on:** September 01, 2012, 11:18:07 AM »

Quote from: YourMathTeacher on September 01, 2012, 10:26:09 AM

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 01, 2012, 09:45:39 AM
So if you are a proponent for Swiss Style only, how do you propose to resolve the tie breaker issue?

We have no tie-breaker issues down here, so I propose you do what you want at your tournaments, and you let those of us who want to, continue using a system that works just fine.

YMT, since the primary reason this discussion is here is due to problems with how tie-breakers are handled, it would be nice if you would answer the question I asked--the one you chose to respond to--so everyone could benefit from your method of ensuring that tie-breakers are not an issue. Could you explain exactly how you resolve tie breakers so that you never have issues?

Quote from: galadgawyn on September 01, 2012, 10:59:20 AM

The other option is to have more than 1 Nats a year like Golf or Tennis where you have multiple major tournaments that add to the years total.

I thought that was one purpose that the major (State and Regional) tournaments are supposed to serve. That is why they represent more than half of the possible RNRS points prior to Nationals. It would be nice if we could at least get rulings consistency in those tournaments.

YourMathTeacher · « **Reply #29 on:** September 01, 2012, 12:35:45 PM »

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 01, 2012, 11:18:07 AM

YMT, since the primary reason this discussion is here is due to problems with how tie-breakers are handled, it would be nice if you would answer the question I asked--the one you chose to respond to--so everyone could benefit from your method of ensuring that tie-breakers are not an issue. Could you explain exactly how you resolve tie breakers so that you never have issues?

I apologize for sounding flippant. I had mentioned it earlier in one of my posts, and in previous threads about the issue you are referring to. I use Swiss + 1, so any ties are resolved in head-to-head matches. This way everyone else is only sitting for one round, and I structure my tournaments so that the meal break comes after each category. Thus, those not involved get to eat.

The main psychological difference is that if you are not playing in the extra round, it's not because you're a low-tier player (read by some as "loser"), it is because you were not in a tie for an award-earning place.

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #30 on:** September 01, 2012, 05:13:40 PM »

Quote from: YourMathTeacher on September 01, 2012, 12:35:45 PM

I use Swiss + 1, so any ties are resolved in head-to-head matches.

Do you always play the tie-breaker, or do you only do so if the tied players had no head-to-head result from earlier in the tournament? What do you do when more than two players are tied (including the A beat B, B beat C, and C beat A scenario that gets tossed around)? What do you do if one of the tied players has low blood sugar, and you must either let him eat or risk facing a medical emergency?

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #31 on:** September 01, 2012, 07:18:14 PM »

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 01, 2012, 09:45:39 AM

Connor played two players (Martin Miller and Alex Olijar) who ended up in the top 10. He was 1-1 with a -3 LS differential in those two matches. For comparison here are the number of games played against the top ten by the other 21-point winners.

Matt Townsend 5
Daniel Huisinga 2
Chris Ericson 6
Alex Olijar 5
Josh Brinkman 6
Jay Chambers 1

I think this is a MUCH more significant issue than the whole top-cut thing. We have some people having to play up to 6 players in the top 10, and others who only have to play 1. Yet they all end up with the same score at the end. I'm not sure how to resolve this issue without having some sort of pre-tournament ranking system (maybe based on RNRS for the year prior to Nats), but I wish that all the people wanting to switch to top-cut would instead put some thought into how to make this more fair.

I'd be interested to see how many games all the top 20 people played against top 20 people and what their records were in those games.

Chris · « **Reply #32 on:** September 01, 2012, 07:39:24 PM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 01, 2012, 07:18:14 PM

I think this is a MUCH more significant issue than the whole top-cut thing. We have some people having to play up to 6 players in the top 10, and others who only have to play 1. Yet they all end up with the same score at the end. I'm not sure how to resolve this issue without having some sort of pre-tournament ranking system (maybe based on RNRS for the year prior to Nats), but I wish that all the people wanting to switch to top-cut would instead put some thought into how to make this more fair.

I'd be interested to see how many games all the top 20 people played against top 20 people and what their records were in those games.

Top cut actually pretty much fixes this problem, by forcing the top players to play other top players in order to win. These rankings are simply proof that the Swiss system has some serious faults that should be looked at. By doing well at the beginning, I was actually penalized by having to play more hard opponents, and two of my losses were against people who did better than I did (Martin and Matt) and one person who tied (Josh). Meanwhile, one of my wins was by someone who did better than I did (John), one was by someone I tied with (Olijar), and one was by someone I did better than (Jay). In the top ten, I ultimately went 3-3. We cannot seriously ask anyone to take this game seriously from a competitive angle when doing good early is a potential detriment to overall performance. I recognize that fun and fellowship is the number one concern, but I fear we are completely disregarding the competitive aspect in the name of fun and fellowship. Someone (I believe STAMP) said that if we lose the fellowship aspect of the game, it will die. While I wholeheartedly agree with this, I fear that if we continue to ignore the competitive aspect of the game, it will die just as surely. To clarify, this is neither a threat nor a promise, simply a prediction. While I've said many times that I wanted to quit the game and the community over the last year, even at Nats after my loss to Martin, I've since developed a passive approach and I'm not taking things quite so seriously as I was.

TheMarti · « **Reply #33 on:** September 01, 2012, 08:04:29 PM »

Would making Top Cut a "tournament size" issue instead of making it mandatory or optional fix the conflict we seem to be having here? Top Cut would be silly at tournaments with less than 20 or even 25 people, in my opinion. Then, people who want to keep their tournaments with Swiss can?

Sad to say, even though the game is for fun and fellowship, the fact that we have tournaments adds to the competitiveness. Now, I will say, it has gotten ridiculous in terms of sportsmanship and such in the past couple of years, which is why I have basically backed out of playing. It's not fun anymore, unless I'm playing closed events, and sometimes even those get bouts of frustrated or arrogant people.

I do agree something needs to happen. Sealed at PA states, whatever category with a 5-way tie for 1st at NE Regionals, and the issues at another state tournament proves that. But I don't think top-cut would have solved those issues, because they weren't huge tournaments (except NE Regionals)

Chris · « **Reply #34 on:** September 01, 2012, 08:25:12 PM »

Quote from: The Marti on September 01, 2012, 08:04:29 PM

Would making Top Cut a "tournament size" issue instead of making it mandatory or optional fix the conflict we seem to be having here? Top Cut would be silly at tournaments with less than 20 or even 25 people, in my opinion. Then, people who want to keep their tournaments with Swiss can?

I like this idea. The issue is consistency, and if we make it a question of how many people are participating as opposed to tournament level, I see no reason this couldn't work. If the rule was simply that tournaments with X amount of people or more had to be top cut instead of regular Swiss, I would love this.

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I do agree something needs to happen. Sealed at PA states, whatever category with a 5-way tie for 1st at NE Regionals, and the issues at another state tournament proves that. But I don't think top-cut would have solved those issues, because they weren't huge tournaments (except NE Regionals)

I believe the main issue here is simply playing too many rounds in the name of fun. If we played the minimum amount of rounds, it wouldn't be a problem.

YourMathTeacher · « **Reply #35 on:** September 01, 2012, 10:04:17 PM »

Quote from: The Marti on September 01, 2012, 08:04:29 PM

It's not fun anymore, unless I'm playing closed events, and sometimes even those get bouts of frustrated or arrogant people.

Come visit us in Florida. We have fun!

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #36 on:** September 01, 2012, 10:37:15 PM »

I have fun while playing competitively.

Minister Polarius · « **Reply #37 on:** September 01, 2012, 11:43:18 PM »

At least at Regionals and Nationals, the fun and fellowship will happen regardless of what goes on during the actual rounds. While this year's Natz was shockingly tame, most Nationals and Regionals I've been to (multi-day tournaments with people staying on- or near-site) it's business during the day, party at night. Fun and fellowship is going to be achieved simply by the nature of the thing, so why not pay a bit more attention to the fact that it's a tournament?

Captain Kirk · « **Reply #38 on:** September 02, 2012, 03:39:13 AM »

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I do agree something needs to happen. Sealed at PA states, whatever category with a 5-way tie for 1st at NE Regionals, and the issues at another state tournament proves that. But I don't think top-cut would have solved those issues, because they weren't huge tournaments (except NE Regionals)

I believe the main issue here is simply playing too many rounds in the name of fun. If we played the minimum amount of rounds, it wouldn't be a problem.

I would agree that playing more rounds that are needed to determine one undefeated player or not having single or double elimination formats leads to the convoluted ties that came to the forefront this past tournament season.

Quote from: YourMathTeacher

My players want to keep playing, and they want experience playing the top players. They are young and not ultra competitive. They actually have fun losing to Josh Kopp (because he's Josh), but they still love talking about their games with him to me later. In a Top Cut system, they will be relegated to playing each other over and over, since they were not winning anyway. Appalachian State loves the exposure of playing the FBS schools, even if they lose. But playing the big boys makes them better, which gives them the hope of someday beating Michigan in the Big House. They don't want to be left out because the Top Cut said they don't deserve the chance.

In a Top Cut system they will not be relegated to playing each other over and over because you should only play a unique opponent once. Even in a typical Swiss-style nationals, the only way to play the players at the very top of that particular tournament is to be matched up in round 1 against them or win a lot of games to play against them. Outside of the players in that make the top cut there are a number of really good players that could be in the top cut on any other given day. With that being said your players would still have the opportunity to play against those top players.

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I agree with Mark that a Top Cut is elitist and promotes cutthroat play, which I will always oppose.

I think that the fact that tournaments exist in the first place provides reason for cutthroat play to happen - regardless if it is Swiss, single-elimination, double-elimination, top deck, etc.

All this talk about "elite" players and "playing against the best" got me thinking who the best performers at nationals in the main event have been over the past decade. I did a lot of number crunching (by creating some macros that saved me hours of work) and came up with the top 50 players over the past 10 years (including active and retired players). I am still going to do some further work with the spreadsheet so I don't plan to make it available for everyone quite yet (I will eventually email it to all interested) but I did want to share what I found out.

Top 50
1. Gabe Isbell
2. John Nesfeder
3. Daniel Huisinga
.... And the rest will be revealed in its own thread.

Kirk

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #39 on:** September 02, 2012, 09:48:02 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 01, 2012, 07:18:14 PM

I think this is a MUCH more significant issue than the whole top-cut thing. We have some people having to play up to 6 players in the top 10, and others who only have to play 1. Yet they all end up with the same score at the end. I'm not sure how to resolve this issue without having some sort of pre-tournament ranking system (maybe based on RNRS for the year prior to Nats), but I wish that all the people wanting to switch to top-cut would instead put some thought into how to make this more fair.

This is the direct result of the format. Yes, a seeding system may ameliorate it somewhat, but at the cost of instituting a a player ranking system. If you really want to resolve this issue, the simplest thing to do is to go with a top cut, which eliminates it entirely. Moreover the top cut, being based on tournament performance, is going to have much less of an "elitist feel" to it and lead to much less petty squabbling than a player ranking system will. (This conclusion *is* the result of putting some thought on how to make the system more fair.

)

Quote from: Chris on September 01, 2012, 08:25:12 PM

I believe the main issue here is simply playing too many rounds in the name of fun. If we played the minimum amount of rounds, it wouldn't be a problem.

Not really. If you play the minimum number of rounds the only problem you fix is with first place. (Barring ties and such, a minimum round Swiss guarantees that you will have two players tied for second. You need minimum + 1 to have a chance to resolve 2nd/3rd, but minimum + 1 gives the 1st place player a chance to falter making it not so clean at the top.) The problem is much more general than ties for first--as the example at hand shows. The other thing related to this is that a minimum round Swiss is essentially single elimination for first. For the good players I have witnessed, one-bad-draw/match-and-you-are-out tournaments tend to not be so enjoyable.

Quote from: The Marti on September 01, 2012, 08:04:29 PM

Would making Top Cut a "tournament size" issue instead of making it mandatory or optional fix the conflict we seem to be having here? Top Cut would be silly at tournaments with less than 20 or even 25 people, in my opinion. Then, people who want to keep their tournaments with Swiss can?

Right now the only tournament that has a format dictated by Cactus is Nationals, and I don't think anyone is zealous enough to be talking about making top cut (or any format) mandatory at the District/Local level. Personally, for consistency sake I would like to see something standardized at Regionals (and am ambivalent about States), but I can see why having some threshold even at the Regional level would be good.

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Now, I will say, it has gotten ridiculous in terms of sportsmanship and such in the past couple of years, which is why I have basically backed out of playing. It's not fun anymore, unless I'm playing closed events, and sometimes even those get bouts of frustrated or arrogant people.

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #40 on:** September 02, 2012, 10:35:59 AM »

Quote from: Chris on September 01, 2012, 07:39:24 PM

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 01, 2012, 07:18:14 PM
We have some people having to play up to 6 players in the top 10, and others who only have to play 1.
Top cut actually pretty much fixes this problem

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 02, 2012, 09:48:02 AM

If you really want to resolve this issue, the simplest thing to do is to go with a top cut, which eliminates it entirely.

I disagree with both of you. It doesn't solve the problem, it just hides it. If there were a top cut after 7 rounds (as some are suggesting), then there would still be a lot of unfairness as to how many top players everyone had to face in those first 7 rounds. Someone could get into the top-cut having only played 1 top player while someone else would have to play 4 top players to get there.

I'd still like to see someone figure out the records of the top 20 players at Nats this year vs. the top 20 players.

Chris · « **Reply #41 on:** September 02, 2012, 11:00:39 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 02, 2012, 10:35:59 AM

I disagree with both of you. It doesn't solve the problem, it just hides it. If there were a top cut after 7 rounds (as some are suggesting), then there would still be a lot of unfairness as to how many top players everyone had to face in those first 7 rounds. Someone could get into the top-cut having only played 1 top player while someone else would have to play 4 top players to get there.

Yes, but making it into the top cut is, on its own, meaningless, especially if top cut was implemented with a larger number of people (i.e. 16 or 32) which is probably the more likely option if it's even implemented at all. I, personally, don't care if someone makes top cut having only played one top player because in order to close the deal, they're going to have beat a lot more top players. Yes, some people might have the goal of getting into the top cut (among other self-imposed goals), I don't think that putting that much of an emphasis on the mini-goals people set for themselves should really be a priority. The only real way to stop the issue you're talking about entirely is to do pre-tournament ranking, and that will hurt the fun and fellowship more than top cut ever would.

Master KChief · « **Reply #42 on:** September 02, 2012, 12:55:45 PM »

Quote from: Chris on September 02, 2012, 11:00:39 AM

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 02, 2012, 10:35:59 AM
I disagree with both of you. It doesn't solve the problem, it just hides it. If there were a top cut after 7 rounds (as some are suggesting), then there would still be a lot of unfairness as to how many top players everyone had to face in those first 7 rounds. Someone could get into the top-cut having only played 1 top player while someone else would have to play 4 top players to get there.

I, personally, don't care if someone makes top cut having only played one top player because in order to close the deal, they're going to have beat a lot more top players.

This. I really don't grasp how some people aren't understanding that this is one of the two biggest problems top cut primarily solves.

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #43 on:** September 02, 2012, 01:16:14 PM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 02, 2012, 10:35:59 AM

I'd still like to see someone figure out the records of the top 20 players at Nats this year vs. the top 20 players.

A link to the tournament spreadsheet can be found here. If you think this information would be valuable you can find it easily enough.

YourMathTeacher · « **Reply #44 on:** September 02, 2012, 03:03:28 PM »

I will not be posting any more on this topic. My final thoughts, as I've already alluded to:

1. I have no problem with Top Cut for Nationals only.
2. I have no problem with Top Cut for categories over 31 people.
3. In any other circumstance, I have no problem with Top Cut if it is optional for the host.

Since Central Florida has already hosted the last two FL State and SE Regional tournaments in a row, I will not likely be hosting either for at least the next two years (in all fairness). Therefore, my opinion should have little weight on the decision to implement Top Cut anyway.

EDIT: Thanks for the suggested change, Westy, since that is what I meant.

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #45 on:** September 02, 2012, 03:44:37 PM »

Quote from: YourMathTeacher on September 02, 2012, 03:03:28 PM

I will not be posting any more on this topic. My final thoughts, as I've already alluded to:

1. I have no problem with Top Cut for Nationals only.
2. I have no problem with Top Cut for tournaments over 30 people.
3. In any other circumstance, I have no problem with Top Cut if it is optional for the host.

Since Central Florida has already hosted the last two FL State and SE Regional tournaments in a row, I will not likely be hosting either for at least the next two years (in all fairness). Therefore, my opinion should have little weight on the decision to implement Top Cut anyway.

With the exception of changing 2. to "categories with more than 32 people", I fully agree.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #46 on:** September 02, 2012, 09:13:44 PM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 02, 2012, 10:35:59 AM

I'd still like to see someone figure out the records of the top 20 players at Nats this year vs. the top 20 players.

You want to know what the top 1/3 of the field did against each other? Fine.

Martin Miller: 7-1
John Earley: 2-2
Jonathon Greeson: 6-2
Connor Magras: 1-1 (with a timeout loss as well)
Matt Townsend: 3-3
Daniel Huisinga: 4-2
Chris Ericson: 6-3
Alex Olijar: 4-3
Josh Brinkman: 4-3
Jay Chambers: 2-2
Caleb Stanley: 0-1
Mark Underwood: 1-3 with a timeout win
James Roepke: 1-3
James Courtney: 3-2
Andrew Wester: 1-3
Chris Egley: 1-0
Jacob Arrowood: 1-3
Brian Jones: 1-4
Nic Marshall: 1-3
Christian Fong: 0-4

Master KChief · « **Reply #47 on:** September 02, 2012, 09:23:27 PM »

More than anything, seeing those numbers further perpetuates the significant necessity for top cut.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #48 on:** September 02, 2012, 09:27:04 PM »

Quote from: Master KChief on September 02, 2012, 09:23:27 PM

More than anything, seeing those numbers further perpetuates the significant necessity for top cut.

Pretty much.

Red · « **Reply #49 on:** September 02, 2012, 10:14:48 PM »

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on September 02, 2012, 09:13:44 PM

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 02, 2012, 10:35:59 AM
I'd still like to see someone figure out the records of the top 20 players at Nats this year vs. the top 20 players.

You want to know what the top 1/3 of the field did against each other? Fine.

Martin Miller: 7-1
John Earley: 2-2
Jonathon Greeson: 6-2
Connor Magras: 1-1 (with a timeout loss as well)
Matt Townsend: 3-3
Daniel Huisinga: 4-2
Chris Ericson: 6-3
Alex Olijar: 4-3
Josh Brinkman: 4-3
Jay Chambers: 2-2
Caleb Stanley: 0-1
Mark Underwood: 1-3 with a timeout win
James Roepke: 1-3
James Courtney: 3-2
Andrew Wester: 1-3
Chris Egley: 1-0
Jacob Arrowood: 1-3
Brian Jones: 1-4
Nic Marshall: 1-3
Christian Fong: 0-4

Where are you getting my second loss? I'm fairly certain I was 2-1?

News:

Author Topic: Top Cut (Read 38144 times)

Chris

TheMarti

Chris

Warrior_Monk

Chris

Warrior_Monk