Author Topic: Top Cut (Read 38147 times)

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #100 on:** September 04, 2012, 11:11:03 PM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 04, 2012, 10:47:30 PM

Quote from: jmhartz on September 04, 2012, 09:57:18 PM
"top cut" ...guarantees two things: One, the winner had to win 3/4/5 straight games against his/her best competitors, and two, there will be no heartbreak or complaining over convoluted tie-breakers.
You are right that it gets rid of convoluted tie-breakers. But the Swiss system we currently have already guarantees the winner had to win a bunch of games against the top players. This past summer, Martin Miller's last 4 rounds were wins against Jon Greeson, JSB, Polarius, and Chris Ericson (all of whom are well known top players and who all finished in the top 10 themselves). Top-cut isn't going to make anyone play a tougher schedule than that.

So we need to get away from the idea that top-cut will add any more legitimacy to winning the tournament. The only real advantage that it has is regarding tie-breakers.

First place, sure, but Earley (sorry bro) got second with 2-2 against top 20, and what's more is Connor Magras, who managed fourth and only played 2 of the top 20.

And isn't tie-breakers advantage enough? All the disadvantages (was there even multiple?) listed are not very good points, and top cut indefinitely helps out in at least some regard.

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #101 on:** September 04, 2012, 11:25:03 PM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 04, 2012, 10:47:30 PM

Quote from: jmhartz on September 04, 2012, 09:57:18 PM
"top cut" ...guarantees two things: One, the winner had to win 3/4/5 straight games against his/her best competitors, and two, there will be no heartbreak or complaining over convoluted tie-breakers.
You are right that it gets rid of convoluted tie-breakers. But the Swiss system we currently have already guarantees the winner had to win a bunch of games against the top players. This past summer, Martin Miller's last 4 rounds were wins against Jon Greeson, JSB, Polarius, and Chris Ericson (all of whom are well known top players and who all finished in the top 10 themselves). Top-cut isn't going to make anyone play a tougher schedule than that.

The Swiss system we currently have guarantees nothing of the sort. Martin's tough schedule was a result of his dominating from the get-go and is a tribute to the quality of his play and not to the Swiss format. For comparison look at 2007. In that tournament Gabe Isbell played precisely 2 top ten players in the final 8 rounds (the 2nd and 8th place finishers). A top-cut such has been proposed would guarantee that anyone placing would play a tougher schedule than that.

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So we need to get away from the idea that top-cut will add any more legitimacy to winning the tournament. The only real advantage that it has is regarding tie-breakers.

The first claim is debatable, but the tie breaker statement is undoubtedly true. Now go back and look at the discussions that have been held at the end of this year and they are all tie-breaker related. Tie breakers *are* the issue.

SirNobody · « **Reply #102 on:** September 04, 2012, 11:55:28 PM »

Hey,

One of the main advantages of swiss style is the fact that with adequate rounds it is almost the same as double (or even triple) elimination. I highly value the fact that any one loss at nationals does not (in most cases) eliminate you from contention. I am generally in favor of a top-cut system, but would oppose any such system that did not maintain the ability to overcome a loss at any point in the event (which means the post-cut bracket system would have to be at least true double elimination).

The main drawback of the Swiss Style system is that it values all wins equally. A player that is 2-5 and beats another player that is 2-5 is rewarded the same as a player that is 5-2 and beats another player that is 5-2 while in fact the wins are no where near equal. This is primarily a result of the fact that players are paired against players with like records so good players play good players and bad players play bad players. In the early rounds this isn't much of an issue because the system doesn't really know yet who the good players are and who the bad players are. The further the tournament progresses the better it knows who the good players and bad players are and the more significant the problem is. Once you've played about the number of rounds necessary to find a single elimination winner the system has a good idea of how good players are. It can kinda sort them into groups by skill level (or really performance level). Each round thereafter takes the top part of one group (the players that won) and switches it with the bottom part of the group above it (the players that lost) which results in a big mess in the middle. Players get tossed up toward the top that don't really deserve to be and players get tossed down away from the top that don't really deserve to be. In the swiss style the top players spend their last few rounds "pushing back down" the players that get thrown up to the top that don't belong there, which means they spend less time playing each other. Which frequently leads to results where there are few games played between top players (when top players do play several other top players it tends to cause them to be tossed down out of the top group when they shouldn't be because someone has to lose).

Implementing a top cut keeps players below it from being tossed up into it and keeps players in it from getting tossed down out of it. This means players won't play weaker opponents after an early loss and sneak back into the top without playing anyone good. And it means that players at the top can't manage to "miss" the other top players and finish well without playing many players that finished around them (one or two players can and probably will make it into the top 8 that way, but if they don't deserve to be there they'll quickly be eliminated from contention).

If I were designing our top-cut system it would be for nationals only and would be 7 swiss rounds followed by an 8 player double elimination top-cut. After the seven rounds players outside the top 8 would have the option to drop out of the tournament (if they'd rather hang out or play pick up games why should we stop them, if they're worn out after seven games or are a top player that under-performed and doesn't really want to play three more games against players unlikely to challenge them why should we force them to?) Those that don't drop out would play 3 additional swiss rounds with the results of that receiving 9th-last place. The top 8 would play a classic double elimination to determine the top 3 places. The double elimination part would take 4 or 5 rounds (depending on if someone ends up undefeated) which would be 3-4 hours (significantly less time is needed per round because there are fewer people to pair and with so few games odds are good that rounds end early).

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #103 on:** September 05, 2012, 01:27:34 AM »

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 04, 2012, 11:25:03 PM

For comparison look at 2007. In that tournament Gabe Isbell played precisely 2 top ten players in the final 8 rounds (the 2nd and 8th place finishers). A top-cut such has been proposed would guarantee that anyone placing would play a tougher schedule than that.

Gabe's schedule in 2007 was actually decently hard as well. He played 2 top 10 finishers in his first 2 rounds, and his last 3 rounds were wins against Reggie Flores (respected player who finished top 20), Christian Rohrer (finished top 10), and Kevin Shride (finished #2). A top-cut is unlikely to produce a harder schedule than that either.

Quote from: SirNobody on September 04, 2012, 11:55:28 PM

The main drawback of the Swiss Style system is that it values all wins equally. A player that is 2-5 and beats another player that is 2-5 is rewarded the same as a player that is 5-2 and beats another player that is 5-2 while in fact the wins are no where near equal.

That is a good point, and brings in another idea for making things more fair. Perhaps the number of victory points could vary depending on the # of wins that your opponent already has in the tournament. Just to throw out another completely different idea

Master KChief · « **Reply #104 on:** September 05, 2012, 02:17:22 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 01:27:34 AM

Gabe's schedule in 2007 was actually decently hard as well. He played 2 top 10 finishers in his first 2 rounds, and his last 3 rounds were wins against Reggie Flores (respected player who finished top 20), Christian Rohrer (finished top 10), and Kevin Shride (finished #2).

I'm so glad you brought this up, since 2 of those players also prove one of the biggest flaws of Swiss. Picking Michael Huerter as the PRIME example, he played Gabe first round and lost, and proceeded to lose his second round as well (X-2). His remaining 8 rounds consisted of a whopping ONE player from the top 20, cruising along on a far easy schedule placing him at 9th overall. You simply cannot use either of these players as ANY kind of indicator in how hard Gabe's schedule possibly was.

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 01:27:34 AM

A top-cut is unlikely to produce a harder schedule than that either.

It produces a harder schedule where it counts the absolute most: near the end of the tournament.

EmJayBee83 · « **Reply #105 on:** September 05, 2012, 07:28:25 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 01:27:34 AM

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 04, 2012, 11:25:03 PM
For comparison look at 2007. In that tournament Gabe Isbell played precisely 2 top ten players in the final 8 rounds (the 2nd and 8th place finishers). A top-cut such has been proposed would guarantee that anyone placing would play a tougher schedule than that.
Gabe's schedule in 2007 was actually decently hard as well. He played 2 top 10 finishers in his first 2 rounds, and his last 3 rounds were wins against Reggie Flores (respected player who finished top 20), Christian Rohrer (finished top 10), and Kevin Shride (finished #2).

The amount of special pleading here is remarkable. You make a specific point about Martin have a tough X final rounds--which no one disputes--and use this to claim that the Swiss guarantees tough schedules. When a counter example is provided that disproves this claim you simply switch the argument. Instead of final X matches, now we need to look at all matches. Let's also throw out the actual performance metric we were using (results against top ten finishers) and replace it with a "respected player" criterion.

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A top-cut is unlikely to produce a harder schedule than that either.

In an X-2 cut, Gabe still would have made the cut in 2007, but he would have had to play at least 3 (4) players ranked in the top 8 (16) in addition to the players from his first two rounds in order to win, as opposed to 2 games against top 16 (Reggie placed 17th). Clearly top cut guarantees a more difficult schedule in this case. The Swiss, on the other hand, guarantees basically nothing in terms of strength of schedule (unless you choose to redefine "strength of schedule" to match each individual case).

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #106 on:** September 05, 2012, 08:19:30 AM »

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 05, 2012, 07:28:25 AM

In an X-2 cut, Gabe still would have made the cut in 2007, but he would have had to play at least 3 (4) players ranked in the top 8 (16) in addition to the players from his first two rounds in order to win, as opposed to 2 games against top 16 (Reggie placed 17th). Clearly top cut guarantees a more difficult schedule in this case.

Actually I think you're mistaken. If Gabe would have made the cut in 2007, then all the people in front of him would have as well. Therefore he would have played the same people the last 4 rounds as he did anyway, so the difficulty of his schedule wouldn't have changed at all with top-cut.

Again, I think the only real advantage of top-cut is that it eliminates tie-breaker issues.

Korunks · « **Reply #107 on:** September 05, 2012, 08:24:53 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 08:19:30 AM

Again, I think the only real advantage of top-cut is that it eliminates tie-breaker issues.

Is that not sufficient? The rest of our tie breaking solutions are inadequate to say the least.

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #108 on:** September 05, 2012, 08:46:34 AM »

Quote from: Korunks on September 05, 2012, 08:24:53 AM

Is that not sufficient? The rest of our tie breaking solutions are inadequate to say the least.

I'm not totally sure, but I don't think it is sufficient for me. The tie-breaking issue really hasn't been much of a problem in the past until this last summer when it came up at a couple regionals. Even at Nats this summer the tie that people are talking about is for 7th place, so that really doesn't matter much. I'm just not convinced that we should make major changes to the overall tournament format if it isn't going to change anything other than clearing up ties.

On the other hand I am more interested in a couple of the other ideas that have come out which seem like they might make the tournament a lot more fair relating to strength of schedule. The idea from professional soccer of having small pools at the beginning rounds with a more even distribution of top players would be one way to do it. The idea of weighting the victory points based on the number of wins that your opponent has at that point of the tournament would be another way to do it. I suspect that the latter solution might ALSO solve the issues of ties.

Red · « **Reply #109 on:** September 05, 2012, 09:16:14 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 08:46:34 AM

Quote from: Korunks on September 05, 2012, 08:24:53 AM
Is that not sufficient? The rest of our tie breaking solutions are inadequate to say the least.
I'm not totally sure, but I don't think it is sufficient for me. The tie-breaking issue really hasn't been much of a problem in the past until this last summer when it came up at a couple regionals. Even at Nats this summer the tie that people are talking about is for 7th place, so that really doesn't matter much. I'm just not convinced that we should make major changes to the overall tournament format if it isn't going to change anything other than clearing up ties.

On the other hand I am more interested in a couple of the other ideas that have come out which seem like they might make the tournament a lot more fair relating to strength of schedule. The idea from professional soccer of having small pools at the beginning rounds with a more even distribution of top players would be one way to do it. The idea of weighting the victory points based on the number of wins that your opponent has at that point of the tournament would be another way to do it. I suspect that the latter solution might ALSO solve the issues of ties.

How do you think that top cut is more "eliteist" then sorting the supposed "Top Players" at the begining? I honestly want to know.

Chris · « **Reply #110 on:** September 05, 2012, 09:52:58 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 08:19:30 AM

Actually I think you're mistaken. If Gabe would have made the cut in 2007, then all the people in front of him would have as well. Therefore he would have played the same people the last 4 rounds as he did anyway, so the difficulty of his schedule wouldn't have changed at all with top-cut.

Again, I think the only real advantage of top-cut is that it eliminates tie-breaker issues.

This incorrect. The people in front of him would have changed based on their losses (which would have quite a few considering most of them weren't in the top ten), so Gabe would have ended up playing harder opponents earlier under top cut.

SirNobody · « **Reply #111 on:** September 05, 2012, 11:53:36 AM »

Hey,

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 08:19:30 AM

Actually I think you're mistaken. If Gabe would have made the cut in 2007, then all the people in front of him would have as well. Therefore he would have played the same people the last 4 rounds as he did anyway, so the difficulty of his schedule wouldn't have changed at all with top-cut.

That's not necessarily true (depending on which version of top cut you use). In the version I proposed Gabe makes the cut in the 8th spot and Christian Roher misses it in the 9th spot. Both Gabe and Christian won their 8th round games and played each other in the 9th round. Also (and perhaps I should have mentioned this in my general explanation) after the cut the 8 players are seeded based on their performance in the qualifying rounds. So Gabe would have had the lowest seed giving him the hardest path to winning of anyone in the field including his next game against the first place player (at the time) rather than his next game against the 7th place player.

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Again, I think the only real advantage of top-cut is that it eliminates tie-breaker issues.

The biggest advantage to top-cut is that the places are always determined by head-to-head games. In 07 five players finished the tournament 8-2. Gabe only played one of them. Ben Arp didn't play any of the 4 people he finished tied with. In 09 Jeff Lau placed second and didn't play the player that finished first (Gabe) or any of the three players that finished tied for third. Jeremy Kemp placed third and didn't play Gabe or Jeff.

For a game that is played with head to head match-ups it's surprisingly disappointing how often the winner of the event ends up being determined by who did best against the field.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #112 on:** September 05, 2012, 12:19:43 PM »

Quick question...is Top Cut seeded? So in an 8 person top cut: 1 vs 8, 4 vs 5, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6?

Red · « **Reply #113 on:** September 05, 2012, 12:33:27 PM »

Quote from: Westy on September 05, 2012, 12:19:43 PM

Quick question...is Top Cut seeded? So in an 8 person top cut: 1 vs 8, 4 vs 5, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6?

If it isn't you ain't doing it right.

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #114 on:** September 05, 2012, 12:35:35 PM »

In which case Gabe would have played MUCH harder opponents, punishing him for a poor swiss performance.

Chris · « **Reply #115 on:** September 05, 2012, 12:41:09 PM »

So, I recognize that at least one Elder is pretty firmly against this, and a couple other Elders seem to be indifferent, but can this not be an idea that simply stagnates and dies because nobody with influence was willing to take it to Rob? I don't think anyone in this topic has argued against something needing to be done, and with a five page topic, I think this is as good a time as any to hammer things out. Can one of the Elders please get in touch with Rob and see if this is an option, and if so, we can hammer out details so we can propose a concrete idea to him?

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #116 on:** September 05, 2012, 02:45:45 PM »

Quote from: Red on September 05, 2012, 09:16:14 AM

How do you think that top cut is more "eliteist" then sorting the supposed "Top Players" at the begining? I honestly want to know.

I've explained this before, but I'll try again. Seeding players prior to a tournament is elitist just as much as a top-cut is elitist. The difference is that the elitism is at the beginning and therefore if you play well enough, then you still have complete control throughout the tournament of where you end up. And your schedule to reach the top will be much closer in level of difficulty to everyone else's. Doing a top cut moves the elitism to mid-way through the tournament, and then locks people into the potential winners and everyone else who doesn't even have the opportunity anymore to work their way up into those top 8/16/32 spots. This makes it seem more elitist to me.

Quote from: Chris on September 05, 2012, 12:41:09 PM

So, I recognize that at least one Elder is pretty firmly against this, and a couple other Elders seem to be indifferent

I assume that the "firmly against" guy is me, but I'm actually using this (and the other) thread to process through this idea, and am not actually as against the idea as it probably comes across. For instance, I hadn't considered the "seeded" aspect of the top-cut until the last few posts, and I'm convinced that if you did that, then top-cut WOULD produce a more uniform strength of schedule. The people at the top of the top-cut would have had harder schedules prior to entering it, and would have an easier path to victory than normal swiss. The people who sneak into the bottom of the top-cut would have had easier schedules prior to entering it, and would have a harder path to victory than normal swiss. This actually is pretty good.

However the reason it is good is NOT because of the top-cut, but rather because of the seeding. This reinforces my previous idea that some sort of seeding is the best way to ensure a more fair tournament regarding strength of schedule. Which brings me back to the pro-soccer pool idea.

Quote from: Chris on September 05, 2012, 12:41:09 PM

can this not be an idea that simply stagnates and dies because nobody with influence was willing to take it to Rob?

Rob has an account here on the forum, and anyone is able to send him a PM about an issue that they feel is worth his time and energy to look into. However, I'd be more interested to discuss this a bit further ourselves before going forward with any proposals. For instance, Sir Nobody brought up the good point about victory points being the same in spite of the level of difficulty being very different. Does anyone have any input on whether a system which gave victory points based on the current record of the opponent is worth looking at more closely?

Red · « **Reply #117 on:** September 05, 2012, 03:30:26 PM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 02:45:45 PM

Quote from: Red on September 05, 2012, 09:16:14 AM
How do you think that top cut is more "eliteist" then sorting the supposed "Top Players" at the begining? I honestly want to know.
I've explained this before, but I'll try again. Seeding players prior to a tournament is elitist just as much as a top-cut is elitist. The difference is that the elitism is at the beginning and therefore if you play well enough, then you still have complete control throughout the tournament of where you end up. And your schedule to reach the top will be much closer in level of difficulty to everyone else's. Doing a top cut moves the elitism to mid-way through the tournament, and then locks people into the potential winners and everyone else who doesn't even have the opportunity anymore to work their way up into those top 8/16/32 spots. This makes it seem more elitist to me.

All top cut does is take the best players on that day then makes them play for the title to avoid tie breakers. It also prevents situations like Gabe winning without beating any of the other top players in 07.

Chris · « **Reply #118 on:** September 05, 2012, 03:37:18 PM »

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I've explained this before, but I'll try again. Seeding players prior to a tournament is elitist just as much as a top-cut is elitist. The difference is that the elitism is at the beginning and therefore if you play well enough, then you still have complete control throughout the tournament of where you end up. And your schedule to reach the top will be much closer in level of difficulty to everyone else's. Doing a top cut moves the elitism to mid-way through the tournament, and then locks people into the potential winners and everyone else who doesn't even have the opportunity anymore to work their way up into those top 8/16/32 spots. This makes it seem more elitist to me.

I believe that ranking people before we have any indication of how they're going to do in a tournament is much, much worse. You're basically going to be telling a specific group of people "we don't think you're good enough to be considered part of the 'elite,'" which is much more prejudiced and elitist than telling a group of people "you didn't do well enough in this tournament to make into it a predetermined, fair cut that you were aware of when you signed up for this tournament". And that's exactly why we want top cut: Fairness. Those people who would not have made top cut, but still managed to sneak their way into the top 10? Why do they deserve to be in the top 10 if they're playing easy opponents for more than half the tournament because they didn't perform well enough in the first part of the tournament? How is that fair to the people who played harder opponents for 6+ rounds?

Top cut doesn't completely solve this problem (realistically, nothing but single or double elimination for the whole tournament does, and nobody is advocating that), but under the Swiss system, losing early can be a giant reward because it gives that person the advantage of playing worse opponents. That is not fair. That is not right. That should be fixed. It's for these reasons that I believe my tie against Olijar is a travesty, and I am clearly better than he is, because he played easier opponents.

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Rob has an account here on the forum, and anyone is able to send him a PM about an issue that they feel is worth his time and energy to look into. However, I'd be more interested to discuss this a bit further ourselves before going forward with any proposals. For instance, Sir Nobody brought up the good point about victory points being the same in spite of the level of difficulty being very different. Does anyone have any input on whether a system which gave victory points based on the current record of the opponent is worth looking at more closely?

I'm about 95% sure that Pokemon and Magic both use top cut, and I think Yugioh does as well (someone can feel free to correct me on this). If this system has worked for those franchises, why would it not work for Redemption? They more than likely experimented with several other systems (probably including Swiss) before settling on the use of top cut. Any other system would require test runs before we could commit to it, and there's only three or four tournaments (NC Regionals, T2 Only, Nats, maybe one other) that might be large enough to test it. OR we can rely on the test runs of thousands of tournaments from other CCGs that have worked out splendidly. This is why I (and I suspect the other people who are pro-top cut) have no interest in looking at other options. We have available to us a system that has been proven to work and work wonderfully.

Master Q · « **Reply #119 on:** September 05, 2012, 04:32:47 PM »

One thing I would like to see is best 2 of 3, but only if both players are using 63 cards or less. That way it doesn't result in as many timeouts.

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #120 on:** September 05, 2012, 05:02:07 PM »

Quote from: Chris on September 05, 2012, 03:37:18 PM

I believe that ranking people before we have any indication of how they're going to do in a tournament is much, much worse. You're basically going to be telling a specific group of people "we don't think you're good enough to be considered part of the 'elite

First of all, it is silly to think that we don't have "any indication of how they're going to do in a tournament". If I show up at next year's national tournament, and Gabe is playing and so is my daughter, there are HUGE indications that Gabe will end up placing higher than her. Gabe is a multiple time national champion who has consistently been at the top of other big time tournaments including the T2-only, while my daughter was playing in Type-A this summer. That's a LOT of indicators of how their respective tournaments will go.

Second of all, you don't actually have to tell anyone that they're not good enough for anything. You simply start the tournament with everyone split into groups of 6 people. They can decide for themselves if they are 1 of the 2 "top-rated" players who were divided into groups, or whether they simply were thrown in as part of "everyone else".

Quote from: Chris on September 05, 2012, 03:37:18 PM

If this system has worked for those franchises, why would it not work for Redemption?

OK, so top cut has worked for some other games. But early round pools has worked for pro-soccer. And having a committee seed teams has been a big success for college basketball. And weighting scores based on level of difficulty has worked well for diving/ice skating/gymnastics/etc. in the Olympics. So lots of systems can work, I'm interested in discussing all options rather than just getting stuck on top-cut only.

Master KChief · « **Reply #121 on:** September 05, 2012, 05:23:53 PM »

Yugioh does indeed use both Swiss as qualifying rounds and top cut following that at Regionals and above (Yugioh Championship Series and Nationals). It looks like this:

Participants Swiss Rounds Rounds Day 1 Rounds Day 2 Playoff Top Cut
129 – 256 Duelists      8 Rounds      8 Rounds      None      Top 16
257 – 512 Duelists      9 Rounds      9 Rounds       None      Top 16
513 – 1024 Duelists      10 Rounds      8 Rounds      2 Rounds      Top 32
1025 – 2048 Duelists     11 Rounds      9 Rounds      2 Rounds      Top 32
2049 or more Duelists    12 Rounds      9 Rounds      3 Rounds      Top 64

Keep in mind this table was likely created based on the average amount of people that attend each event. Regionals generally pull in anywhere between 150 - 500 depending on location, and YCS's and Nationals anywhere from 1000 - 2000 (there was the one incident earlier this year at YCS Long Beach that broke the world record at over 4,000 participants, creating the first ever top 64 cut, but that is certainly the exception and not the norm). Of course we would have to adjust our top cut accordingly. I like what Sir Nobody suggested, since 7 rounds does give us a single undefeated player using the Nationals average, then break to top cut after.

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 05, 2012, 05:02:07 PM

OK, so top cut has worked for some other games.

Let's make this very, very clear: this hasn't worked for some games; this has worked for all of the mainstream games. Surely someone must be doing something right if Game A, B, and C of the Big 3 use the exact same system.

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And weighting scores based on level of difficulty has worked well for diving/ice skating/gymnastics/etc. in the Olympics.

Surely you meant to leave out the recent Olympics Badminton scandal, one that uses the exact format you are suggesting? Oh, ok.

STAMP · « **Reply #122 on:** September 05, 2012, 05:45:00 PM »

I think Elders, elders, and youngens are all in complete agreement at this point that the final players (4/8/16/32/etc.) qualifying for the knockout stages should be seeded. Yes?

Okay, moving on. I think the knockout stages should be double elimination matches, rather than best 2 out of 3 games for a match. Takes less time.

As for how to get the qualifying players there are pros and cons and loopholes to all of them. Probably the best choice is to continue with Swiss-style since that is what has been used for years and everybody already knows that.

Would I prefer pool play over Swiss? Yes, but that's just my opinion. Would I prefer a better ranking system than RNRS to pre-rank players for tournaments? Yes. Would I prefer that everyone play T2? Yes, because that promotes more business for Cactus.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #123 on:** September 05, 2012, 05:54:24 PM »

Prof U, I hate to rag on your idea even more than I already have, but this is probably a good time to point out that Soccer pool play works because the teams have already been top cut into the tournament.

Chris · « **Reply #124 on:** September 05, 2012, 06:01:03 PM »

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Rob,

We currently have a topic discussing the merits of using a Top Cut system over the Swiss system we have now. I don't know if you remember, but I got the chance to talk to you about it at the very end of Nats this last year, and it seemed to be something you were receptive to. I won't ask you read the whole topic (it's long and in-depth, and will probably be twice as long as its current five pages by the time you get a chance to read it), though the first post details what Top Cut is just in case you don't remember the details. All I'm asking right now is is Top Cut something you would seriously consider implementing? There's obviously no reason to even discuss if you don't like the idea, but a lot of us think it would be extremely good for the game and community as a whole. If it is something you would seriously consider, then we can perhaps put together the specific ideas we'd like to see implemented for your review.

Thanks for your consideration,
Chris

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