Tuesday, May 01, 2007
The last rematch post EVER.
OK, the title is a lie. Unfortunately, this will not be the last time I write about why we play rematches is UPA formats. In fact, I will probably look back at this in a few months and feel like revising or adding to it. But this issue comes up so often, and I think it would be helpful for me to try to lay out all the main arguments in one place. So here it is.
---
Why do we play the final game to go in UPA formats even when this game is a rematch?
1) Teams should be able to plan ahead knowing that a specific sequence of wins and losses will effect a specific outcome. From both a psychological perspective and (more significantly) a physical one, this makes the tournament more fair. Teams can plan their rotations and strategy based on knowing what games they will be in depending on the results of the games they are playing. In my opinion, it makes the tournament seem more professional if the brackets are played out.
2) It introduces an element of uncertainty and randomness to the event if a team loses in bracket play, and then has to accept that their season may be over if things don't go "their way" in other games. I've often thought that it's a galvanizing moment when you lose your first game in double elimination, and someone says "OK, now we win the rest of our games". I don't want to have to respond "unless (the team that just beat us) loses in the finals… then we're fucked no matter what we do." Emotionally, having your season end with a win and being shut out of the game to go would be extrodinarily anticlimactic (and devastating).
3) Making the final game no-rematch conditional would introduce similar issues to the problems with three-way ties in pool play – namely, that something happening in another game on a different field could change where you finish.
In pool play, one loss usually puts you in second place, but if some other games go a certain way, you could end up third, and you have relatively little control over this. Similarly, if the final game to go is no-rematch conditional, then the results on another field can change whether you have a chance to advance or not. In both cases, yes, you could have avoided any potential issues just by winning all of your games. But unless we are talking about only running single elimination, one advance formats, such an argument is a non-starter.
Normally, bracket play avoids these issues – your results on the field and your results alone will decide where you finish. This is the main reason why almost every format uses brackets to determine which teams advance. Making the last game no-rematch conditional muddies the waters and, in my opinion, negates much of the benefit and simple elegance of using a bracket to figure out this spot.
4) If we make the final game no-rematch conditional, then we are introducing a fundamental inconsistency in our approach. We will be saying that rematches should be played UNLESS they are in the last game. Why is the last game different? The practical reason, of course, is that otherwise you are introducing all sorts of extra byes into the format, which is certainly more unfair than a rematch is. But if we're making this concession that avoiding rematches is a priority of the format, then in some sense we are saying, "this game is bad but you have to play it anyway".
This is not an argument against avoiding the final rematch, per se; I'm simply pointing out that pursuing the goal of avoiding rematches does not lead us to formats where we just make the final game no-rematch conditional. It leads us to single elimination brackets, or round robin formats with no brackets, or a few specialized formats with extremely abbreviated brackets. Those are the only formats where we can assure ourselves of avoiding rematches throughout.
5) "dead team/clinched team" scenarios and fairness issues.
There's several varieties of negative scenarios that can crop up if we make the last game no-rematch conditional. There are two basic variations. In both cases, AvB is the "upper" game, where the winner is done, and CvD is the "lower" game where the loser is eliminated, and the AvB loser plays the CvD winner in the game for the final spot.
a) D has lost to both A and B. D's season is over, they are a "dead team walking". They are likely to open up the rotation, or even worse, just forfeit the game. This unfairly benefits C and unfairly punishes A and B (ironically, they are being punished for their victories, not their defeats).
b) A has beaten both C and D, B has beaten neither. A has clinched advancement, and has no motivation for the next level except placement, while B is playing for a spot. B beats a relatively unmotivated A and ends the event.
There are also crosses of these scenarios. For example, A has already beaten C and B has already beaten D. (This scenario would appear in 16 teams, 2 advance if the semifinalists meet in the game to reach the backdoor finals.) Any final result in the top game eliminates one of the bottom teams, and any result in the bottom game clinches for one of the top teams – effectively moving you into one of the two scenarios I outlined above. In these cases, both the upper and lower games become extremely uncertain affairs and you have a lot of scoreboard watching. Some people might consider this sort of uncertainty and randomness exciting, but I personally think we owe the players a more predictable experience.
6) Potential gamesmanhip
If we make the final game no-rematch conditional, then the desire to avoid being shut out of that game can actually lead a team to want to intentionally lose a game. If the final game is no-rematch conditional, you have one of two ways to advance to the next level:
a) reach the "upper game" (i.e. the game where the loser is in the final game to go)
b) make sure that you don't lose to the team you expect will lose the "upper game"
If you think your chances of reaching the "upper game" are low, for whatever reason, then your best strategy could become intentionally losing to avoid your most likely opponent in the final game to go. Consider the following scenario:
The tournament is the standard 16 team, 2 advance bracket format. There is a very large talent gap between the 1 and 2, and between the 3 and the remaining teams. The 3 has a very deep roster, while the 2 relies on a small core of players. If you are on the 3 seed, it may be in your interest to intentionally lose in the quarterfinals. This will allow you to get your (only) shot at the 2 seed in the last game of the weekend, rather than in the semifinals when they are relatively fresh.
It actually takes a fairly peculiar set of relative team strengths to make this strategy viable, but in my opinion it is more realistic than any gamesmanship scenario that results from our current no-rematch policy.
---
Now, allow me to address three of the more common arguments against playing the rematch:
"If we lose the rematch, then winning the first game was meaningless"
I consider this to be the weakest argument against playing the rematch. The only sense in which this is accurate is the same sense as the statement "all of our games were meaningless since we didn't qualify".
There are multiple, tangible benefits to winning the first meeting between two teams, even if you are fairly confident you will end up having to beat the same team a second time to qualify. Namely:
1) You save a loss for later. In all the bracket formats you have a finite number of losses. If the first meeting between the teams is the front-door semifinals, then winning means you don't have to win another game to reach the final game to go.
2) In many formats, you have to play one fewer game to reach the final game to go. This isn't true of the first "3v4" game in the 16 team, 3 advance bracket format – nor is it true in the four team double elimination that is played in a few formats. But in most formats it is true, and playing one fewer game can be very significant.
3) If you lose the first game, there is a non-trivial chance that you will be upset in a subsequent elimination game and not even reach the game to go. This is a variation on the first reason I cited.
4) Conversely, if you win the first game, you have at least some chance to win later games (perhaps in an upset), and therefore qualify without even having to play in the final game to go.
5) Even if you feel your chances of winning finals or losing backdoor games are trivially small, winning the first contest gives you the opportunity to rest your starters and save yourself for the game to go. This amounts to cashing in the loss you saved by winning the first game. If you really feel that first game is meaningless, let the other team be the one to tank.
"statistical argument – 1-1 proves nothing except ambiguity"
This argument at first appears quite strong, but upon further examination it is, in my opinion, something of a mirage.
Consider a final game to go that pits two teams against each other that had played earlier in the event, with the team from the "upper game" winning the first contest. This game can have one of two outcomes:
- the team from the upper game wins, and advances with a 2-0 record against the team from the lower game.
- the team from the lower game wins, and advances with a 1-1 record against the team from the upper game.
From the perspective of this "ambiguity" argument, the first scenario is irrelevant, so let's consider only the second case.
Imagine for a moment that you have an oracle with you, and you know that the lower team will win, even before the game starts. You have the choice of either allowing the game to go on or cancelling it, on account of it being a rematch. Should you cancel it? The first instinctive answer might be yes, because you want to avoid the ambiguity.
But are you really avoiding it? No, it already exists. You know, after all, that the lower team would win. No, what you are doing is avoiding the APPEARANCE of ambiguity. The ambiguity is there whether you like it or not.
Like I said, the ambiguity argument is, to me, a mirage. Making the game no-rematch conditional is not preventing ambiguity; it is merely hiding it by protecting the 1-0 team.
A slight variant of this argument is the argument that "the rematch does not consistently help us find the better team". Again, the 2-0 upper game winner case is irrelevant. So the question really becomes: who is more likely to be the better/more deserving team – the team that won the first game, or the team that won the second game? Here I don't have an answer, but my suspicion would be the team that won the second game. I have two reasons for this suspicion:
1) Everyone knows the format and knows that the second game is the one that truly settles your fate. While I reject the idea that the first game is meaningless, the stakes are even higher in the second game, and I would place a lot of emphasis on that high stakes contest.
2) Most people who I have discussed it with agree that nationals is about the most physically gruelling tournament you will ever play in. The winner of the second game is probably the team in better shape and/or or that relies on a deeper rotation, and that team is more likely to represent their region well at nationals.
"letdown/momentum/revenge argument – the team coming into the final game on a win has an edge"
I don't want to dismiss this argument out of hand. I am definitely a believer in sports psychology. I would simply state that I don't believe this mental edge argument to be consistently true, moreover I don't think it is true consistently enough to base policy on. All of these factors (upper game loser being deflated from a tight loss, lower game winner being confident and fresh, lower game winner motivated for revenge while upper game loser is anxious or complacent) are possible. But it could just as easily be the opposite factors in play (upper game loser well rested from a quick loss, lower game winner spent from a nailbiter, upper game loser confident but not cocky while the lower game winner is in their own heads and thinks they have to play past their level to win).
Which of these factors is dominant? I don't know. You don't know, either. Nobody knows. I would like to do a study of every rematch game-to-go that's ever happened, see the statistics on the upsets, and see how the teams did at the next level. I'd like to be able to draw some conclusions on the average physical/psychological state of the teams in the rematch games, but the data is just not there.
This is actually a good idea for a UPA grant in my opinion. Somebody should get a grant, go through every UPA event that has ever been played, and try to compile the available results into a database. Obviously the results would get increasingly sparse the further back you go, but the old newsletters do have much of the results from nationals at least, going back into the 70s. It would be really cool to be able to just pull up 1990 club nationals on the score reporter.
Until that happens, though, I consider this argument speculative at best and inaccurate at worst.
---
OK, that's all, for now. I consider this a work in progress.
---
Why do we play the final game to go in UPA formats even when this game is a rematch?
1) Teams should be able to plan ahead knowing that a specific sequence of wins and losses will effect a specific outcome. From both a psychological perspective and (more significantly) a physical one, this makes the tournament more fair. Teams can plan their rotations and strategy based on knowing what games they will be in depending on the results of the games they are playing. In my opinion, it makes the tournament seem more professional if the brackets are played out.
2) It introduces an element of uncertainty and randomness to the event if a team loses in bracket play, and then has to accept that their season may be over if things don't go "their way" in other games. I've often thought that it's a galvanizing moment when you lose your first game in double elimination, and someone says "OK, now we win the rest of our games". I don't want to have to respond "unless (the team that just beat us) loses in the finals… then we're fucked no matter what we do." Emotionally, having your season end with a win and being shut out of the game to go would be extrodinarily anticlimactic (and devastating).
3) Making the final game no-rematch conditional would introduce similar issues to the problems with three-way ties in pool play – namely, that something happening in another game on a different field could change where you finish.
In pool play, one loss usually puts you in second place, but if some other games go a certain way, you could end up third, and you have relatively little control over this. Similarly, if the final game to go is no-rematch conditional, then the results on another field can change whether you have a chance to advance or not. In both cases, yes, you could have avoided any potential issues just by winning all of your games. But unless we are talking about only running single elimination, one advance formats, such an argument is a non-starter.
Normally, bracket play avoids these issues – your results on the field and your results alone will decide where you finish. This is the main reason why almost every format uses brackets to determine which teams advance. Making the last game no-rematch conditional muddies the waters and, in my opinion, negates much of the benefit and simple elegance of using a bracket to figure out this spot.
4) If we make the final game no-rematch conditional, then we are introducing a fundamental inconsistency in our approach. We will be saying that rematches should be played UNLESS they are in the last game. Why is the last game different? The practical reason, of course, is that otherwise you are introducing all sorts of extra byes into the format, which is certainly more unfair than a rematch is. But if we're making this concession that avoiding rematches is a priority of the format, then in some sense we are saying, "this game is bad but you have to play it anyway".
This is not an argument against avoiding the final rematch, per se; I'm simply pointing out that pursuing the goal of avoiding rematches does not lead us to formats where we just make the final game no-rematch conditional. It leads us to single elimination brackets, or round robin formats with no brackets, or a few specialized formats with extremely abbreviated brackets. Those are the only formats where we can assure ourselves of avoiding rematches throughout.
5) "dead team/clinched team" scenarios and fairness issues.
There's several varieties of negative scenarios that can crop up if we make the last game no-rematch conditional. There are two basic variations. In both cases, AvB is the "upper" game, where the winner is done, and CvD is the "lower" game where the loser is eliminated, and the AvB loser plays the CvD winner in the game for the final spot.
a) D has lost to both A and B. D's season is over, they are a "dead team walking". They are likely to open up the rotation, or even worse, just forfeit the game. This unfairly benefits C and unfairly punishes A and B (ironically, they are being punished for their victories, not their defeats).
b) A has beaten both C and D, B has beaten neither. A has clinched advancement, and has no motivation for the next level except placement, while B is playing for a spot. B beats a relatively unmotivated A and ends the event.
There are also crosses of these scenarios. For example, A has already beaten C and B has already beaten D. (This scenario would appear in 16 teams, 2 advance if the semifinalists meet in the game to reach the backdoor finals.) Any final result in the top game eliminates one of the bottom teams, and any result in the bottom game clinches for one of the top teams – effectively moving you into one of the two scenarios I outlined above. In these cases, both the upper and lower games become extremely uncertain affairs and you have a lot of scoreboard watching. Some people might consider this sort of uncertainty and randomness exciting, but I personally think we owe the players a more predictable experience.
6) Potential gamesmanhip
If we make the final game no-rematch conditional, then the desire to avoid being shut out of that game can actually lead a team to want to intentionally lose a game. If the final game is no-rematch conditional, you have one of two ways to advance to the next level:
a) reach the "upper game" (i.e. the game where the loser is in the final game to go)
b) make sure that you don't lose to the team you expect will lose the "upper game"
If you think your chances of reaching the "upper game" are low, for whatever reason, then your best strategy could become intentionally losing to avoid your most likely opponent in the final game to go. Consider the following scenario:
The tournament is the standard 16 team, 2 advance bracket format. There is a very large talent gap between the 1 and 2, and between the 3 and the remaining teams. The 3 has a very deep roster, while the 2 relies on a small core of players. If you are on the 3 seed, it may be in your interest to intentionally lose in the quarterfinals. This will allow you to get your (only) shot at the 2 seed in the last game of the weekend, rather than in the semifinals when they are relatively fresh.
It actually takes a fairly peculiar set of relative team strengths to make this strategy viable, but in my opinion it is more realistic than any gamesmanship scenario that results from our current no-rematch policy.
---
Now, allow me to address three of the more common arguments against playing the rematch:
"If we lose the rematch, then winning the first game was meaningless"
I consider this to be the weakest argument against playing the rematch. The only sense in which this is accurate is the same sense as the statement "all of our games were meaningless since we didn't qualify".
There are multiple, tangible benefits to winning the first meeting between two teams, even if you are fairly confident you will end up having to beat the same team a second time to qualify. Namely:
1) You save a loss for later. In all the bracket formats you have a finite number of losses. If the first meeting between the teams is the front-door semifinals, then winning means you don't have to win another game to reach the final game to go.
2) In many formats, you have to play one fewer game to reach the final game to go. This isn't true of the first "3v4" game in the 16 team, 3 advance bracket format – nor is it true in the four team double elimination that is played in a few formats. But in most formats it is true, and playing one fewer game can be very significant.
3) If you lose the first game, there is a non-trivial chance that you will be upset in a subsequent elimination game and not even reach the game to go. This is a variation on the first reason I cited.
4) Conversely, if you win the first game, you have at least some chance to win later games (perhaps in an upset), and therefore qualify without even having to play in the final game to go.
5) Even if you feel your chances of winning finals or losing backdoor games are trivially small, winning the first contest gives you the opportunity to rest your starters and save yourself for the game to go. This amounts to cashing in the loss you saved by winning the first game. If you really feel that first game is meaningless, let the other team be the one to tank.
"statistical argument – 1-1 proves nothing except ambiguity"
This argument at first appears quite strong, but upon further examination it is, in my opinion, something of a mirage.
Consider a final game to go that pits two teams against each other that had played earlier in the event, with the team from the "upper game" winning the first contest. This game can have one of two outcomes:
- the team from the upper game wins, and advances with a 2-0 record against the team from the lower game.
- the team from the lower game wins, and advances with a 1-1 record against the team from the upper game.
From the perspective of this "ambiguity" argument, the first scenario is irrelevant, so let's consider only the second case.
Imagine for a moment that you have an oracle with you, and you know that the lower team will win, even before the game starts. You have the choice of either allowing the game to go on or cancelling it, on account of it being a rematch. Should you cancel it? The first instinctive answer might be yes, because you want to avoid the ambiguity.
But are you really avoiding it? No, it already exists. You know, after all, that the lower team would win. No, what you are doing is avoiding the APPEARANCE of ambiguity. The ambiguity is there whether you like it or not.
Like I said, the ambiguity argument is, to me, a mirage. Making the game no-rematch conditional is not preventing ambiguity; it is merely hiding it by protecting the 1-0 team.
A slight variant of this argument is the argument that "the rematch does not consistently help us find the better team". Again, the 2-0 upper game winner case is irrelevant. So the question really becomes: who is more likely to be the better/more deserving team – the team that won the first game, or the team that won the second game? Here I don't have an answer, but my suspicion would be the team that won the second game. I have two reasons for this suspicion:
1) Everyone knows the format and knows that the second game is the one that truly settles your fate. While I reject the idea that the first game is meaningless, the stakes are even higher in the second game, and I would place a lot of emphasis on that high stakes contest.
2) Most people who I have discussed it with agree that nationals is about the most physically gruelling tournament you will ever play in. The winner of the second game is probably the team in better shape and/or or that relies on a deeper rotation, and that team is more likely to represent their region well at nationals.
"letdown/momentum/revenge argument – the team coming into the final game on a win has an edge"
I don't want to dismiss this argument out of hand. I am definitely a believer in sports psychology. I would simply state that I don't believe this mental edge argument to be consistently true, moreover I don't think it is true consistently enough to base policy on. All of these factors (upper game loser being deflated from a tight loss, lower game winner being confident and fresh, lower game winner motivated for revenge while upper game loser is anxious or complacent) are possible. But it could just as easily be the opposite factors in play (upper game loser well rested from a quick loss, lower game winner spent from a nailbiter, upper game loser confident but not cocky while the lower game winner is in their own heads and thinks they have to play past their level to win).
Which of these factors is dominant? I don't know. You don't know, either. Nobody knows. I would like to do a study of every rematch game-to-go that's ever happened, see the statistics on the upsets, and see how the teams did at the next level. I'd like to be able to draw some conclusions on the average physical/psychological state of the teams in the rematch games, but the data is just not there.
This is actually a good idea for a UPA grant in my opinion. Somebody should get a grant, go through every UPA event that has ever been played, and try to compile the available results into a database. Obviously the results would get increasingly sparse the further back you go, but the old newsletters do have much of the results from nationals at least, going back into the 70s. It would be really cool to be able to just pull up 1990 club nationals on the score reporter.
Until that happens, though, I consider this argument speculative at best and inaccurate at worst.
---
OK, that's all, for now. I consider this a work in progress.
# posted by Tarr : 5/01/2007 11:45:00 AM
Comments:
<< Home
It would be really cool to be able to just pull up 1990 club nationals on the score reporter.
I actually mentioned this to Rodney Jacobson a couple months ago. (His understandable response was basically that he did not have enough time right now.) It would be great, and somewhat wiki-like -- you know a score, or you have an old newsletter, so you create the archived tournament entry and record the scores. Someone corrects you if need be. At a certain point the results will be filled it, then it is locked.
I actually mentioned this to Rodney Jacobson a couple months ago. (His understandable response was basically that he did not have enough time right now.) It would be great, and somewhat wiki-like -- you know a score, or you have an old newsletter, so you create the archived tournament entry and record the scores. Someone corrects you if need be. At a certain point the results will be filled it, then it is locked.
Yeah, totally understandable on his part. It would be a ton of work to set this up, and I think somebody would have to get the ball rolling before wiki-momentum could be expected to take over.
I do think there's a decent chance that someone could get a UPA grant to do this.
I do think there's a decent chance that someone could get a UPA grant to do this.
wiki: rsd has a lot of old results, say from 1992-1995. There weren't that many posts per day then, so sifting through using the advanced search isn't hard.
I'd like to distinguish between the rematch in double elim and the one in the triple elim. The double elim rematch can happen only in that final game for 2 v 3 or possibly in the round before if there was a team that lost a first- or second-round game yet clawed back, and would be a rematch from the day before. The triple elim rematch is usually for 3 v 4 and is so often from two rounds before.
One of the guiding tenets in the whole series is that it's almost impossible to get eliminated from the series with a single loss other than in a single-elimination bracket (either at Nationals or in a single-bid Region (or presumably a single-bid Section; I'm just waiting for the day when WABCAK gets only one bid to Regionals and so the Sockeye/Furious game at Sectionals is an elimination match; suggestion to UPA: each Section gets at least as many spots to Regionals as the Region gets to Nationals (up to three)). The pre-quarters at club Nationals exists primarily because there could be a 3-way tie on Day 1 that would otherwise eliminate one of those teams (note: in the old 12-team format, a team could also have been eliminated in a 3 way tie, but is much less likely to occur and would be from having three equally qualified teams rather than being due to a fluke upset).
So, this tenet means that Tim is off-base in complaining about the UM-OSU rematch. Since it's a double-elim format, that game has to happen. The complaints that draw ire are in the 16/3 format and it's the 3/4 rematch from 2 hours prior. While you're looking up how the teams did, you should also look up how often this game has truly been one in which the otherwise 4th place team really didn't get a fair shot due to seeding.
I'd like to distinguish between the rematch in double elim and the one in the triple elim. The double elim rematch can happen only in that final game for 2 v 3 or possibly in the round before if there was a team that lost a first- or second-round game yet clawed back, and would be a rematch from the day before. The triple elim rematch is usually for 3 v 4 and is so often from two rounds before.
One of the guiding tenets in the whole series is that it's almost impossible to get eliminated from the series with a single loss other than in a single-elimination bracket (either at Nationals or in a single-bid Region (or presumably a single-bid Section; I'm just waiting for the day when WABCAK gets only one bid to Regionals and so the Sockeye/Furious game at Sectionals is an elimination match; suggestion to UPA: each Section gets at least as many spots to Regionals as the Region gets to Nationals (up to three)). The pre-quarters at club Nationals exists primarily because there could be a 3-way tie on Day 1 that would otherwise eliminate one of those teams (note: in the old 12-team format, a team could also have been eliminated in a 3 way tie, but is much less likely to occur and would be from having three equally qualified teams rather than being due to a fluke upset).
So, this tenet means that Tim is off-base in complaining about the UM-OSU rematch. Since it's a double-elim format, that game has to happen. The complaints that draw ire are in the 16/3 format and it's the 3/4 rematch from 2 hours prior. While you're looking up how the teams did, you should also look up how often this game has truly been one in which the otherwise 4th place team really didn't get a fair shot due to seeding.
I'd like to distinguish between the rematch in double elim and the one in the triple elim. The double elim rematch can happen only in that final game for 2 v 3 or possibly in the round before if there was a team that lost a first- or second-round game yet clawed back, and would be a rematch from the day before. The triple elim rematch is usually for 3 v 4 and is so often from two rounds before.
I don't really understand why which day it is should matter. I mean, I fully understand why the same-day rematch FEELS strange. But fundamentally, is it really so different from a rematch from yesterday? Is there some reason why one or more of my arguments apply to the next-day rematch, but not the same-day rematch? As far as I can tell, all six of my arguments apply to both - and the gamesmanship problem goes from "relatively insignificant" to "major issue" if we disallow the same-day rematch in 16/3.
While you're looking up how the teams did, you should also look up how often this game has truly been one in which the otherwise 4th place team really didn't get a fair shot due to seeding.
Definitely worth looking at. I've often cited the example of it happening in 2002 Central club open. It wasn't strictly a seeding issue there, rather it was Machine's inconsistent play, but both Cincinatti and Madison had each lost only to Chicago and Minneapolis when they played each other in the last game.
Another example, and an especially notable one, is the 2004 Mid-Atlantic Open regionals. Not only was the Vault-Epig game to go not a rematch, but if LCN had beaten Vault in the game-to-reach-the-game-to-go (a 17-16 game) then Epig would have automatically advanced, based on a 2-0 record over LCN on the weekend. The LCN guys were really unhappy about that afterward, when they realized they were playing for nothing.
Last fall, there were two sort-of cases:
- Central Open again, where Machine again was inconsistent, and managed to beat Madison (who they had never played) in the last game. They had lost earlier to Columbus, but beat them in a rematch in the second-to-last round.
- It also sort of happened right under your nose in the Northeast Mixed division. It was a rematch in the last game, but not a rematch from 2 rounds earlier.
Most regions seem to have moved to the pool play format for 16/3, which avoids the problem altogether. So there actually haven't been that many chances for this issue to pop up in recent years. I think I like the 16/3 pool play format more than the bracket. Part of the reason is that I find the rematch-heavy Sunday somewhat distasteful, even if I think it is necessary. (I actually like the classic 16/2 bracket more than it's pool variant, which is ironic since the pool version is steadily gaining popularity.)
I don't really understand why which day it is should matter. I mean, I fully understand why the same-day rematch FEELS strange. But fundamentally, is it really so different from a rematch from yesterday? Is there some reason why one or more of my arguments apply to the next-day rematch, but not the same-day rematch? As far as I can tell, all six of my arguments apply to both - and the gamesmanship problem goes from "relatively insignificant" to "major issue" if we disallow the same-day rematch in 16/3.
While you're looking up how the teams did, you should also look up how often this game has truly been one in which the otherwise 4th place team really didn't get a fair shot due to seeding.
Definitely worth looking at. I've often cited the example of it happening in 2002 Central club open. It wasn't strictly a seeding issue there, rather it was Machine's inconsistent play, but both Cincinatti and Madison had each lost only to Chicago and Minneapolis when they played each other in the last game.
Another example, and an especially notable one, is the 2004 Mid-Atlantic Open regionals. Not only was the Vault-Epig game to go not a rematch, but if LCN had beaten Vault in the game-to-reach-the-game-to-go (a 17-16 game) then Epig would have automatically advanced, based on a 2-0 record over LCN on the weekend. The LCN guys were really unhappy about that afterward, when they realized they were playing for nothing.
Last fall, there were two sort-of cases:
- Central Open again, where Machine again was inconsistent, and managed to beat Madison (who they had never played) in the last game. They had lost earlier to Columbus, but beat them in a rematch in the second-to-last round.
- It also sort of happened right under your nose in the Northeast Mixed division. It was a rematch in the last game, but not a rematch from 2 rounds earlier.
Most regions seem to have moved to the pool play format for 16/3, which avoids the problem altogether. So there actually haven't been that many chances for this issue to pop up in recent years. I think I like the 16/3 pool play format more than the bracket. Part of the reason is that I find the rematch-heavy Sunday somewhat distasteful, even if I think it is necessary. (I actually like the classic 16/2 bracket more than it's pool variant, which is ironic since the pool version is steadily gaining popularity.)
One more example of the third place game not being a rematch - 2006 College Open SW. Claremont had lost in the quarters to Colorado State, eventually beat them in the game-to-reach-the-game-to-go, and lost the game to go to UCSB, who had tumbled all the way from the finals.
Dammit, stupid blogger killed my post.
Anyway, let me just say, "nah uhh." Tandem had already lost to both of the teams playing in the 2/3 game. Sock Full of Quarters had already beaten all three teams below it. Yet they played again.
I propose to apply the no-rematch rule only when team A has beaten team B to give B their second loss of the weekend. This removes a lot of the six reasons. You know that you can lose once and still make it, but if you lose twice and one of those losses is to a team that is no better than the 3rd best, you deserve to be eliminated. Please come up with a scenario where a team with two losses plays a game against a team that could possibly be 2nd best.
"Better that 100 teams that should be dead given another chance than 1 team that should be given another chance be ruled dead", is that it?
Anyway, I'm joining the moratorium against rematch posts.
Anyway, let me just say, "nah uhh." Tandem had already lost to both of the teams playing in the 2/3 game. Sock Full of Quarters had already beaten all three teams below it. Yet they played again.
I propose to apply the no-rematch rule only when team A has beaten team B to give B their second loss of the weekend. This removes a lot of the six reasons. You know that you can lose once and still make it, but if you lose twice and one of those losses is to a team that is no better than the 3rd best, you deserve to be eliminated. Please come up with a scenario where a team with two losses plays a game against a team that could possibly be 2nd best.
"Better that 100 teams that should be dead given another chance than 1 team that should be given another chance be ruled dead", is that it?
Anyway, I'm joining the moratorium against rematch posts.
I propose to apply the no-rematch rule only when team A has beaten team B to give B their second loss of the weekend. This removes a lot of the six reasons.
Does it? I mean, it removes them from the 1-loss bracket, sure. But most of those arguments seem to apply equally well to the two-loss bracket.
Take the gamesmanship argument. Say you're the 4 seed (set to play the 6 on Sunday morning), and you haven't played the (shallow rotation) 3 seed. You have two options:
- Play to beat the 6, then play the 3, and hope to either win, or have them beat the 2 if you lose.
- Intentionally lose to the 6, beat the 5, beat the 6 (has to be played, since it's not the last game), and then play to beat the tired 3.
It's not a slam dunk, because you're giving up the chance of beating the 3 the first time, and you're exposing yourself to additional risk of the 6 or 5 pulling off an upset. But the option is there.
Interestingly, this "approach" sort of mirrors Machine's path on Sunday at 2006 regionals. Machine (virtual 3 seed at the start of Sunday) lost to Madcow (5), then beat them two games later, then beat Madison (4) in the game to go, in their first meeting of the weekend. I'm sure they didn't plan this, but it's sort of interesting.
"Better that 100 teams that should be dead given another chance than 1 team that should be given another chance be ruled dead", is that it?
I wouldn't say that. If I really agreed with you about the issues with the 16/3 bracket rematch, though, my conclusion would be to scrap the format altogether, not to put in a "no rematch of second loss in final game" rule. We have a pool play format that, although very odd in its own ways, avoids these issues.
Does it? I mean, it removes them from the 1-loss bracket, sure. But most of those arguments seem to apply equally well to the two-loss bracket.
Take the gamesmanship argument. Say you're the 4 seed (set to play the 6 on Sunday morning), and you haven't played the (shallow rotation) 3 seed. You have two options:
- Play to beat the 6, then play the 3, and hope to either win, or have them beat the 2 if you lose.
- Intentionally lose to the 6, beat the 5, beat the 6 (has to be played, since it's not the last game), and then play to beat the tired 3.
It's not a slam dunk, because you're giving up the chance of beating the 3 the first time, and you're exposing yourself to additional risk of the 6 or 5 pulling off an upset. But the option is there.
Interestingly, this "approach" sort of mirrors Machine's path on Sunday at 2006 regionals. Machine (virtual 3 seed at the start of Sunday) lost to Madcow (5), then beat them two games later, then beat Madison (4) in the game to go, in their first meeting of the weekend. I'm sure they didn't plan this, but it's sort of interesting.
"Better that 100 teams that should be dead given another chance than 1 team that should be given another chance be ruled dead", is that it?
I wouldn't say that. If I really agreed with you about the issues with the 16/3 bracket rematch, though, my conclusion would be to scrap the format altogether, not to put in a "no rematch of second loss in final game" rule. We have a pool play format that, although very odd in its own ways, avoids these issues.
Hey Tarr-
So I don't quite understand pool play for Central Regionals. We ended up having 9 teams. Pool A had more teams and played to 11. Pool B had 4 teams and played to 15. Is there a reason why our pool played the A1-A2 game first, where the B1-B2 game was played last for them? Could I have requested playing the A1-A2 game last as well?- Lani
Post a Comment
So I don't quite understand pool play for Central Regionals. We ended up having 9 teams. Pool A had more teams and played to 11. Pool B had 4 teams and played to 15. Is there a reason why our pool played the A1-A2 game first, where the B1-B2 game was played last for them? Could I have requested playing the A1-A2 game last as well?- Lani
<< Home
