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Topic: 2014 World Championship Format (Read 7836 times) |
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Fritzlein
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2014 World Championship Format
« on: Dec 1st, 2012, 10:26am » |
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OK, the rules for 2013 have been set, which means it is time to start discussing the rules of 2014!  Seriously, if there are any problems with the rules of the current World Championship, those problems very likely won't get fixed. There is a bias against changing rules once the registration has started, and this bias increases once the tournament has actually started. Realizations of things that are broken, or things that could be done better, except in extreme cases, can only be considered for changes next year.
Let me kick off the discussion with the suggestion that the players should not be able to influence the starting of the clock. Right now only the Gold player can start the clock, and there is no penalty for delaying up until 15 minutes after the scheduled game time. Furthermore, Gold is not allowed to start the clock until Silver is seated, and there is no penalty to Silver for sitting down up to 15 minutes late. Therefore we can consider starting the Gold clock at the scheduled game time, whether or not the players are seated.
Pros: Spectators, commentators, and the opponent will not have to wait for a tardy player. Quoting from the 2013 rules thread:
on Nov 30th, 2012, 10:42pm, browni3141 wrote:Being late at all to any form of formal scheduled meeting such as a championship game of Arimaa is rude. I think that the clocks should start counting down the second the scheduled time is reached out of courtesy to the spectators and attending players. I do agree however that the game window should be allowed to be opened before the clocks start.
My opinion might be different if this were a casual game between two players, but this is the World Championship, and I personally might be slightly offended if my opponent arrived late to our game. Players who take this seriously will make a strong effort to be present when the game is supposed to start. |
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Cons: The starting reserve is not large, so after about five minutes a tardy player will lose. This may be a rather draconian penalty for being late by only a short time.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 1st, 2012, 10:31am by Fritzlein » |
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ocmiente
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #1 on: Dec 2nd, 2012, 1:09pm » |
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Starting the clock at the scheduled game time would be OK with me, provided that players can join the game before the starting time.
Another option might be to make the starting window narrower. Rather than 15 minutes, reduce it to 5.
However, I'm perfectly happy with the way things are now.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2012, 1:11pm by ocmiente » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #2 on: Dec 16th, 2012, 10:43am » |
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The way the pairing algorithm works now, players are rewarded for tough pairings in early rounds with easier pairings later, and punished for easy pairings in early rounds with tough pairings later. I like this feature a lot, as it prevents the top seed from reaping too many rewards just from pre-tournament rating.
However, I think we went overboard in one small detail. If there are an odd number of players, the top player gets a bye in the first round, and therefore falls to the bottom of the winners' bracket. This seems like too much punishment for the bye. In the second round, the #2 seed gets the bye, and then by folding pairing, the #1 seed plays against the #3 or #4 seed (assuming all the top seeds won in the first round).
This happened in 2012, and it didn't work out too badly, but that is because there were only 11 players, and thus only 6 players in the winner's bracket in round two. Since the bottom player in the winners' bracket played down, the widest the matchup could have been anyway is #1 vs. #5. Furthermore, Nombril was sufficiently compensated later for getting smacked early by chessandgo. All's well that ends well.
Unfortunately if we have an odd number of players in 2013, an early clash of the titans will probably raise more eyebrows than it did in 2012, because of the larger number of players. I like the way we "stir the pot" by adjusting the seeds based on in-tournament ratings, but it seems like too much adjustment for the bye to drop the #1 seed all the way to the lowest winner.
An undesirable consequence of the current pairings is that it is better to be #2 seed than #1 if there are an odd number of players, because the #2 seed gets the second-round bye and therefore doesn't have to face a top player until the third round. I would rather our tournament structure didn't give anyone an incentive to sandbag.
I'm not posting this for discussion in the 2013 thread, because it is too late to make changes for this year, and also it isn't clear what we should do to fix it. A last-minute change might create an unintended consequence even worse than the current flaw. If we want to make changes for 2014, we need to test them much earlier. And maybe we don't mind an early battle between top seeds? How does everyone (especially our top seed) feel about this?
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chessandgo
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #3 on: Dec 17th, 2012, 2:21pm » |
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on Dec 2nd, 2012, 1:09pm, ocmiente wrote:However, I'm perfectly happy with the way things are now.
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+1. Keeping in mind that being spectator friendly is one of the top cirteria, spectating a game delayed by 6 minutes is better than being treated with no game at all. Even in a major over the board event, I'm pretty sure a player wouldn't be declared forfeit by showing up 6 mn late.
Tossing possible n-minutes disconnections in the mix, I have a feeling that a lot of players would rather have the option to wait for their opponent to be seated before starting the clock.
on Dec 16th, 2012, 10:43am, Fritzlein wrote:| How does everyone (especially our top seed) feel about this? |
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Is that me? I'm pretty much indifferent. There will always be "counter-intuitive" matchups, no matter what. So long as the pairing algorithm prioritizes relevant things, we'll be fine. After all, having a bye *is* the easiest schedule possible.
Has the possibility to randomize the bye been discussed (says uniformly among the top bracket)? That way there'll be no way to anticipate early match-ups and try to sandbag in order to avoid certain players.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #4 on: Jan 13th, 2013, 5:28pm » |
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Note to future organizer: The problem with someone being in a different time zone than the gameroom thinks they are in happens every year. Plan ahead for it, like I didn't. 
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #5 on: Jan 13th, 2013, 5:30pm » |
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Also, if you use the same format, change the ranking of people who don't make the finals to be in reverse order of losses, not in order of wins. In elimination we give the bye to the highest-ranked, which means we should count wins for ranking, but in the Swiss section we give the bye to the lowest-ranked, which means we should count losses for ranking instead. Thanks, aaaa, for noticing this. Fortunately, there is no prize money involved, so it is a question of glory only in 2013.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 13th, 2013, 5:31pm by Fritzlein » |
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aurelian
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #6 on: Jan 27th, 2013, 5:10pm » |
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Randomizing byes seems like a good ideea.
I have a proposition for the Swiss system bracket:
The Swiss system bracket shouldn't have byes but rather an extra game.
There should be an extra-game option in the scheduler, I accept/don't accept the possibility of an extra game. Allowing weekly switching of this option it's debatable. On one hand a player could better manage his own time, one the other hand there is the possibility of trying to mess with the system in order to obtain a weaker schedule.
The highest ranked wishing player within the players with the least number of games should get the extra game.
The main pro would be an extra winning incent for Swiss bracket players as it opens the possibility for increased world cup experience.
An variation would be to allow for 2/3 (instead of 0/1 for even/odd number) extragames.
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chessandgo
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #7 on: Jan 28th, 2013, 4:40pm » |
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Now that I understand (well, not really, but at least have an idea of how the pairing system works) the pairing thing, it has some kind of "randomness" feel to it, so I take back my random byes proposal.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #8 on: Jan 28th, 2013, 6:58pm » |
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on Jan 28th, 2013, 4:40pm, chessandgo wrote:| Now that I understand (well, not really, but at least have an idea of how the pairing system works) the pairing thing, it has some kind of "randomness" feel to it, so I take back my random byes proposal. |
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Yes, I don't see the need to make pairing more random that it is in 2013. So far my only concern would be that Round 3 (including Omar getting the bye) would be considered too random. However, although many players have been confused by the pairings, I haven't heard of anyone being upset by them. It seems things are working out just fine. And we have definitely solved a prime complaint from 2011, i.e. the same player having to "play up" a score group in consecutive rounds.
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Boo
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #9 on: Feb 5th, 2013, 10:37am » |
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As I mentioned in the chat, I think the current pairing system has problems.
As I understand it now, the pairings algorithm tries to:
1. sort the players by the difficulty of the path taken so far;
2. match the players with first-last, second-one from the bottom, etc.
The idea behind such match up is that pairings algorithm should compensate the path each player takes: if a player had taken a difficult path (played strong opponents), he should be matched with weak opponent and vice versa.
The problem comes when strong players happen to sit in a bottom. Somebody who had played strong opponents and is on the top of sorted list gets another strong opponent. For example, I sit on top of 3-0 group and sit on top of no-loss group. And as a 'compensation' for a really tough opponents so far I get chessandgo.  And if I lose, I would sit on top of 3-1 group and would receive browni3141, geting big chances of a second loss in row. Nombril-Adanac-chessandgo-browni3141 in the first 5 rounds... Could random matchups do any worse?
The system is constantly trying to even out things for the player at the bottom part of the list, but might screw them up for the other.
I think 2nd step is not logical and should be changed to the following:
2. sort the players according to their WHR (or whatever was used for initial seeding).
3. match the top player of the 1st list with the last player of the 2nd list, remove those players from both list and repeat.
In other words, the player, who had the most difficult path so far, should be matched with the player, who is expected to perform the weakest in the future (has the lowest seeding).
If such a procedure was followed, the following pairings would have been obtained for round 5:
omar-ocmiente (both players are in the upper part of the 1st list- they both received opponents with low seeding)
chessandgo-clyring (chessandgo is second in the first list, he receives the lowest WHR available as compensation)
Nombril-Brendan_M
Adanac-Hippo
Alfons-browni3141 (both players sit at he bottom of the first list and have high seedings, the algorithm makes the path harder for both.)
I think this is more logical matchups, because this system tries to compensate for the tough/easy previous rounds immediately.
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Hippo
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #10 on: Feb 5th, 2013, 1:07pm » |
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on Feb 5th, 2013, 10:37am, Boo wrote:As I mentioned in the chat, I think the current pairing system has problems.
As I understand it now, the pairings algorithm tries to:
1. sort the players by the difficulty of the path taken so far;
2. match the players with first-last, second-one from the bottom, etc.
The idea behind such match up is that pairings algorithm should compensate the path each player takes: if a player had taken a difficult path (played strong opponents), he should be matched with weak opponent and vice versa.
The problem comes when strong players happen to sit in a bottom. Somebody who had played strong opponents and is on the top of sorted list gets another strong opponent. For example, I sit on top of 3-0 group and sit on top of no-loss group. And as a 'compensation' for a really tough opponents so far I get chessandgo. And if I lose, I would sit on top of 3-1 group and would receive browni3141, geting big chances of a second loss in row. Nombril-Adanac-chessandgo-browni3141 in the first 5 rounds... Could random matchups do any worse?
The system is constantly trying to even out things for the player at the bottom part of the list, but might screw them up for the other.
I think 2nd step is not logical and should be changed to the following:
2. sort the players according to their WHR (or whatever was used for initial seeding).
3. match the top player of the 1st list with the last player of the 2nd list, remove those players from both list and repeat.
In other words, the player, who had the most difficult path so far, should be matched with the player, who is expected to perform the weakest in the future (has the lowest seeding).
If such a procedure was followed, the following pairings would have been obtained for round 5:
omar-ocmiente (both players are in the upper part of the 1st list- they both received opponents with low seeding)
chessandgo-clyring (chessandgo is second in the first list, he receives the lowest WHR available as compensation)
Nombril-Brendan_M
Adanac-Hippo
Alfons-browni3141 (both players sit at he bottom of the first list and have high seedings, the algorithm makes the path harder for both.)
I think this is more logical matchups, because this system tries to compensate for the tough/easy previous rounds immediately. |
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I don't think this is that bad ... no pairing system would work perfect. The most important thing is that it is deterministic. The system was affected by the early chessandgo's bye and the Browni's timeout.
Now you have received bye, what seems to be good compensation. If you want to win the turnament, you have to beat anybody paired with you (with high enough probability). And the probability to be paired again early with the same players is low ...
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ocmiente
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #11 on: Feb 5th, 2013, 5:09pm » |
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It does seem like the pairing algorithm this year has resulted in several close pairings of the best players early in the tournament.
The idea of using WHR seems correct, provided that nobody purposely keeps their WHR lower than it should be prior to the tournament (which has happened in the past). I like the idea that the tournament director can use his own discretion to modify any player's initial rating if rating manipulation is suspected.
One small, but important detail that I think should be preserved is that repeat pairings should be avoided as long as possible during the tournament. So, omar vs. ocmiente in round 5 would not be a good pairing since it would be a repeat match up.
I really like the fact that there are so many closely matched games even this early in the tournament. Seems like in past tournaments it took more rounds to get to the interesting games.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 5th, 2013, 5:12pm by ocmiente » |
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Boo
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #12 on: Feb 6th, 2013, 11:41am » |
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Quote:| If you want to win the turnament, you have to beat anybody paired with you (with high enough probability). |
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What about the players who are in a 2 loss group and get a miscompensated matchup? Don't they have the right to enjoy the tournament a little bit longer? The system repairing itself in the long run doesn't help in this case.
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One small, but important detail that I think should be preserved is that repeat pairings should be avoided as long as possible during the tournament. |
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Yes, of course, the pairing algorithm should only change the order the opponents are chosen for the players sorted by the difficulty of the path taken so far.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 6th, 2013, 11:41am by Boo » |
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chessandgo
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #13 on: Feb 6th, 2013, 1:19pm » |
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You're talking a priori player strength here Boo, while the system (if I understand correctly) is designed to reflect self-contained tournament "strength". If the objective was to be fair with respect to a priori strength, then the rules would not go "maximum likelihood set of ratings in the Bradley-Terry model based on blablabla" but only take into account seeding.
Obviously seeding is a better mesure than the tournament-only based rating, since it uses a much larger sample, but the latter is essentially manipulation-free.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 6th, 2013, 1:19pm by chessandgo » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2014 World Championship Format
« Reply #14 on: Feb 6th, 2013, 7:09pm » |
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A simple compromise would be to discard the unbiased tournament performance rating and rely entirely on the seeded tournament performance rating. I'm not sure how that would work out, but we could keep an eye on it to see whether it is an "even-up" mechanism that serves the intended purpose without over-reacting.
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