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Topic: Why every tournament game should matter* (Read 4292 times) |
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Janzert
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Why every tournament game should matter*
« on: Aug 1st, 2012, 1:46am » |
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Here is yet another example of a tournament design that ends up rewarding a loss more than a win.
Badminton players charged with throwing matches
Janzert
* at least for serious tournaments where the primary goal is to find the best player(s)
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rbarreira
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Re: Why every tournament game should matter*
« Reply #1 on: Aug 1st, 2012, 4:44am » |
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I didn't look at the situation in detail, but couldn't this be highly mitigated by having simultaneous games, as done in football tournaments like the UEFA cups?
Of course I agree that every game mattering is even better.
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Janzert
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Re: Why every tournament game should matter*
« Reply #2 on: Aug 2nd, 2012, 12:27am » |
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The players involved have now been disqualified. Here's an article that goes into much more detail than the one I posted above.
From what I can tell this portion of the tournament was 4 separate 4 team round-robins. So no way to make all games that could matter simultaneous.
It also turns out that the perverse incentives in this situation were even worse than I had previously realized. I had thought it was just a case of manipulating the seeding to give more favorable match ups. It turns out there were two chinese teams, both heavy favorites over the rest of the field. But because of an upset loss for one team, if the other team hadn't thrown the game they would have faced each other before the finals. Allowing china to only take gold and bronze at best, instead of the more likely gold and silver by meeting only in the finals.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: Why every tournament game should matter*
« Reply #3 on: Aug 2nd, 2012, 4:43pm » |
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This confirms my decision to carry forward losses from the preliminary into the finals in the 2013 Arimaa World Championship. The former plan of having an Open Classic for qualifying and wiping away losses before the World Championship was flawed. It is unsatisfactory to try to detect intentional losses and punish them: one must instead eliminate any incentive to lose in the first place.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 2nd, 2012, 4:44pm by Fritzlein » |
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Arimabuff
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Re: Why every tournament game should matter*
« Reply #4 on: Aug 3rd, 2012, 6:49am » |
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on Aug 2nd, 2012, 4:43pm, Fritzlein wrote:| This confirms my decision to carry forward losses from the preliminary into the finals in the 2013 Arimaa World Championship. The former plan of having an Open Classic for qualifying and wiping away losses before the World Championship was flawed. It is unsatisfactory to try to detect intentional losses and punish them: one must instead eliminate any incentive to lose in the first place. |
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I agree wholeheartedly, in any contest it should always be more rewarding to win than to lose. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble.
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russ
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Re: Why every tournament game should matter*
« Reply #5 on: Aug 6th, 2012, 1:36am » |
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I'm always amazed when such prominent high level tournaments use such broken tournament rules that make it to one's direct clear advantage to intentionally lose a tournament game.
The stupid nationalism inherent in these international events also seems to tempt competitors to shenanigans like playing to help other "competitors" from their same country instead of simply playing independently to win as a competitor, alas.
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chessandgo
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Re: Why every tournament game should matter*
« Reply #6 on: Aug 6th, 2012, 1:41pm » |
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on Aug 3rd, 2012, 6:49am, Arimabuff wrote: +1
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