Competition Points systems

[hammy]

The end result is that it is actually quite common for players at the top of the field to find their games getting easier as things progress which is not right.

Why does that matter? Sure it is different from what we might expect without accelerated pairings but it doesn't have to be "wrong." Imagine I play four games two easy and two hard. Does it really matter if it is Hard, hard, easy, easy vs. Easy, Easy, Hard, Hard?

True but it is nice if things get more tense as the event progresses and there is the danger that a player winning an AP event can get games that are easy, easy, easy, easy while another gets hard, hard, hard, hard and if you don;t believe me look in detail at the draw and results from the first Australian comp where AP was used.

If we think a tournament winner should have two easy and two hard games (or whatever). What we want to eliminate is the chance that they might get an Easy, Easy, Easy, Hard draw while everyone else at the top is Easy, Easy, Hard, Hard.

But AP doesn't do that and AP without a very accurate and current rankings system quite definitely doesn't do that.

If I am an improving player but have not yet reached the point where my ranking is in the top half or I have played a lot and done badly so my ranking is low but now I am playing better then as a Q3 player I get a game one against a Q4 player then most likely a game two against a Q2 one. I win both and am then king of the castle. If there are more than one such player I get yet another game against a bottom half player while the top players are fighting for scraps. This is pretty much what happened in Athens four years ago, if you look at draw there are still bottom half players at the very top until pretty much the last round.

What system best does that is an open question, but as long as everyone at the top has the same number of quality games ("hard" games" it doesn't seem to me that it matters what order they come in.

Not using any form of seeding means that you can get unlucky and give players hard games at the start but at least using a straight swiss draw means that it is not how well you have done in the past but how well you are playing now that impacts the draw.

FWIW my really serious tournament days are now I think behind me. I am playing primarily to have a good time and if I wing it's nice, if I lose then as long as I had fun (and didn't lose to a furriner ) I don't really care. That said I still belive that AP is total garbage and have yet to see any proof that it is even as good as a straight random draw, never mind better.

[david53]

Just wondered whats wrong with using a rankings for the person but using straight random draws for all the events I would have thought that would have been a fairer system for all.

[hammy]

Just wondered whats wrong with using a rankings for the person but using straight random draws for all the events I would have thought that would have been a fairer system for all.

IMO nothing is wrong with that.

There is the chance that a first round game might see the top two players beat each other to a draw but they should then get an easier draw as a result. I seem to remember one year at the Challenge where Simon Hall was not seeded because he had not played much DBM the previous year and he played Graham Evans in round one. IIRC they both placed but 2nd and 3rd so it didn;t really hurt them much.

[hazelbark]

As for ELO rankings and international validity thereof I would be more than willng to play anyone from the States for a hefty wager related to the difference in our ELO rating And I don't play many singles comps so I must be an easy victim

OK. 2000 pounds. Play tonight, my basement. Start time 6 pm Eastern US Time Zone. failure to appear constitutes forfeit !

[hazelbark]

Actually much as it may seem odd I am focussed on getting more people playing and on players all through the field having a good time.

As for ELO rankings and international validity thereof I would be more than willng to play anyone from the States for a hefty wager related to the difference in our ELO rating And I don't play many singles comps so I must be an easy victim

Actually I agree ELO is a ways off from working. But gald to hear you are focusing on more players.

[hammy]

As for ELO rankings and international validity thereof I would be more than willng to play anyone from the States for a hefty wager related to the difference in our ELO rating And I don't play many singles comps so I must be an easy victim

OK. 2000 pounds. Play tonight, my basement. Start time 6 pm Eastern US Time Zone. failure to appear constitutes forfeit !

As long as you are up for the return match at 9:00am BST tomorrow at my place that would be fine

[hammy]

Actually I agree ELO is a ways off from working. But gald to hear you are focusing on more players.

Well so far I have run two full FoG bootcamps to get new players, three smaller intro sessions for players who wanted to learn and six one day 650 point tournaments aimed at getting people involved in the game.

I do appreciate that in mid table there can be issues with someone who doesn't want to take any risks and will be happy with a draw but I honestly don;t think that any scoring system or break point method will actually change the way this type of player wants to play.

If at your first tournament your army is beaten in four straight games then getting through a tournament with four draws is a great achievement. At my frist ever singles comp I seem to recall that I won one (my first game) then just failed to hold on against Graham Evans and then after that everything went pear shaped and I lost all the rest of the games (three or four) on the bounce After that three draws and two defeats would have been an improvement.

[wildone]

The problem with a 3/1/0 or 5/1/0 system is that if you have more than 16 players you can have 2 or more players with 4 wins, which means that you need something more granular to separate them. Whilst I do agree that it would emphasise the need to win to do well, I also like the fact that the current system gives some reward if you don't succeed,

If you have players on equal points then first if they have played each other the winer of that game ranks ahead of the loser, otherwise use the 0 -25 points current system to rank them.
using a 5/1/0 system in a 4 game competition:

Player A has 2 wins and 2 losses giving 10pts
Player B has 2 wins and 2 draws giving 12pts
Player C has 1 win and 3 draws giving 8pts

Player B ranks higher than A who ranks higher than C. If 2 players have the same score then uses their final FOG scores using the 0 - 25 pts system to rank them.

[wildone]

If at your first tournament your army is beaten in four straight games then getting through a tournament with four draws is a great achievement.

Try eight losses in a row in two competitions.

[Jilu]

The one thing that annoys me with the tournament points is that the point value of the lost BG's is not taken into account.
So if my oponent looses lets say 2 BG of knights at 138 points each (276 points) and i lose 2 BG of Crossbows at 48 (96 points)points each the game is a draw....

[philqw78]

The one thing that annoys me with the tournament points is that the point value of the lost BG's is not taken into account.
So if my oponent looses lets say 2 BG of knights at 138 points each (276 points) and i lose 2 BG of Crossbows at 48 (96 points)points each the game is a draw....

The rule writers took a gameplay decision here to make people use their troops more historically. Small BG of XBow are not expendable as they are worth as much to your game points as your knights. This means they are not thrown away fighting battle troops, but are used more historically and the player runs them away.

[Jilu]

The one thing that annoys me with the tournament points is that the point value of the lost BG's is not taken into account.
So if my oponent looses lets say 2 BG of knights at 138 points each (276 points) and i lose 2 BG of Crossbows at 48 (96 points)points each the game is a draw....

The rule writers took a gameplay decision here to make people use their troops more historically. Small BG of XBow are not expendable as they are worth as much to your game points as your knights. This means they are not thrown away fighting battle troops, but are used more historically and the player runs them away.

i agree but it is not because i loose them that i consider them expendable to the contrary i would have prefered not loosing them, it is just an example i could have put another type of troops than CB's! It is not the point of my grieviance. The thing is BG point difference does not come into play for the result.

[kevinj]

The thing is BG point difference does not come into play for the result.

And that is a deliberate decision based on the reason Phil gave. As I recall, we moved away from points based scoring with the advent of DBM. You may not regard your cheaper units as expendable, but there would be plenty of players who would.

[Jilu]

The thing is BG point difference does not come into play for the result.

And that is a deliberate decision based on the reason Phil gave. As I recall, we moved away from points based scoring with the advent of DBM. You may not regard your cheaper units as expendable, but there would be plenty of players who would.

i know, i know you are right. it still nags me because i find it unfair. A combination of the two systems would better it.

[hammy]

The thing is BG point difference does not come into play for the result.

And that is a deliberate decision based on the reason Phil gave. As I recall, we moved away from points based scoring with the advent of DBM. You may not regard your cheaper units as expendable, but there would be plenty of players who would.

i know, i know you are right. it still nags me because i find it unfair. A combination of the two systems would better it.

What about all those BGs that lose bases but don't break? Should you be awarded victory points for killing 2 bases out of each BG of enemy knights?

As things are the army break point is simple to work out (which is good) and the scoring is tied to the army break. If you have some troops are worth less than others you will see some very silly 'tactics'.

Imagine the single rank of unprotected mob at the front of your army that gets charged by knights and breaks (loss of say 16 points of troops) but then the enemy knights wo did the killing pursue and are hit in the flank by the troops you placed there for just this situation.

[philqw78]

Imagine the single rank of unprotected mob at the front of your army that gets charged by knights and breaks (loss of say 16 points of troops) but then the enemy knights wo did the killing pursue and are hit in the flank by the troops you placed there for just this situation.

Horde(I) are back

[kevinj]

Imagine the single rank of unprotected mob at the front of your army that gets charged by knights and breaks (loss of say 16 points of troops) but then the enemy knights wo did the killing pursue and are hit in the flank by the troops you placed there for just this situation.

So he counters this by bringing up his Poor LF Bow to shoot them up and tempt your better troops, and the game degenerates into a series of skirmishes and sacrificial gambits.

[philqw78]

So he counters this by bringing up his Poor LF Bow to shoot them up and tempt your better troops, and the game degenerates into a series of skirmishes and sacrificial gambits.

And the battle is decided by the crap in each army.

[peterrjohnston]

So he counters this by bringing up his Poor LF Bow to shoot them up and tempt your better troops, and the game degenerates into a series of skirmishes and sacrificial gambits.

And the battle is decided by the crap in each army.

Of course, with 3-1-0 this is all irrelevant.

You can take an army of crap, or an army of quality. All that matters is you win, lose or draw.

[hammy]

Of course, with 3-1-0 this is all irrelevant.

You can take an army of crap, or an army of quality. All that matters is you win, lose or draw.

Well actually with 3-1-0 the tiebreak system is actually very important and most of the proposed 3-1-0 systems seem to use 25-0 as a tiebreak.