Final seeding after DEs

[LTranter]

Thanks all for the education. I feel much more informed now. BTW, the fencer that did take out Tim went on to win the tourney.

Thanks again,

L

[Chris]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Many sports DO care about such things.

For instance the NFL, where placement determines draft order (5th last year was the New England Patriots).

-B

Oh, I suppose you are right - I was just looking for examples of contrasting records vs. final performance...guess I grabbed one that didn't work so well...

[pinkelephant]

Here's something I put together for parents for the British Youth Championships, which is run on one round of pools followed by straight DE.

FORMAT OF THE COMPETITION
One round of pools

The fencers are placed in pools of 6 or 7, and fence everybody else in that pool (it may be necessary in some of the smaller competitions to have pools of 5, but we try to avoid this). At the end of the pool round, everybody in the competition is ranked according to their first round results as follows.

Ranking after the pools
The fencers are first sorted by their victories divided by fights. Thus a fencer who has won 3 fights out of 6 (in a pool of seven) has a FIRST INDICATOR of 3/6 or 0.500. A fencer who has won 2 fights out of 5 (in a pool of six) has a first indicator of 2/5 or 0.400.

When the first indicator is equal, as many are bound to be, the equal fencers are sorted by hits scored minus hits received. Thus, two fencers with an equal first indicator are separated as follows. Fencer A, with 18 hits scored and 15 hits received has a SECOND INDICATOR of 18-15 i.e.+3. Fencer B, with 16 hits scored and 17 hits received has a second indicator of 16-17, i.e. -1. Fencer A is therefore ranked above fencer B.

In the event of both first and second indicators being equal, the fencers are separated by the number of hits scored, the fencer with more hits scored being placed above the one with fewer hits scored.

If all 3 indicators are equal, the computer “draws lots”, deciding at random which has the higher place in the draw.

Direct Elimination (or DE)
This is the knockout stage. The fencers are placed in a tableau according to their first round ranking, and while they keep winning, they follow the path through that tableau. As soon as they lose a fight, they are eliminated from the competition. The tableau is designed so that, in a tableau of 64 fencers, the fencer ranked 1 fences the one ranked 64, the one ranked 2 fences the one ranked 63 and so on. It is rare for a competition to have exactly 64 or 32 fencers, so in the first phase of the draw the top ranked fencers will have a BYE from the first stage. Thus, if there are 62 fencers, numbers 1 and 2 will have a bye, number 3 will fence no 62 and so on.

You can work out who you are due to fence as follows: the ranking numbers of the two fencers add up to the number of fencers in that round plus 1 (in the above examples, 1+64=65, 2+63=65 etc.)

Final placing
The computer works this out as follows. It places the fencers eliminated at each stage in the order of their ranking after the pools. So, if the fencers eliminated in the last 8 had rankings of 3, 5, 7 and 34, they are placed 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th respectively.

[JMcC]

Originally Posted by LTranter

I was wondering if someone can explain the logic of this to me.

I understand seeding after pools. From what I have been able to gather, results from pools follow into DEs. So a fencer who had a bad pool round, won 1st round DEs, lost 2nd round DEs would seeded in the final results at the bottom of the 2nd round losers because of the poor pool results regardless of how that DE round went.
L

Perhaps if you think of it as two closely related skill sets, both of which a fencer needs to master in order to be successful:

1. The ability to (fairly quickly) get 5 touches against a mix of fencers of widely varying skill levels. (Everyone has experienced the inherent difficulties of competing against someone so unskilled that you have no possibility of anticipating what they may do next.)

2. The ability to persevere to 15 touches against increasingly skilled opponents over a longer time (more exhausting.)

A fencers who is less successful at skill 1 will finish lower than another who's DE successes (skill 2) are equivalent.

.

[tdwg83]

I would caution that scores are not necessarily an indictation of how difficult a match truly is. To really make that assessment you would need to watch each bout and weigh the scores against the skills of the fencers to determine difficulty (in both pools and DEs). Example: I know of A and B rated fencers that will throw pool bouts to seed lower then they normally could. It changes the game for them to approach Finals froma differant position.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by tdwg83

Example: I know of A and B rated fencers that will throw pool bouts to seed lower then they normally could. It changes the game for them to approach Finals froma differant position.

Yes, but are they really left-handed?

-B

[pinkelephant]

Seeking to favour an opponent = throwing a fight = Group 4 = a very dark card indeed.

[H Man]

Pink does a nice job of summerizing Book 2, 0-19 and 0-28.

I have seen confusion between the USFA's Division Operating Guide (Edwin "Buzz" Hurst) directive for tournament management and that of the NACs. The guide explains that, during DEs, you pick up the pool seeding of a fencer you defeat, to wit, fencer A with a pool seeding of 10 defeats Fencer B who pooled 4, A advances with the 4 and B sits with a 4 at his last DE for ranking purposes. The guide fails to provide citation to the orginazational rules with specificity.

I had a fencer at a NAC who pooled something around 75 defeat a fencer in the round of 64 who pooled 16th. My fencer lost in the round of 32 so one could sumise that the worst he could have finished was 48 (the 32 ahead of him and the theroritical fencers seeded 1 through 15 who also lost in the round of 32). He finished 67th(?).

I'll have to speak with Buxx.

[oso97]

Despite the fact that he passes himself off as such, Buzz is not the be all and end all of Operations in the USFA. He is, in fact, sadly out of date.

[Rockstar44]

Here's my issue:

Fencer A in a pool of five scores 5/4, 5/4, 5/4, 5/4. This gives him an indicator of +5 with 4 wins and no losses.

Fencer B in the same pool scores 5/0, 5/0, 5/0, 4/5. This gives her an indicator of +14 with 3 wins and one loss.

Under the current system, Fencer A is seeded higher than Fencer B, but since they all fenced the same people, who really performed better in this pool? And, who should be seeded higher?

I think that indicators should be given more weight than wins/losses in the pools.

[KD5MDK]

I think the person who WON more bouts has accomplished more...

[Rockstar44]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

I think the person who WON more bouts has accomplished more...

That's what the DEs are for. I was talking about seeding out of the pools.

[peet]

Originally Posted by Rockstar44

That's what the DEs are for. I was talking about seeding out of the pools.

Yeah, but even in the pools, the win is more important than the score.

[veeco]

Yes, cue Christian Kulcsar who won almost all his bouts in the last world championships by one touch.

Winning's winning, regarless of whether it was by one touch or 14 touches.

This thread sounds more like whinning than winning to me...

[H Man]

Look at o-19. (It's in Book 2) A is seeded higher then B


The first indicator is not the "touch" indicator, it is the win indicator - Wins over bouts or wins divided by bouts.

In this example first fencer A has a Win indicator of 1 and second fencer B has a win indicator of .75. A is seeded above B.

In case of a tie you look at the touch indicator and then the touches recieved and then a draw of lots.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by H Man

Look at o-19. (It's in Book 2) A is not seeded higher then B

....


A is seeded above B.

??



.....

[H Man]

Sorry, I don't type as well as I think.

[H Man]

Is that better?

[HDG]

Originally Posted by H Man

Sorry, I don't type as well as I think.

You can't have had that much beer since practice.

[H Man]

Pu leez. Piece of cake. Barrel of rum. Arg...