Pool to DE

[Dreyman]

When going from pools to DE, how are people paired off for DE? Do you put people with the lowest score with people with the highest score? Do you put people so that their scores are close to each others? By the way, I did read the section on tournament format in the "Dude, where's my foil?" article, but couldn't find an answer.

[TooLoftheDeviL]

Quick answer, it's high vs. low. Also take into account that people who win about half their bouts will fence other people who won about half their bouts in their first round.

More accurately,results are seeded from best result to worst result, and the pairings work by rounds (powers of 2). So you take the first round >= to the number of competitors being seeded, and first place fences last place, second fences second to last, and so on. Byes go to those fencers who do not have an opponent. For example, 15 people fence in a round of 16, but in round 1 since there is no Fencer number 16, Fencer number 1 gets a bye.

Or maybe that's not clear at all.

[seven6ty]

Top seed fences the bottom seed. So it starts off, for example, pairing #1 with #32, #2 with #31, #3 with #30, etc. This goes in powers of two, depending on how many people are there. So, for eample they will create a bracket of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc, depending on how many people attend the tournament. If you have 52 people, for example, the top 12 people will get a bye into the round of 32, assuming that nobody is cut, while going from pools to DE's.

[warlordkenobi]

If you watch basketball it's like the NCAA tournament.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by warlordkenobi

If you watch basketball it's like the NCAA tournament.

Heck, even if s/he doesn't watch backetball it's like the NCAA (basketball) tournament.

But usually with a field that's not close to a power of 2, so a round where a bunch of entrants have byes (but not 63 out of 65 of them).

-B

[teacup]

If you want to figure out who you are going to fence in a DE, subtract your ranking out of pools from the tableau number plus one.

For example:

For a table of 128, if you came out 60th, you will fence the fencer who came out of the pools 69th.

(If there were only 65 fencers, then you would have a bye.)

(128 + 1) - 60 = 69

Another example:
(8 + 1) - 2 = 7
The #2 ranked fencer fences the #7 ranked fencer.

1-8
2-7
3-6
4-5

If you have a bye, go down to the next complete tableaux.

If there were 13 fencers, the #2 ranked would get a bye and fence the winner of 7 vs 10.
(16 + 1) - 2 = 15 bye
(8+ 1) - 2 = 7 vs 10

[bunbury]

First consider your number and the person you are bouting's, look at which ever of you two is even. (example, 31 is fighting 34, so lets look at #34).

Figure out which level you are considering. For example purposes lets say we are considering the quarter-finals, with 8 competitors left. Our special *factor* number is going to be double the number of competitors, so in this example its 16. You are in the same bracket with the other seeds who are a multiple of our factor, or a multiple offset by a fixed amount. Looking at our number, #34, thats 48-14, so our offset is 14. You'll be in the same bracket as all other 14s: #2, #18, and 50, along with their counterparts (#63, #47, #15).

To see when you'd fight seed #3, you know that his competitor (62) is an offset of 0 from 2, 2 from 4, 2 from 8, 2 from 16, and 2 from 32. You then look at your offsets of being 0 from 2, 2 from 4, 6 from 8, 14 from 16, and 30 from 32. The only similar offset is 2 from 4, which means you won't fight him till the second to last round. Basically, its that the winner goes onto the (half of factor) # of competitors round. Factor is 4, so the winner would go on to the finals with only 2 competitors.

Lets do another example, just to test the system: You are #17, you want to see if you have to fight #1 before the end.

1 and his competitor 64 are easy to calculate: 0 from everything.
17's competitor is 48 which is 0 from 2, 0 from 4, 0 from 8, 0 from 16, 16 from 32. Seems you'd fight him when there are 16 competitors left, such that the winner moves on to the 8 person round.

[Redblade]

As you learn what this is all about, start with very small numbers; it'll make it easier to grasp at the beginning.

With only four people, for example, it's 1v4 and 2v3 -- both of which produce a sum of five. Very easy to see.

With eight people, it's 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 -- sum nine.

This is why you sometimes hear guys mumbling to themselves at the board between bouts and DEs stuff like, "I'm 54th ... we're in a 64 bracket. ... 65 minus 54 ... I fence No. 11, this guy..."

Find an actual graphic of DE bracket(s) to study (in any sport). Although the numbers might appear to be mixed all over the place, they still shake out this way.