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Too many blowouts in team events? Hi!
A month ago, I co-reffed some matches (3 poule matches, one 1/4-final, and two 5-8 placement matches) in the Swedish WET national team championships. For once there was a surplus of refs, so we would be two at each match, each reffing every other individual bout.
Afterwards, the match results got me wondering if the competition was set up in the best possible way. WET featured 12 teams, divided into 4 poules, with 2 out of 3 in each poule advancing to quarterfinals, and IIRC no consolation round for the non-qualifying round. Those teams that did not qualify for the 1/4finals did not get any final placement listed on the competition website, for that matter. The BC had placed the teams into the poules so as to make all poules as equally strong as possible, this meant that each poule had one each of the strong, middling, and weak teams.
While that makes for equality of poules, it does not make for equality of bouts. Of the 12 poule matches, only 2 ended with the loser getting at least 40 points, and 3 ended with the loser getting less than 20 points. Not much nail-biting suspense there. The tableau matches ended with 4 close results, and 1 blowout (in a semifinal, nonetheless!) out of 12 bouts. The median result of all those 24 matches was 45-31. The winning team got to fence against the teams which placed #2,4,7,8 and one in the 9-12 span. Complete results here: http://fencing.farad.se/
Incidentally, the results were even more lopsided in the MFT competition: among the 24 matches, 2 ended with the loser getting less than 10 points, 6 with less than 20 points, and only 4 with the loser getting at least 40 points. Median result: 45-28. (in the 5-team WFT event, the median result was 45-11.)
As you see, this was a fairly standard team competition layout. However, what I wonder - and put up as topic for this thread - is there another layout that is better, all things considered? I suspect that a layout that mostly pits teams against other teams with as similar strength as is possible would produce the largest number of close-fought bouts, which is good in my book.
I have a bunch of ideas for how such layouts could be, but I will wait to describe them until some discussion on the larger topic has taken place.
BTW: The winning team had a cameraman who interviewed the WET gold medalists and put up this + match snippets on a Youtube video. I am seen in the background for a few seconds. First f-netter (except those that have seen me in person!) to identify me gets a green-dot bump! Here is the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LfbI...=youtube_gdata
BTW2: In addition to this, I have under the recent year reffed:
1. up to 1/4-final in JrWEI National Championships
2. poule CdtWEI+poule U14BoysEI National Championships
3. 1/32 up to 1/4 finals in one of the big three Sr Mens Epee events (roughly comparable to a small but top-strong NAC)
4. poules and 1/8-final to final in the regional SrMEI championships.
Roughly, what kind of reffing rating would be expected of a USFA ref with similar appointments?
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
Last edited by PeterGustafsson; 12-27-2009 at 08:40 PM.
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Senior Member
Array 
 Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson  BTW2: In addition to this, I have under the recent year reffed:
1. up to 1/4-final in JrWEI National Championships
2. poule CdtWEI+poule U14BoysEI National Championships
3. 1/32 up to 1/4 finals in one of the big three Sr Mens Epee events (roughly comparable to a small but top-strong NAC)
4. poules and 1/8-final to final in the regional SrMEI championships.
Roughly, what kind of reffing rating would be expected of a USFA ref with similar appointments? here is the USFA Referee Rating guideline: http://fencingofficials.org/ratings/...ng_process.php
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Senior Member
Array 
The same issue (blowouts) was raised at the World Junior Hockey Championship going on in Saskatchewan right now. Canada won their opening game 16-0 against Latvia and Sweden beat the Czech Republic 10-1.
The reason the scores are getting run up to that degree is because 1) goal differential is the decider when teams have the same record and 2) ranking out of pools determines byes to the semi-finals.
A solution for the hockey problem would be to relegate more teams to lesser championships. The same could be applied to fencing; however, I don't think that blowouts are a real problem, provided they occur during the preliminary stages and not the finals. Pools mean that in theory the strongest, most evenly matched teams will face off at the end of a competition and as long as that happens most of the time then I think that the current system is still good.
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Hi!
Originally Posted by nahouw Well, that describes how things are supposed to be. I was more in search of how things turn out.
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
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Hi!
Originally Posted by samh The same issue (blowouts) was raised at the World Junior Hockey Championship going on in Saskatchewan right now. Canada won their opening game 16-0 against Latvia and Sweden beat the Czech Republic 10-1.
The reason the scores are getting run up to that degree is because 1) goal differential is the decider when teams have the same record and 2) ranking out of pools determines byes to the semi-finals.
A solution for the hockey problem would be to relegate more teams to lesser championships. The same could be applied to fencing; however, I don't think that blowouts are a real problem, provided they occur during the preliminary stages and not the finals. Pools mean that in theory the strongest, most evenly matched teams will face off at the end of a competition and as long as that happens most of the time then I think that the current system is still good. One thing that I think is a problem with blowouts is that they take piste-time from other possible bouts. A format with one huge poule maximises the total number of close-fought matches, but is usually unfeasible time-wise. Some possible bouts must be cut from the format, and if one cuts the buts which can be predicted to be blowouts then one has a higher proportion of interesting bouts. Of course, that requires that the teams are ranked by something more sopisticated than win/match and score differential/match proportions, but that is not undoable.
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
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Senior Member
Array 
Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson First f-netter (except those that have seen me in person!) to identify me gets a green-dot bump! Guy in the black suit with the red tie. "Sometimes we, as coaches, get into that dictator mode where you just tell and you don't listen and you don't try to understand them." Tom Izzo, Mich. St.
"Fraud is the creation of trust. And then: its betrayal."
William Black, Ph.D.
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At the 1:05 mark - Aren't you the guy in the background with a red tie, black jacket and grey pants?
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Hi!
Originally Posted by Wallance At the 1:05 mark - Aren't you the guy in the background with a red tie, black jacket and grey pants? Ca-ching!
Only that the jacket is green.
Waitaminute - if you come from Århus, have you seen me in Malmö perhaps?
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
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Fencing Expert
Array 
Surely the problem is that you will only know which matches will be 'blow outs' once the fencing has started.
At the junior world championships this year I refereed in the L32 of the team epee the #1 seed the Ukraine vs the #32 seed New Zealand. Originally thinking I would get my next coffee in 15 minutes, the kiwi's were ahead for the first three matches before Ukraine ground out a win having to sub on their silver medallist from the day before.
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Senior Member
Array 
Originally Posted by downunder Surely the problem is that you will only know which matches will be 'blow outs' once the fencing has started.
At the junior world championships this year I refereed in the L32 of the team epee the #1 seed the Ukraine vs the #32 seed New Zealand. Originally thinking I would get my next coffee in 15 minutes, the kiwi's were ahead for the first three matches before Ukraine ground out a win having to sub on their silver medallist from the day before. But, of course, if this thing only happens occasionally, it's not a big deal. A large upset is entertaining. If the 32 has a glimmer of hope of beating the 1, it's more fun.
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Senior Member
Array 
Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson Hi!
Ca-ching!
Only that the jacket is green.
Waitaminute - if you come from Århus, have you seen me in Malmö perhaps?
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
The big talking head in the foreground when you are in the background looks kind of familiar. Is that Johan Harmenberg?
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Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson Hi!
Ca-ching!
Only that the jacket is green.
Waitaminute - if you come from Århus, have you seen me in Malmö perhaps?
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson Well I have been in Ystad the last two years, so I might have seen you.
Also I found the website for your club, which helped me a bit
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Hi!
Originally Posted by kapunga The big talking head in the foreground when you are in the background looks kind of familiar. Is that Johan Harmenberg? Yes, that is Johan. He came to the sporting hall not long before this was filmed, and greeted me - we had spent some time talking to each other in the recent Swedish Fencing Federation meeting. He can still spank epee fencers who aspire to get a place in our Jr National team!
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
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Curmudgeon Emeritus
Array 
I have to ask why the event was fenced "WET", though. Sounds dangerous with electrical equipment around.
Anyway, you'd look ever so much more distinguished in a pair of aviator sunglasses instead.
Last edited by Inquartata; 12-28-2009 at 02:46 PM.
Use the Shift key, people! Keyboard manufacturers everywhere are ineffably saddened when you ignore what they made just for you!
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The point of championship is to have the two best teams meet in the final match, the 3rd and 4th teams in the round before that, etc.
If a team is getting blown out, they are doing:
1) Don't belong at this level of competition
2) Substantially underperforming what they should be capable of
3) Should be waiting to get to the matches they are competitive of when fencing out the places on the backside.
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Senior Member
Array 
this sort of thing happens here too. Say my club decided to field a Div I epee team this year since the Nationals are close to home. We would have one B and two C on it. We would get to Nationals and be seeded near (very near) the bottom and hence have to fence someone quite good first. That team would get a quick warm up, we would get a learning experience and we would be thrilled if we managed to score more than 15 points. (depending on who we drew.) If you give a man a fire, he is warm for the night.
If you set a man on fire, he is warm for the rest of his life.
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Senior Member
Array 
Of all people, I think Peter would realize that he doens't have a statistically significant sampling of data to come to the conclusion that there's a problem with the team format... 
Dan
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