Proposed system for tournaments

This is the just some ideas I have gotten. Actually, someone emailed to me way back in 95 after the Country Funworld Tournament. He suggested I use the tournament system that is used by fencing tournaments when I complained how some insidious player got to the top 3 by eliminating very good players like Chris. Sorry, I still can't get over it /versus/images/icons/mad.gif.

I didn't have a chance to revisit the idea until now. Below is my proposal on running VF tournaments. I will be using the system for the upcoming Singapore VF4 Tournament.

Seeding Round
Firstly depending on the no. of players you get. They will all be split to pools of 6-7 players. I'm anticipating 2 pools for this coming Singapore Tournament. Each pool of players will face each other off. Every round won against the other 5 or 6 players are counted. Every round won against you by the 5 or 6 players are also counted. Using a pool of 7 players as an example:

<pre>
Player 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 V TS TR Ind

1 Joji XXX 4 4 4 4 3 4 6 20 09 +11

2 Steve 1 XXX 4 4 4 4 4 6 21 13 +08

3 Prof 1 1 XXX 4 4 4 4 4 22 14 +08

4 Lark 1 0 1 XXX 2 4 4 2 12 20 -08

5 Mason 0 3 3 4 XXX 1 4 2 15 22 -07

6 Yupa 4 2 1 2 4 XXX 3 2 16 20 -04

7 Brendan 2 3 1 0 2 4 XXX 1 12 27 -15</pre>

As you can see, I have used the results from the Amherst 1995 VF2 Tournament as an example. It is all very nicely done in a table so I decided to use it. The XXX is there 'cus you can play against yourself. The horizontal row are the rounds the player won against the respective players numbered from 1-7. So for Joji against Steve (1 vs 2) Joji has 4 rounds and Steve 1 round.

V is the number of victories.
TS is rounds for. It is the sum of the row of rounds won. This is the same row as the player's name.
TR is rounds against. Sum of the column down the respective player's row. e.g for Joji, it is the sum of column 1.
Ind is the Indicator. TS-TR. The negative number is nothing to be ashamed of.

The V with Ind will determine seeding for the players. In this perfect example, Joji is seeded 1. Even though Steve and Prof has the same Ind, Steve has more Victories so is seeded higher.

Play order is determined this way. Player 1 will play against 4, 2-5, 3-6, .....
For more details, download this <a target="_blank" href=http://nadi.calpoly.edu/~fencing/Documentation/TournamentForms/PoolSheet.pdf> pdf file</a> which is a score sheet with the play order. Excellent stuff.

Direct Elimination w/o Repechage
Just go for DE without repechage forms. This <a target="_blank" href=http://www.geocities.com/bdschenck/mdfencing/documents.htm> page here has DE without repechage forms for tournaments up to 128 players! The fight order will depend on the no. of seeded players. e.g. for 16 seeded players, 1st seed vs 16th seed for the first match, 8-9 for the second and so forth. Check for score sheets for details. If there are less than 16 players the 1st seeded player will walkover.

DE w/o repechage can be handled by computer. In fact, the Seeding Round can be handled by computer and the seed positions determined rather quickly. <a target="_blank" href=http://www.pointcontrol.com> Point Control</a> does all this for you. Just get a PC with Windows and a printer for this.

DE w/o repechage is quite unfair. Flukes are bound to happen and some good players may get eliminated from some lucky so-so player.

Direct Elimination Round /w Repechage
This is where it gets fun. Losers get a second chance to get back to the ladder. Reduces the chance that a fluke occurs. Check out the above-mentioned site from Cal Poly for a clear view what I mean. He has forms for 16 and 32 players with repechage.

As usual, I'm trying to say it is the best way to run a tournament but it is a fairer to do it with repechage. I would welcome any comments or questions.