Women's World Freestyle Championship

[Alex_Moiseyev]

He thinks it is "incorrect" that Raivis Paegle placed higher then William Docherty.

William had extremely, fantastically bad luck in Beijing, thats all about. It has nothing to do with system and it is unfair to call system unfair. In other hands - he missed 5 wins (including one on me in last round and last game) and any of them could place him second. Perhaps low practice had influence and impact.

Today William had bad luck, tomorrow - you, me or Shane have bad luck, this happened all the time before we were born and after we leave this world

There are matches and there are tournaments - thats all about. Matches always better identify the best player. Any tournament has heroes and victims. Playing competively in many hundred events since 1966, I can't remember when at the end everyone was satisfy.

Miriad situations.

Alex

[MostFamousDane]

Dear Sune,

a knock-out or a double knock out is quite hard to handle.
In the days when the ACF and their predecessors ACA and NCA played this, they always had the problem that they took longer then scheduled and some events were decided as one player had to leave in the final or semi-final, and some just resigned because they were tired of playing the same opponent 24 times or so.

Ingo

My proposal is to use decreasing timers - so that wouldn't happen.

It is simply a mess and there is a reason why it was replaced by swiss system.

Also, in a knock-out or double knock-out you also don't get the same opponents. and the luck of the draw is even more telling.
That flaw is even bigger in that system then in swiss system.
So where is the point?

Ingo

Eh no there is no flaw - sooner or later the player who had easier opponents will be knocked out or the best player will play him in the final and win.

Abduction?
For instance if one concludes that a player won both games against another played better.
That's abduction as well.
That is my point.
Ingo

The above makes no sense Ingo ???

In the double knockout system the results of the other rounds are irrelevant - you just need to keep winning and you will win the tournament.

In round robin you get the same opponents (not quite, as you don't play against yourself) and the schedule is clear.

Ingo

Swiss system has two flaws:

1. Different opponents
2. You get placed not based on your own performance but based on other players performance against each other.

I agree that in a round robin tournament you only have one flaw (number two) so Round Robin is less bad - but still bad.

To Alex:
Yes. It was only a proposal for GAYP.
For 3-move it would not work.

To Josh:
I am quite "gay" about checker players. I think I am quite a freak.
BTW: I am married to the most beautiful woman. You've got no chance.


Greetinx,

Ingo

[Ingo_Zachos]

My proposal is to use decreasing timers - so that wouldn't happen.

What do you do in cases of drawn game after drawn game?
Ballot one out or penalize them a half life each?
And the numbers of games is undetermined and that leaves the schedule out of bounce.

Eh no there is no flaw - sooner or later the player who had easier opponents will be knocked out or the best player will play him in the final and win.

Sune, checkers is not transitory as you pointed out:

For instance, Morrison lost against Freeman and Freeman lost against Beckwith, but Beckwith lost against Morrison.
So if Morrison will be paired against Freeman in round one, he is out, though he is the one that would have beaten Beckwith.

Do you see what that leads to?
The luck factor is much higher in knock-out and double knock-out then in swiss system.
The sequence of the opponents you get is even more important and may lead to the best player getting out after round one (or round two in double-knock out) if he gets his bete noirs in this rounds.
In swiss system you can recover from a bete noir.

In KO-formats the superioir player gets knocked out.

Greetinx,

Ingo

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Relay on coin - most fair system and one can complain only to God !

Disadvantage: player who didn't win any single game (all draws) can win event & player who didn't lose any single game (all draws) can be knock-out (bad coin luck) in the beginning of event.

Advantages: everyone can be a winner and loser, performance not counted and everyone who can make a draw, has a chance.

Checkers, either GAYP or 3-moves, is a drawn game. Strog players still can drew the weak side of game. if two strong players will meet, more likely they may have many draws and eventually one of them will be knockout.

The main idea of knock-out system not a fairness, the main idea - elimination.

It may work quite well if we have 500-1,000 players event. But when we get to the level of 20 players or less, we need something else.

Sune, I can assure you that nothing was wrong in last QT except perhaps questionable pairing. But this is not a system failure.

[MostFamousDane]

My proposal is to use decreasing timers - so that wouldn't happen.

What do you do in cases of drawn game after drawn game?
Ballot one out or penalize them a half life each?
And the numbers of games is undetermined and that leaves the schedule out of bounce.

As it is now the games don't take a fixed amount of time because of the 30 moves per hour rule so there is no difference in scheduling there. Timers decrease until minimum time (lets say 8 minutes) - in pratice the round would only go to balloting if both players colluded.

Eh no there is no flaw - sooner or later the player who had easier opponents will be knocked out or the best player will play him in the final and win.

Sune, checkers is not transitory as you pointed out:

For instance, Morrison lost against Freeman and Freeman lost against Beckwith, but Beckwith lost against Morrison.
So if Morrison will be paired against Freeman in round one, he is out, though he is the one that would have beaten Beckwith.

Well in double knockout system he would be moved to losing bracket and would play Beckwith in the final and won.

Do you see what that leads to?
Ingo

Yes a fair tournament system .

The luck factor is much higher in knock-out and double knock-out then in swiss system.
The sequence of the opponents you get is even more important and may lead to the best player getting out after round one (or round two in double-knock out) if he gets his bete noirs in this rounds.
In swiss system you can recover from a bete noir.

In KO-formats the superioir player gets knocked out.

Greetinx,

Ingo

The sequence of the players should be based on ratings so the best players should only meet each other in the last rounds (assuming that the ratings have any meaning). The best player will never get knocked out because the best player has not lost and will win the tournament. There is only luck involved in case that the two players keep drawing even with bliz timers - I would say that would be an extremely rare case unless the two players collude and in that case it doesn't matter who wins.

[MostFamousDane]

Relay on coin - most fair system and one can complain only to God !

The difference is that swiss system is coin toss every time - double knockout will only be coin toss in the rare case. Do you really think we would have many draws after several bliz games ?

Think about this if we have a set of people who are exactly even in skill - there is no system that can pick the best player because they are all the best player!

[william]

Hi everyone ,

Contrary to the Oldbury dictum concerning JO I would say " I played to win ; I had some wins ; I played them out to draw ; ... I'd like to be a master one day

Concerning draws Sune is correct. We can only juge the drawn games after having seen them , and just because the scoresheet says 2-2 doesn't mean that the players had not been playing out of their skulls!!

Concerning Raivis , I say , if he was third then he deserved his spot , just as Ron and Alex did. Apart from Alex everyone lost at least 1 game , but everyone is in the same system so the opportunities to exploit that system are the same for everyone.Although I believe Ravais's bad start really was only that and nothing more.

Perhaps for some , drawing the first 3 rounds is important , so as to get weaker opponents to bounce off?? But this is as risky as it is available . However it is available to everyone who wants to try it , although I believe that the majority of players go to play serious checkers and let the results take care of themselves .

So I guess in a way the system is fair in my eyes , and the fact that Richard bounced up in GAYP WTQ is something that anyone could have done had they wished , although I am totally convinced that he was not using the strategy of the preceding paragraph as he is one of the serious players I was mentioning.

perhaps accepting counties with lets say more than 100 ex. points differance should be permitted but only if that country can provide no higher rated players . If they can but the player with less than 100 diff. doesn't go then no-one goes .It will be up to that unfortunate player(-100) to increase his ratings for the next time round , by beating his teammate(+100) who let down his country , this is called competition and stimulates athletes. Just an idea to add to the many others ...

greetings from rainy Paris France

WILLIAM

[Alex_Moiseyev]

8 minutes is not a blitz. We sould go to somewhere 1-3 minutes per game. I am playing on Kurnik and can confirm that my level seriously drop only when i am going down to 1 or 2 minutes.

So ... the possibility of all draws between strong players who has 5 or more minutes is still high.

I don't think it will be very rare situation having all draws between 2 players. But it doesn't matter. How you explain this to someone who will be knockout by coin ? You gonna tell him/her : "don't worry, it doesn't happen very often ?"

[william]

I believe a few years ago in 100 squares international checkers Ton Sijbrands was playing in barrages for world title qualifier against ???? maybe Tchitchov and after a bunch of 5 min blitz games they toss a coin!!!!

[MostFamousDane]

8 minutes is not a blitz. We sould go to somewhere 1-3 minutes per game. I am playing on Kurnik and can confirm that my level seriously drop only when i am going down to 1 or 2 minutes.

So ... the possibility of all draws between strong players who has 5 or more minutes is still high.

I don't think it will be very rare situation having all draws between 2 players. But it doesn't matter. How you explain this to someone who will be knockout by coin ? You gonna tell him/her : "don't worry, it doesn't happen very often ?"

I'm going to explain to him that he had plenty of chances to win and didn't do it - and that the system is the best there is which is why it (or a variation of it) is being used in thousands of different sports. You seem to be focussed on this rare sitution (the coin flip) which would be rare and ignore the other coin flip that we have that is called leapfrogging and that constantly occurs in pratice. All the swiss system achieves is that it thinly hides that fact that placements are more or less random - well the top ones anyway - the bottom ones are ok.

[MostFamousDane]

I don't think it will be very rare situation having all draws between 2 players. But it doesn't matter. How you explain this to someone who will be knockout by coin ? You gonna tell him/her : "don't worry, it doesn't happen very often ?"

How do you explain the wonders of the swiss system to lets say a player who is undefeated and has beaten players 1 to 3 - don't worry it doesn't happen very often ?

[Alex_Moiseyev]

After 8 minutes they should play 5,3,2,1 minute per game. This would be more fair then coin flip. At least someone who has better blitz skills will be awarded. And stronger player in blitz still has better chances.

How do you explain the wonders of the swiss system to lets say a player who is undefeated and has beaten players 1 to 3 - don't worry it doesn't happen very often ?

I would tell him:

"don't worry, this happened all the time and quite often in Swiss system if someone gets more points against weak players. "

[Ingo_Zachos]

I don't think it will be very rare situation having all draws between 2 players. But it doesn't matter. How you explain this to someone who will be knockout by coin ? You gonna tell him/her : "don't worry, it doesn't happen very often ?"

How do you explain the wonders of the swiss system to lets say a player who is undefeated and has beaten players 1 to 3 - don't worry it doesn't happen very often ?

That is simple: start to win my friend!

In double knock-out events many players went out undefeated in the past and will walk out undeated and tossed out by a coin.
Is that a better explaination?

My preference:
1. round robin,
2. swiss system

Another point: the current time rate is not very fair, as one game takes longer if the other on eis shirter, which means for one game there is not enough time in a round.
We need a fixed time for a game. So that both can be fought out.
I would propose 30 moves in one hour each and 30 minutes quickplay finish after time control.
So a game lasts 3 hours maximum.

Greetinx,

Ingo

[Alex_Moiseyev]

start to win my friend!

I'll do my best, AMEN !

[tommyc]

Does anyone know whats the latest on the Ladies 3mv match in Mongolia...is it on or off.