World Qualifer Results

[liam stephens]

Congratulations to Richard and Wilma from the Irish Draughts Association.

[Jay H]

Congratulations to all of the contestants.....
And extended conratulations to the winners
I know luck is not involved in your upcoming matches for the titles...it will be hard work !
Especially Richard Beckwith, who has earned the right to challenge Ron "Suki" King for the Freestyle World Championship !
An honor few have earned....
I look forward to the Match, and seeing the games played !!
Best wishes !!

Regards

Jay H

[Alex_Moiseyev]

I know luck is not involved in your upcoming matches for the titles

Hi, Jay ! I am glad to see you back to forum with all your interesting posts.

Indeed I agree with you about hard work in match, but I disagree with role of luck. It is absolutely necessary and important component in matches and cannot be ignore. It is double important when level of opponents is closed.

There are some method's to improve luck and make it stronger, but I don't want to discuss this here.

Every strong experienced player knows (more or less) how to deal with this.

I wish Richard alot of luck in his match. Anything else he has ! If Richard decides to call me, I'll be glad to accept his offer and assist him in his preparation ... anything I can.

The rumor say that Suki is unbeatable in GAYP. This is absolutely wrong !!! Nothing impossible !

Mr. Alex

[Jay H]

I know luck is not involved in your upcoming matches for the titles

Hi, Jay ! I am glad to see you back to forum with all your interesting posts.

Indeed I agree with you about hard work in match, but I disagree with role of luck. It is absolutely necessary and important component in matches and cannot be ignore. It is double important when level of opponents is closed.

There are some method's to improve luck and make it stronger, but I don't want to discuss this here.

Every strong experienced player knows (more or less) how to deal with this.

I wish Richard alot of luck in his match. Anything else he has ! If Richard decides to call me, I'll be glad to accept his offer and assist him in his preparation ... anything I can.

The rumor say that Suki is unbeatable in GAYP. This is absolutely wrong !!! Nothing impossible !

Mr. Alex

Greetings Alex,
Thanx for the welcome...it is good to be back.
"There are some method's to improve luck and make it stronger, but I don't want to discuss this here.
Every strong experienced player knows (more or less) how to deal with this."
Yes, that is the stuff that strong players (and World Champions) are made of (!).....being able to manipulate these things are what makes you who you are ....and seperates the "wheat from the chaff"....!
You wrote in an earlier post that Richard Beckwith is at the point where, when he enters a tournament, anything less than a victory is a disappointment.
He has arrived !!!
With that stated, I will wish him the "best of luck"...and to you also, in your upcoming (long awaited, much anticipated) match with Ron "Suki" King.

Regards

Jay H

[MostFamousDane]

So we agree then that just as before all the other qualifers an American predicted that the Americans would totally dominate the tournament an once again he was completely wrong

Yes thats right - allthough the complete hopelessness of the swiss system makes it harder to see it - I'm glad we agree

[MostFamousDane]

Yes thats right - allthough the complete hopelessness of the swiss system makes it harder to see it - I'm glad we agree

What would you suggest-- single elim?

Hi John

You know quite frankly anything is better than this. By far the most fair method is double elimination which of course has the disadvantage of people travelling far not to play. Here is my proposal we could do a 2 day swiss afterwich the top 8 players could qualify for the main event and the rest play in a B event. The main event could then be a 3 day double eliminiation or just a round robin (7 rounds should be possible in 3 days). The advantages of this would be - that the "bottom" players can still travel far and get to play against their heroes and they still get to play all week. The advantages for the "top" players would be a format without leapfrogging.

[tommyc]

Hmmm dont you think its time to leave off this "litle boys ...and i want to play my heroes thingy" for gods sake ive nvr heard such rubbish for grown men.

My idea would be to have a round robin of all serious contnders who would play each other twice in the course of the Ty,and dispose forever of those kind of no hopers who provided Rich Beckwith with 8 handy points and ruined another fine TY.Get rid of the rubbish and let "good" players go head to head,cut out thIS LUCKY DIP ASPECT.

THAT GETS RID OF SUNES IDEA OF ANY NEED FOR A "B" LINE-UP WHICH QUITE HONESTLY SERVES NO PURPOSE AND HAS NO MEANING.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

My idea would be to have a round robin of all serious contnders

yes.

For Sune - what does it mean "B" group in Qualify ty ? Should we have "B" World Champion ? Ha-ha

[tommyc]

Try and concentrate on the "subject " matter John. Or should i rename you SKIPPY?

[MostFamousDane]

My idea would be to have a round robin of all serious contnders

yes.

For Sune - what does it mean "B" group in Qualify ty ? Should we have "B" World Champion ? Ha-ha

You know it is quite common in other sports to play for secondary places!

Lets take for instance the world cup in football - we have preliminary rounds afterwich there are direct playoffs and play for secondary places. I've never heard anybody argue that we should replace the current system in football with swiss system - why ? because it works very very well.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

concentrate on the "subject " matter

Typical Swiss paradox and weakness: someone "came from behind" last second. In ACF we have REPAIR round to fix this. But REPAIR concept has it'w own weaknesses.

You can't create a perfect system based on knoweldges what already happened. Every situation is unique.

In Round Robin you may have situation, when someone beat his major competitors, but finished behind other guy(s) who beat all players from the bottom.

There is no perfect system which can stop Dr. Beckwith (and other Americans) from taken all advantage on it weaknesses !

Alex

[MostFamousDane]

concentrate on the "subject " matter

Typical Swiss paradox and weakness: someone "came from behind" last second. In ACF we have REPAIR round to fix this. But REPAIR concept has it'w own weaknesses.

You can't create a perfect system based on knoweldges what already happened. Every situation is unique.

In Round Robin you may have situation, when someone beat his major competitors, but finished behind other guy(s) who beat all players from the bottom.

There is no perfect system which can stop Dr. Beckwith (and other Americans) from taken all advantage on it weaknesses !

Alex

We don't need to create a perfect system - it has already been created!

Here is the clear ranking of the different systems in terms of fairness:

1. Double knockout - it guarantees that the best two performing players will be 1 and 2. There is no basis for debating whether the results are correct afterwards! The weakness with this system is that you need definite results in each round - which means that you would have to play lower and lower timer until you get a definite result. The second problem with this system is that people will be knocked out early and people might not want to travel long distances only to play for one day. The double knockout system is used in a number of sports including pool.

2. Round robin it guarantees that the best performing players play all the bottom players and get a chance to get many points from them. However lets say player A get 2 two points from player C and player B get 4 points from player C it doesn't mean anything! Player B could just be lucky that his favorite openings is openings that player C haven't had time to study. Checkers is a drawish game (especially GAYP) and therefore a round robin system could also produce quite unfair results.

3. The swiss system is just completely hopeless - it just randomly distribute players there is a slight tendency for better performing players to end up in the top half and poorly performing players to end up in the bottom half - but quite often that doesn't even happen! In the swiss system it is usually a good thing to lose a couple of games in the beginning because you get easier opponents. For the swiss system to work a drawn game between two players have to actually mean something and the level of the players have to be close. None of these requirements are present in a qualifying tournament in GAYP checkers. What is even worse is whoever wins the tournament will then have to live with the fact the everyone will not be able to agree that the best man won. Think how annoying it must be for Richard to come home after the triumf of his life and then reading this thread!

So in conclusion - the most fair system is clearly the double knockout and its weakness can be fixed by combining it with another tournament form - so that is the system we should use in the future .

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Sune, If Olympic (elimination) system which you propose would be adopted some day (I hope not during my life time ) someone will be crying alot. This is maximum unfair system system with 2 major weaknesses.

1) Weakness #1. Saying "lower time" is not a definie criteria. You can't say "until someone wins" - you have to specify an exact criteria and procedure to identify the winner at the end. And are you willing to let them play 1 minute per game (with or without increments) ? And what you plan to do at the end if they have all draws - perhaps coin ? Or wait couple days until someone has to go to airport and fortfeit him/her ?

2) Weakness #2.If you pair for elimination two strong players and two "not so strong" plaayers - this is maximum unfair system I ever saw, which goes against strong player #2.

Lets say in first round Shane plays with Richard or Jim, and you play with someone at your level ? Think about ...

So, instead one non-perfect system you propose another one with it's own weaknesses. Other sports use Olympic system when they are dealing with hundred of participants and need a quick elimination. This is not a case in checkers.

Regards,

Alex

[MostFamousDane]

Sune, If Olympic (elimination) system which you propose would be adopted some day (I hope not during my life time ) someone will be crying alot. This is maximum unfair system system with 2 major weaknesses.

1) Weakness #1. Saying "lower time" is not a definie criteria. You can't say "until someone wins" - you have to specify an exact criteria and procedure to identify the winner at the end. And are you willing to let them play 1 minute per game (with or without increments) ? And what you plan to do at the end if they have all draws - perhaps coin ? Or wait couple days until someone has to go to airport and fortfeit him/her ?

Granted this is something that people may not like - but it IS fair! Of course I need to specify the details it could be two games with regular time, then 32 minutes, 16 minutes etc. The players have to collude in order for this not to work and in that case a coin flip is as fair as anything.

2) If you paired for elimination two strong players and two "not so strong" plaayers - this is maximum unfair system I ever saw, which goes against strong player #2.

Lets say in first round Shane plays with Richard or Jim, and you play with someone at your level ? Think about ...

Ah we are not on the same page - what I propose is double knockout system - not single knockout. It works like this everyone is paired off in round one - lets say Shane plays Richard in the first round and Richard loses - then Richard is moved to the losers bracket and unless he is beaten by lets say David Harwood he will play Shane again in the final. See explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-eli ... tournament.

So, instead one non-perfect system you propose another one with it's own weaknesses. Other sports use Olympic system when they are dealing with hundred of participants and need a quick elimination. This is not a case in checkers.

As you can see from my comments above - what I propose is in fact perfect - in terms of fairness at least.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Granted this is something that people may not like - but it IS fair!

It could be fair only in case EVERYONE doesn't like and hates it

Of course I need to specify the details it could be two games with regular time, then 32 minutes, 16 minutes etc.

Can you translate me "etc" ?

and in that case a coin flip is as fair as anything.

You are my hero !

what I propose is double knockout system - not single knockout.

Finally you've got me ! For more than 40 years I played in many Soviet Union and FMJD along with ACF & WCDF events, but never under this particular system. Once I am not experienced - I leave it to other experts who played (or judged) many events with this system and is familiar with it's strength and weakness.

Back to 40's-50's we used double-knockout system in ACF but later it was replaced by Swiss system with repair round(s).