Playoff Formatting Help

[biggiebird89]

Time for s'more help on another bracketing situation - this time, for 22 teams. I've thought about preliminary brackets going to 3 brackets, 2 having 7 and 1 having 8. This would require 7 rounds (6 matches for the divisions of 7, and 7 matches for the bracket of 8). Then comes the idea for playoffs. Here's what I've thought of so far:

1.) Re-bracket into a playoff pool containing the top 2 teams from 2 divisions, the top 3 from the 8-team division, and perhaps a wild-card team from the top remaining teams (8 teams total.) Separate into 2 four-team playoff pools with a cross-bracket playoff (4 games,) then a potential advantaged championship between the top team of each pool. [7 + 4 = 11 guaranteed]

2.) Re-bracket into one playoff pool containing the top two teams from each division, play a round-robin tournament (carrying over the morning game, therefore only 4 matches in this RR,) and then a potential advantaged championship. [7 + 4 = 11 guaranteed]

If anyone else has other options, please feel free to pass them along. It's not me being ill-prepared, it's me preparing for any of whatever options/quantities of teams come along.

[dtaylor4]

How many packets do you have?

I'd suggest doing 2/2/2/1-2. Carry over the common game, and do four rounds of cross-overs. For the bottom teams, don't carry over, just do a 3-round RR.

[biggiebird89]

The Fall Novice set for this year has 13 packets, and the 2/2/2/2/1-2 thing has me a bit confused as to what you mean, Donald.

[dtaylor4]

Top two teams from each bracket, then next two, and next two. Once you get to the bottom, there will be one bracket with two and two brackets with one.

[biggiebird89]

So essentially you're suggesting the 2nd option I had, where I take the top 2 teams in each bracket, combine them into 1 playoff pool, carry over the previous game, and just have teams play 4 of the 5 teams in the pool (excluding the one played in the morning,) am I right?

[dtaylor4]

Precisely.

[biggiebird89]

That's what I was thinking, but I just wanted you to clarify that. I also had an idea about something someone said earlier:

For 20 teams, your only real options are 4 brackets of 5 feeding into 5 brackets of 4 (7 games, 8 rounds), which seems a little short......

What's your take on the idea of this:
- Morning: 4 brackets of 5 (4 matches, 5 rounds) feeding into 5 brackets of 4.
- Take the #1s and #2s into the "playoff pool", the #3s/#4s into "A" consolation and #5s into the "B" consolation.
- Either (a) make 2 balanced playoff pools of 2 #1s and 2 #2s, where teams from the same bracket are in different groups or (b) keep the seeds separated, and then do a cross-bracketed playoff (3 matches) and then a potential advantaged final between the leaders of the pools. It would secure at least 7 games in 8 rounds (minimum) for teams, with up to 10 for teams in an ADV Final, and 3 packets left over to break ties, potentially instead of going by other means (PPTUH, etc.)

If ANYONE can give me some help with this, it'd be greatly appreciated. Thank you all very much!

[biggiebird89]

Since no one replied to my above question - I'll pose a new one that I'm struggling with at the moment:

Does it particularly matter if teams hear a specific reader/moderator more than once during a round robin (such as a preliminary?) I am making up schedules for all scenarios (such as for 16 teams, 18, etc.) and am curious as if it would be a better idea to segment off a set number of rooms for each bracket and just have players rotate in that manner (i.e. for a 6 team bracket, reserve 3 rooms, therefore teams would hear 2 moderators 2 times, etc.) or have them just rotate to completely different rooms.

[Steeve Ho You Fat]

Since no one replied to my above question - I'll pose a new one that I'm struggling with at the moment:

Does it particularly matter if teams hear a specific reader/moderator more than once during a round robin (such as a preliminary?) I am making up schedules for all scenarios (such as for 16 teams, 18, etc.) and am curious as if it would be a better idea to segment off a set number of rooms for each bracket and just have players rotate in that manner (i.e. for a 6 team bracket, reserve 3 rooms, therefore teams would hear 2 moderators 2 times, etc.) or have them just rotate to completely different rooms.

That's normally fine. Sometimes it is annoying when a team is in one room for, say, the entire preliminaries, especially if that room has a sub-par moderator, but if there's one bad mod in each bracket having them twice shouldn't ruin anybody's day and organizing the brackets like that will likely reduce delays in running the tournament.

[biggiebird89]

I wouldn't keep teams in the same room - I try to balance those kinds of settings out, but I was just unsure of doing what I described (keeping a set number of rooms for each bracket) was an ad/disadvantage to certain teams in that sense.

[biggiebird89]

Since I hadn't thought of this situation before, but it is now more apparent it'll happen - what is a good format for a TEN-team tournament?

My thought was
-2 divisions of 5 (say "A" and "B")
-Prelim. round robin tournament (4 games, 5 rounds, BYE teams play a practice match)
-Afternoon round robin against the other division (5 games, 5 rounds)
-Rank teams within a division 1-5 based on overall record, and break any ties in the afternoon on a half-packet
-Cross-bracket championships (#1A vs. #1B, #2A vs. #2 B)

-Guarantees teams 9 games (plus a championship/place game)
-Eliminates no one from championship contention in the morning (since 4 games isn't really enough IMO)
-Gives everyone ample opportunity to play their students and gain the experience

What's everyone think?

[cvdwightw]

Since I hadn't thought of this situation before, but it is now more apparent it'll happen - what is a good format for a TEN-team tournament?

My thought was
-2 divisions of 5 (say "A" and "B")
-Prelim. round robin tournament (4 games, 5 rounds, BYE teams play a practice match)
-Afternoon round robin against the other division (5 games, 5 rounds)
-Rank teams within a division 1-5 based on overall record, and break any ties in the afternoon on a half-packet
-Cross-bracket championships (#1A vs. #1B, #2A vs. #2 B)

-Guarantees teams 9 games (plus a championship/place game)
-Eliminates no one from championship contention in the morning (since 4 games isn't really enough IMO)
-Gives everyone ample opportunity to play their students and gain the experience

What's everyone think?

Basically, this schedule is some weird bastardization of a round robin schedule, except that instead of playing 9 games in 9 rounds, you're playing 9 games in 10 rounds.

If you have 10 teams or less, you should always start by playing a round robin schedule. I cautiously extend this to 12 teams with the understanding that some 11- or 12-team tournaments prefer 10 total rounds (6/5 or 6/6 and rebracket) to 11 total rounds (RR). EDIT: Round robin schedules for up to 16 teams are here. I'm about 99% sure that all of them include the stipulation that "no team will be in the same room more than twice."

In the future (and this applies to everyone reading this), if you come up with a strange format in which some or all teams are playing exactly as many games as they would be playing in a round robin, you should junk it in favor of a round robin.

[biggiebird89]

I'd like to keep at least 2 brackets of 5 regardless, 'cause I have 2 schools with 3 teams, and 1 school with 2 teams attending, so I'd like to make the distribution of teams even, even if they'll eventually play their own school's team, etc.

Would it work better, for playoffs, to rank teams 1-5 in their division, and have teams play cross-bracket championships #1 vs. #1, #2 vs. #2, etc, or do some other form of a playoff after playing the 9 games in the round robin?

[cvdwightw]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see why you're insistent on having divisions when the divisions seem to be arbitrarily defined by you (as opposed to, say, experience-dependent divisions). If you have 10 teams, you can just rank everyone by their performance in the round robin, and have finals if the second-place team has either 1 or 0 fewer losses than the first-place team.

To use a terrible sports analogy, you will notice that the Big 12 did away with their concept of "Divisions" once they got down to 10 teams, and just had the teams play a full round robin to determine the conference champion. It's the same idea here.

[biggiebird89]

Surprisingly, the sports analogy makes sense to me.

The divisions idea just worked for me because it seemed like the right thing to do given how most tournaments are set up (with divisions, prelims, rebracketing, etc.) Plus (and this is just MY opinion that I know of,) it also seems to provide more excitement to win a division and, based on that, get the right to play for a championship, as opposed to just being #1 or #2 at the head of a huge list. My thoughts could just be skewed from not TDing many tournaments before (this will be #2) or not seeing how many well-run tournaments are done.

[Susan]

If you have the opportunity to run a round robin, it's always fairest to let all teams play each other. "More fair" should always trump "more exciting".

[biggiebird89]

So the consensus agreement is that a 9-round round-robin tournament, with (depending on situation) advantaged championship is the best way to go for this tournament, or could there be a different playoff format done after the RR? Such as a 4-team tournament with the top 4, or something along those lines? I'm all for whatever works the best/most fair/easiest.

[Stained Diviner]

Just do a round robin with a championship. You don't want a situation where a team wins all nine matches, then loses one match to a team with three losses, and then the team that just got its first loss goes to the 3rd place match while the team with three losses goes to the Championship Match.

Additionally, you don't know how the round robin will finish up--you could have a two-way tie for first, a three-way tie for first, a team with a single game lead for first, or a team with a two game lead for first. You want a simple policy that handles all possible situations (with the possible exception of a five- or seven-way tie for first since that's just a mess) well. You don't want to say Top Four because there could be two or more teams tied for fourth.

[biggiebird89]

^ That works better for me hearing it in that sense, and then I can break any ties between teams either with a packet (since there are 13 available packets) or by PPG, since it places less emphasis on one game, and all teams will hear all questions in Rounds 1-9.

Since I'm also offering prizes for first, second, and third (similar to what I did last year,) how should I fairly determine the 3rd place team: Strictly on record, if the 3rd place team is ahead of 4th (say 8-1 over 7-2) or play a packet if tied, OR play a packet between 3/4 regardless of record?

[Stained Diviner]

If there is no tie, then just do it by record. If there is a tie, then ask the team with less PPG if they want to play it off. If they do, then tell the team with more PPG that they need to either play it off or concede the place.

[biggiebird89]

I hate being the pain again, but since we've got an 11th team, I am getting a scab team together for a 12-team tournament. My idea for this was:

-2 6-team divisions, with a preliminary round robin tournament (5 rounds, 5 games)
-Rank 1-6 by records (PPG tiebreaker)
-Re-Bracket into 2 divisions of 6 (top 3 in each in one, bottom 3 in another - use a packet to play off if a tie exists for 3rd place)
-Cross-Bracket playoff (3 games, 3 rounds)
-Advantaged championship between the top two in the top division (1-2 rounds, depending.) Teams are guaranteed 8 games minimum.

[Important Bird Area]

My idea for this was:

-2 6-team divisions, with a preliminary round robin tournament (5 rounds, 5 games)
-Rank 1-6 by records (PPG tiebreaker)
-Re-Bracket into 2 divisions of 6 (top 3 in each in one, bottom 3 in another - use a packet to play off if a tie exists for 3rd place)
-Cross-Bracket playoff (3 games, 3 rounds)
-Advantaged championship between the top two in the top division (1-2 rounds, depending.) Teams are guaranteed 8 games minimum.

This is the best plan for 12 teams.

[biggiebird89]

When arranging teams into brackets when you have multiple teams from a school, what is the best way of doing this to ensure an even distribution of teams in the brackets? For the tournament I am running, so far, this is my distribution (with no previous information about current tournament status):

School 1: A-B-C teams
School 2: A-B-C teams
School 3: A-B teams
Schools 4-5-6-7: A team

I am running 2 brackets of 6, and want to have an even distribution between my brackets. I was thinking of doing something like this:
Bracket 1: School 1 (A-C), School 2 (B), School 3 (A)
Bracket 2: School 2 (A-C), School 1 (B), School 2 (B)

And then 2 of the remaining teams in each division. Is this the best way to do this, or should it ALL be completely randomly determined? My goal is to avoid a bracket with all of 1 school in it, etc.

[jonpin]

The most important principle is that a school's A and B should be separated. If you only have two brackets, you can't do any better than that. Whether the C team plays A or B, I don't much care. Stylistically, I like to get any in-school game done with relatively early in a round-robin rather than towards the end.

If you have absolutely no information about team strength, then sure do it randomly beyond that. Otherwise, at least try to guesstimate the top four teams and split them 2-2.

[biggiebird89]

Agreed with the above. My idea was doing the A-C teams first off, since there's a less-likely (assumed) chance a "C" team will make the playoffs in the end, and I'd rather have an "A" vs. "B" playoff matchup in the end, PLUS if that's the case, there's a 20% chance of 1 team from a school facing both teams from the same school (1 in prelims., 1 in playoffs) anyways.

The ONLY information of the 4 single teams I have is from a recent tournament the two participated in. They both reached the "A" playoffs, where one team went 9-1, and the other went 7-3. Aside from this, I don't think it would be fair to separate these 4 teams based on LAST year's performances, so I think for the sake of argument, I'll keep these two aforementioned teams separated, and then randomly assign the others.

Next - in the event I wish (said, "We have the funds to") offer a "Most Valuable Quiz-Bowler" award (basically highest PPG,) what games count toward this award? We're doing 5 games in the morning, 3 in the afternoon, with a potential advantaged final after the afternoon 3.

[dtaylor4]

Next - in the event I wish (said, "We have the funds to") offer a "Most Valuable Quiz-Bowler" award (basically highest PPG,) what games count toward this award? We're doing 5 games in the morning, 3 in the afternoon, with a potential advantaged final after the afternoon 3.

Only count the prelim games, as in the playoffs the players on good teams will play a clearly stronger schedule, which may depress their stats.

[biggiebird89]

So in the event that (like what it's looking like now) we do a full round robin of 9 matches, a "MVQBer" award would take the highest PPG from all 9 games, correct?

[dtaylor4]

So in the event that (like what it's looking like now) we do a full round robin of 9 matches, a "MVQBer" award would take the highest PPG from all 9 games, correct?

Correct.