ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

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ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

The Truman State Academic Competition Organization is happy to announce their hosting of the ACF Fall Midwest Tournament at Truman State Unversity on November 8, 2008.

Location
For those of you who don't know where Kirksville is (I assume this includes most of you), we are in Northeast Missouri. To see how far we are from cities you may have heard of, you can consult the following table (the directions are from the cities to Kirksville):

St. Louis - 3 hours NW
Des Moines - 3 hours SE
Chicago - 6 hours SW
Kansas City - 3 hours NE

**Please note**
The closest Amtrak station is about 15 minutes south of Kirksville and there is no public transportation between the station and Kirksville. If it is not possible for you to make the tournament without taking Amtrak, please let us know and we will try to work something out with shuttling teams to and from the Amtrak station.

Tournament Cost
Typical ACF Fee Structure applies (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/acf/acf.html):
Base fee: $120
Buzzer systems: -$5 each
Staffers: -$10 each
Laptop: -$10 each (max 1 per team)
Travel: -$10 for every 200 miles traveled one way
International: -$20
Teams new to ACF: -$25
Teams new to quizbowl: -$75

Packet Submission
According to ACF rules, any team with at least one person on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament prior to September 1, 2007, is required to submit a packet in order to participate in an ACF tournament in 2008-2009. All ACF tournaments, NAQT Division I or Division II SCT, NAQT ICT, and typical academic invitationals count as regular collegiate academic tournaments for this purpose, but trash or “hybrid” tournaments, College Bowl/HCASC, and tournaments played on NAQT Invitational Series questions do not. Teams that are not required to submit a packet to ACF Fall may still do so and will receive financial incentives.

For this tournament, send packets to Andrew Hart at: limozeen -at- gmail -dot- com.

Schedule for Teams Required to Submit Packets:
-$50 Deadline: Sunday, September 14, by 10:59 PM CDT
-$25 Deadline: Sunday, September 28, by 10:59 PM CDT
No-Penalty Deadline: Sunday, October 12, by 10:59 PM CDT
+$25 Deadline: Sunday, October 19, by 10:59 PM CDT
+$50 Deadline: Sunday, October 26, by 10:59 PM CDT
Failure to adhere to this schedule will result in your team's ban from this tournament.
Schedule for Teams Not Required to Submit Packets:
-$50 Deadline: Sunday, September 28, by 10:59 PM CDT
-$25 Deadline: Sunday, October 12, by 10:59 PM CDT
Packets submitted after Sunday, October 12, by such teams will be rejected. However, the team will not incur any penalties for not submitting a packet.

Where & When
When: Saturday, November 8, 2008 - Registration will begin at 8:30 AM. The tournament will begin at 9 AM.
Location: Tournament Central will be Baldwin Hall 262 (this is the same building that the Penn Bowl Mirror was hosted in).

Registration
If you want to attend the tournament or have any questions, please e-mail me, Christopher Stone, at cstone -at- truman -dot- edu.
Last edited by ecks on Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:02 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

Teams that have shown interest as of 9/11:

Illinois (4)
Iowa (1-2)
Mo S&T (1-2)
Mizzou (1-2)
WashU (1-2)
KState (1)
Notre Dame (2)
Missouri State (1)
Last edited by ecks on Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:59 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by walter12 »

Iowa will be sending a single team, and possibly a second.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Deckard Cain »

We will be there as well, possibly with two teams.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

I know there will be at least one Mizzou team will be there.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by evilmonkey »

Notre Dame will probably send 2 teams to this. Although we're still deciding whether it makes more sense to go here or to CMU.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Jeremy Gibbs Lemma »

I will think of some fun social activities for Friday night if that makes a difference.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

evilmonkey wrote:Notre Dame will probably send 2 teams to this. Although we're still deciding whether it makes more sense to go here or to CMU.
It looks like CMU is about 2 hours closer to South Bend than Kirksville is, fwiw. Not to say I would mind if you guys came to our site, naturally.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

What about Knoxville?
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Jeremy Gibbs-Marangoni Effect »

Missouri State is interested.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by evilmonkey »

ecks wrote:
evilmonkey wrote:Notre Dame will probably send 2 teams to this. Although we're still deciding whether it makes more sense to go here or to CMU.
It looks like CMU is about 2 hours closer to South Bend than Kirksville is, fwiw. Not to say I would mind if you guys came to our site, naturally.
Either way, its an overnight trip, and if we go this route, we can stop overnight in Iowa at one of our team member's house.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

Okay, so we've had a lot of teams dropping in and out of this tournament over the past couple months. Here's what the field currently looks like (as of 11/3):

Illinois (4)
Mo S&T (1)
WashU (4)
Northwestern (1)
Mizzou (2)
Kansas State (1)
Missouri State (1)

For registration times and place and all that jazz, refer to the original post. If you don't know which building Baldwin Hall is, consult this map: http://tour.truman.edu/campusmap/

I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday!
Last edited by ecks on Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Jeremy Gibbs-Marangoni Effect »

Missouri State would like to bring one team to this if you're still taking registrations.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

For those of you following at home, the final field was 14 teams. The teams were split into two 7-team brackets, which will play a full round robin. After lunch (which ends at 145), teams will begin round 6. After the first 7 games, teams will be rebracketed into playoff brackets.

The standings as of the end of round 5 are:

Blackjack

Rank Team W L
1 Missouri A 4 0
2 WashU A 4 0
3 Illinois B 4 1
4 Northwestern 1 3
5 Illinois C 1 3 0
6 Kansas State 1 4
7 WashU D 0 4 0

Pershing
Rank Team W L
1 Illinois A 4 0
2 Missouri State 3 1
3 WashU C 3 2
4 Illinois D 2 2
5 Missouri S&T 2 3
6 WashU B 1 3
7 Missouri B 0 4
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

So, as of 9PM, the tournament is finally concluded. I know there were many teams who did not like this late end, and I'm sorry that it ran so late - I didn't like it any more than anyone else. I'd like to make a few comments, though:

-As was noted previously, the format (for the 14-team field) was to break into two 7-team brackets for the early rounds, and at the conclusion of a round-robin for those two brackets, rebracketing into two 7-team brackets for playoffs based on the early rounds. As required by ACF, only the playoff games were counted for overall standing. I heard some times wondering whether this format was really necessary, as it required us to run 14 games, which in the best of circumstances would probably have concluded at around 8PM. My reason for setting it up in this way was because of the fact that 1) I was required to provide at least 11 games, and 2) many teams from the field submitted packets, and I didn't feel I could run a full-round robin with enough packets to spare to cover potential finals or play-in games for finals.

-We had a lot of issues that arose [following UCI's example, which is perhaps a bit classier than listing problems in public, I have removed a list of the problems. If you care to know, message me privately]. For those factors of which I had some semblance of control, I take full responsibility.

I hope that overall the experience was a good one.

Anyway, for results/stats:

I will post a more complete post tomorrow sometime, but the short and dirty: in the playoff bracket, Illinois A went 6-0 and Missouri A went 5-1. Although ACF format calls for a weighted final in this situation, Missouri A forfeited the final, and Illinois A won the tournament.

The placement:
Overall for the playoff bracket (including forfeits):
1 - Illinois A (7-0)
2 - Missouri A (5-2)
3 - Illinois B (4-2)
4 - WashU A (3-3)
5 - Illinois D (1-5)
6 - Missouri State (0-6)
Last edited by ecks on Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Hey - saying that Missouri was supposed to play a game against Illinois for the title is totally bullshit. Illinois A had 3 more wins than us, and that means they cleared the field. I'm not sure what really needs more to be said about a tournament where the TD doesn't understand how the finals of their own tournament work, especially when this is going on after 8. This was not perfect, that's for sure. (oh, actually, I'm pretty sure Illinois B had a tied record with us and I can't be sure that they wouldn't have won the ppg or ppb tiebreaker, so if the stats come out and Illinois B actually did, I will be the first to give them the second place trophy we were given.) There must be something wrong when a participant at a tournament can't be sure they deserve the awards they were given.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

From Rule I.3.3.3 of the official ACF rules (http://www.acf-quizbowl.com/documents/a ... _final.pdf), page 15:
When using a multi-bracket preliminary format followed by rebracketing into new divisions for round-robin playoffs, preliminary records should not carry over.
As of the end of the playoff bracket, you were 5-1, Illinois A was 6-0, and Illinois B was 4-2. Accusing me of incompetence is uncalled for and unfounded.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Even if that is the rule (which I then disagree with and think that our forfeiting to Illinois was really the only fair response to since in my mind they cleared the field) doesn't change the fact that your tournament direction today was far from perfect, and that it seemed like the vast majority of people I was talking to were not enjoying themselves one bit, not to mention the whole fact it's unacceptable to have an ACF fall run until well after 8. If you can't properly staff a tournament, perhaps its in everyone's best interest to allow someone else to get bid for it instead.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

I don't really understand what you are adding to this discussion other than unnecessary vitriol. Have I claimed that my direction was perfect? Have I not already apologized for the lateness of the tournament? I do not wish to shift the blame onto others, because as TD I am responsible for the smooth running of the tournament. Like I said, I am sorry for the lateness of the tournament, but not all the factors were within my control. I still maintain that your accusation of incompetence on my part is unfounded. This will be my last tournament as a TD, so that may be a small comfort to you, I guess.
Last edited by ecks on Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Accusing me of incompetence is uncalled for and unfounded.
When you post something like that, it opens up the opportunity for people to then point out things you did that were not what I would call competent.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by NotjustoldWASPs »

The placement:
Overall for the playoff bracket (including forfeits):
1 - Illinois A (7-0)
2 - Missouri A (5-2)
3 - Illinois B (4-2)
4 - WashU A (3-3)
5 - Illinois D (1-5)
6 - Missouri State (0-6)
I believe you're missing a certain WashU C in at 2-4, for fifth overall....
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

NotjustoldWASPs wrote:
The placement:
Overall for the playoff bracket (including forfeits):
1 - Illinois A (7-0)
2 - Missouri A (5-2)
3 - Illinois B (4-2)
4 - WashU A (3-3)
5 - Illinois D (1-5)
6 - Missouri State (0-6)
I believe you're missing a certain WashU C in at 2-4, for fifth overall....
I believe you're right. My bad. It's been a long day...
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by millionwaves »

Hey,

First, I want to thank Truman State for running what I considered to be a pretty acceptable tournament. While some things weren't terribly efficient, it's no light undertaking to run ACF Fall, and I had a pretty good time today.

I do, however, want to raise one point that I've been thinking about a bit on the car ride home. I question the rule which states that preliminary records should not carry over into the playoff brackets. In our particular situation today, at the end of the day, in overall record Illinois B and Missouri A were both 9 and 3, with a 1 and 1 head to head record. We beat them in the preliminary matches, and they won match in the playoffs (which wasn't played to conclusion due to fatigue on the part of both teams). In my mind, this unfairly and arbitrarily ascribes value to the second of two otherwise equal games only because the second game happened to occur in the playoffs, rather than in the prelims. I'll discount the argument that we weren't informed of the rule until after the playoffs based on that being an official ACF rule (albeit one that all parties were unaware of), but I think my point stands with regards to the unfairness of the records not carrying over. In fact, I can't see a reason why records against (at least) same opponents shouldn't apply.

To my thinking, the most fair resolution would have been to give us a game to play for second place. Thanks again to Truman State for hosting, and for the editors for doing a pretty good job on the questions.

EDIT: I didn't mention Wash U A because I couldn't remember their record, but Neel is absolutely right in that that same situation applies to them.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by philmsu »

I'd like to add my thanks to the pile: to Truman State for hosting, and to all the staffers and moderators for being very nice and professional and contributing to what, for me, was a good first experience with ACF. It was a bit longer than I'd imagined, but no big deal. No complaints to register, because I really don't have any; just wanted to pass along that I had a good time and getting to attach names to a lot of the faces here was pretty cool.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by NotjustoldWASPs »

I do, however, want to raise one point that I've been thinking about a bit on the car ride home. I question the rule which states that preliminary records should not carry over into the playoff brackets. In our particular situation today, at the end of the day, in overall record Illinois B and Missouri A were both 9 and 3, with a 1 and 1 head to head record. We beat them in the preliminary matches, and they won match in the playoffs
By that same token, we also finished 9 and 3, splitting our matches with you guys and Mizzou, and the fact that we lost to you two in later rounds put us in fourth. Hmm..

Incedentally, those two losses in the playoff bracket were probably two of my three favorite matches of the day...one coming down to a final question 5 point victory (excellent game, Charlie), and another in which perhaps my favorite guys in QB scored an 11/2 on us in utterly amazing and classy fashion (Congrats Trig!).
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by cvdwightw »

As I understand it, Illinois A was in one bracket and the three 9-3 teams ended up in the other prelim bracket. Illinois A dominated the weaker bracket, WashU A won the stronger bracket, followed by Illinois B and Missouri. Should we disadvantage Illinois B and Missouri for having played in a stronger playoff bracket when presumably they took could have gone undefeated in Illinois A's prelim bracket if they and Illinois A had been switched?

A standard, overall-record system says, "Yes, eliminating prelim stats makes prelims worthless except as qualifying for a higher playoff bracket;" ACF says, "No, Illinois A should not get a two-game lead over the third place finisher in a tougher bracket." I'm never going to be a big proponent of that rule, but I see why it's in place.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by wd4gdz »

Let's summarize what has gone on here:

Dees criticizes "a tournament where the TD doesn't understand how the finals of their own tournament work," but is then shown the official ACF guidelines, thus proving him wrong.

Dees says "you ran an atrocious tournament that nobody enjoyed," but then the following posts appear:

Trygve says the tournament was "pretty acceptable" and that "I had a pretty good time today"

Phillip George says "I'd like to add my thanks to the pile: to Truman State for hosting, and to all the staffers and moderators for being very nice and professional and contributing to what, for me, was a good first experience with ACF." and "No complaints to register, because I really don't have any; just wanted to pass along that I had a good time"
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Mike Bentley »

Yeah, I'd also like to hear a justification for the prelim records not carrying over rule in ACF.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Matt Weiner »

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Yeah, I'd also like to hear a justification for the prelim records not carrying over rule in ACF.
You aren't playing the same opponents. Giving Team A a win and a loss for playing Team D and Team F when their playoff opponent Team B never had to play those games doesn't make any sense to me. You carry over round-robin records when everyone has played the whole field and the playoffs are exclusively rematches; when you are combining the tops of disparate prelim brackets into a new playoff bracket, you're just adding up meaningless numbers earned against largely different schedules.

The standings in a playoff round-robin should be determined by the performance of the same teams against a common schedule--that's the idea of a round-robin format.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by millionwaves »

Matt Weiner wrote:
You aren't playing the same opponents. Giving Team A a win and a loss for playing Team D and Team F when their playoff opponent Team B never had to play those games doesn't make any sense to me. You carry over round-robin records when everyone has played the whole field and the playoffs are exclusively rematches; when you are combining the tops of disparate prelim brackets into a new playoff bracket, you're just adding up meaningless numbers earned against largely different schedules.

The standings in a playoff round-robin should be determined by the performance of the same teams against a common schedule--that's the idea of a round-robin format.
I'm not sure anyone would question the fairness of not carrying games over against differing opponents.

This is the schedule that Illinois B played:

Prelims:

Illinois C
Wash U A
Wash U D
Missouri A
Kansas State
Northwestern

Playoffs:

Wash U A
Missouri A
Missouri State
Illinois A
Wash U C
Illinois D

This is the schedule that Wash U A played:

Prelims:

Illinois C
Illinois B
Wash U D
Missouri A
Kansas State
Northwestern

Playoffs:

Illinois B
Missouri A
Missouri State
Illinois A
Wash U C
Illinois D

This is the schedule that Missouri A played:

Prelims:

Illinois C
Wash U A
Wash U D
Illinois B
Kansas State
Northwestern

Playoffs:

Wash U A
Illinois B
Missouri State
Illinois A
Wash U C
Illinois D

As one can see, our schedules were identical, and all three teams were 1-1 against each other. The way the rule is written, Missouri A's playoff game against us counted more than our prelim game against them, and both Missouri A and Illinois B's playoff games against Wash U A counted more than the respective prelim games. It seems to me that this is arbitrarily double counting certain games while completely devaluing others, and I also suppose it seems to me that the places from 2 to 4 were functionally arbitrary.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by NotjustoldWASPs »

millionwaves wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:Matt Weiner wrote:

You aren't playing the same opponents. Giving Team A a win and a loss for playing Team D and Team F when their playoff opponent Team B never had to play those games doesn't make any sense to me. You carry over round-robin records when everyone has played the whole field and the playoffs are exclusively rematches; when you are combining the tops of disparate prelim brackets into a new playoff bracket, you're just adding up meaningless numbers earned against largely different schedules.

The standings in a playoff round-robin should be determined by the performance of the same teams against a common schedule--that's the idea of a round-robin format.

I'm not sure anyone would question the fairness of not carrying games over against differing opponents.

...

As one can see, our schedules were identical, and all three teams were 1-1 against each other. The way the rule is written, Missouri A's playoff game against us counted more than our prelim game against them, and both Missouri A and Illinois B's playoff games against Wash U A counted more than the respective prelim games. It seems to me that this is arbitrarily double counting certain games while completely devaluing others, and I also suppose it seems to me that the places from 2 to 4 were functionally arbitrary.
Until I see stats indicating which team has higher ppg, ppb, etc (hint, hint, Chris), I would be of the mindset that Mizzou, Illinois, and us should be tied at this point, as one team did not peform clearly better than the other two. In a situation like this, such stats would be the factor that would determine which team actually did perform better. Until those are posted, the jury in my head is still out.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by wd4gdz »

Unfortunately, balanced prelim brackets don't always happen. Hence, the need for this rule.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Captain Sinico »

It seems repugnant to me that a team with a worse overall record can win a tournament (which is what would have happened if Missouri A had beaten us twice in finals.) In fact, I'd go so far as to say that that seems directly contrary to the principles of good quizbowl. Maybe I'm off-base here; what do you guys think?

MaS

PS: To Truman State, I hope that, if you guys do host again, you'll consult an experienced TD (I'm happy to volunteer my services, for example.) It seems to me that most of the problems you were having stemmed from things that are easily evitable for someone with more knowledge and insight (having attended several tournaments at your place, they seem to me to be recurring issues, too.) My own review of this tournament is somewhere between the Dees and Meade poles: the direction wasn't good and led to the tournament running very much later than it ought, but it wasn't as bad as many events I've been to and you got most of the essentials right. Thanks for hosting.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Captain Scipio wrote:It seems repugnant to me that a team with a worse overall record can win a tournament (which is what would have happened if Missouri A had beaten us twice in finals.) In fact, I'd go so far as to say that that seems directly contrary to the principles of good quizbowl. Maybe I'm off-base here; what do you guys think?
I agree with you in principle. The purpose of the rule is obviously to ensure that the team that goes undefeated in a bracket of preschoolers isn't given an unfair advantage against the team that comes out 6-4 to win a bracket of evenly-matched teams, and it seems a fine rule, since that's important. But since no one is that bad at balancing brackets, you have to ask whether a blanket rule--one that presumes unbalanced brackets--will cause more improper decisions than a sheer lack of data. I don't really know.

You won, indisputably, since the brackets could not have been that badly balanced, and there should not have been a final against you--whatever the rules say. The next question is: how should the rules be reformulated so that you always win in this situation but the wrong person never wins in a different one?
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Matt Weiner »

everyday847 wrote:I agree with you in principle. The purpose of the rule is obviously to ensure that the team that goes undefeated in a bracket of preschoolers isn't given an unfair advantage against the team that comes out 6-4 to win a bracket of evenly-matched teams
The purpose of the rule is to acknowledge the obvious fact that the first, second, third, and other equivalent teams in two prelim brackets are not equally strong, and to avoid giving, eg, Missouri credit/penalty for either:
*a win/loss against Northwestern when Illinois A did not have to play Northwestern
*a second win/loss against Illinois B in the prelims, when Illinois A didn't play a second game against Illinois B, having only met them in the playoffs

The playoff round-robin should be ranked as a round-robin; it is not an arbitrary series of additional games tacked on to the prelims. The double-counting occurs when you decide that only 3 or 4 of the 7 playoff teams have to play Illinois B a second time and have that result count, but the others play some entirely different team instead.

Note that a way to avoid this issue entirely is to use crossover playoffs when possible, since that turns the prelim game into the playoff game and avoids unnecessary rematches. In the case of a 14-team ACF Fall field, you can do a modified form of crossover where you use all the packets by teams in the field for the prelims during the appropriate byes, and then simply play every team in the other "bracket," without a bye, during the "playoffs." This gives everyone 13 games and 1 bye in 14 rounds (rather than 12 games and 2 byes in the exact same time) and produces a full round-robin that you can rank people on without issue. It obviates any potential bracketing errors and any potential qualms about how to evaluate the format.
Captain Scipio wrote:It seems repugnant to me that a team with a worse overall record can win a tournament (which is what would have happened if Missouri A had beaten us twice in finals.)
It's my contention that records against disparate schedules are not commensurable. Saying that Illinois A went 10-2 and Missouri A went 9-3 is meaningless when their 12 games were not against the same opponents.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by millionwaves »

Hey, so, after talking to some people, I understand that the format as run was not mandated, although the rule about records not carrying over (which I find unfair) was. In that case, I disagree heavily with the decision to format the tournament in the manner in which it was.

In the future, I strongly suggest that tournaments which do not carry over records into the prelims (all ACF events) do not require rematches against teams that were played in the prelims so as to avoid this situation.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Matt Weiner wrote: Note that a way to avoid this issue entirely is to use crossover playoffs when possible, since that turns the prelim game into the playoff game and avoids unnecessary rematches. In the case of a 14-team ACF Fall field, you can do a modified form of crossover where you use all the packets by teams in the field for the prelims during the appropriate byes, and then simply play every team in the other "bracket," without a bye, during the "playoffs." This gives everyone 13 games and 1 bye in 14 rounds (rather than 12 games and 2 byes in the exact same time) and produces a full round-robin that you can rank people on without issue. It obviates any potential bracketing errors and any potential qualms about how to evaluate the format.
Yeah, this is the correct way to solve the problem.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by vandyhawk »

I agree with the different kind of format espoused by Matt here. Perhaps it should be mandatory that TD's of mirror sites clear the format they want to use with the central editors? Given that there are times where this kind of re-bracketing is the best way to go (ala ACF Nats), can we not just count the prelim games against teams who wind up in the same playoff bracket? You could then play those teams again, but with both times counting.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

Wow, so there has been a lot of talk here. I'm still in the process of compiling stats to make sure that they are accurate (although one of the stats sheets went missing, so one game will be unaccounted for unless people who were there can help me fill in the gaps), but a couple of notes:
I'll discount the argument that we weren't informed of the rule until after the playoffs based on that being an official ACF rule (albeit one that all parties were unaware of)
The rule about prelim games not counting towards final standing was noted on the schedule that was passed out to every team. I understand that a lot of people tend to ignore information on schedule sheets other than the schedules, but the information was available, although in hindsight I probably should have emphasized the point.
It seems to me that most of the problems you were having stemmed from things that are easily evitable for someone with more knowledge and insight (having attended several tournaments at your place, they seem to me to be recurring issues, too.)
I'd like to hear what the recurring issues are and some ways to fix them (either privately or in here, either way works for me; perhaps some of these issues occur at other tournaments too and it might be helpful to other potential TDs to see solutions to these problems). Although it won't really help me specifically as I am now retired as a quizbowl TD, I can certainly pass on the suggestions/knowledge onto the next generation of Truman quizbowlers should they decide to host a tournament in the future.
In that case, I disagree heavily with the decision to format the tournament in the manner in which it was.
The way the tournament was formatted was the only way that I could think of formatting it that did all of the following things:
1) Guaranteed each team 11 games
2) Guaranteed each team an equal number of games, excepting possible finals
3) Used only enough packets to allow for possible finals, play-in games, etc. If we had simply done a full RR format, we could possibly not have had enough to do a play-in game in addition to the finals mandated by ACF, depending on which teams made it to the play-in games/finals. Certainly in the situation we ran into it would have been possible to do a full RR with packets left over, but if there had been a situation with, say, a play-in game between two teams that had submitted packets plus a weighted final between teams that had submitted packets, I do not think there would have been enough packets left over from the full RR to allow for that (FYI, of the 18 packets that were provided, 4 were written partially or in full by someone at the tournament). If that situation had arisen, I would also be criticized for a lack of foresight. It was the best possible solution I could come up with, although I spent hours trying to figure out another way to do it. I would like to hear other possible ways it could have been done, though.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by dtaylor4 »

ecks wrote:I do not think there would have been enough packets left over from the full RR to allow for that (FYI, of the 18 packets that were provided, 4 were written partially or in full by someone at the tournament). If that situation had arisen, I would also be criticized for a lack of foresight. It was the best possible solution I could come up with, although I spent hours trying to figure out another way to do it. I would like to hear other possible ways it could have been done, though.
I already emailed you some suggestions for running a better tournament, but I am going to address this point: if you're going to use byes, then common sense dictates that during each round, use the packet of the team that's not playing.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

dtaylor4 wrote:I already emailed you some suggestions for running a better tournament, but I am going to address this point: if you're going to use byes, then common sense dictates that during each round, use the packet of the team that's not playing.
That's what I did.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Captain Sinico »

Right, but Donald is (correctly) saying that, if you'd run a full round robin and used the (one) bye team's packet where applicable for their bye round, you'd have had enough packets to run play-in games and a final (you wouldn't have to worry about the potential for remaining packets having been written by teams playing those rounds because such packets would have been read already.)

MaS
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

Captain Scipio wrote:Right, but Donald is (correctly) saying that, if you'd run a full round robin and used the (one) bye team's packet where applicable for their bye round, you'd have had enough packets to run play-in games and a final (you wouldn't have to worry about the potential for remaining packets having been written by teams playing those rounds because such packets would have been read already.)

MaS
With a full RR, though, there wouldn't be any bye rounds - an even number of teams means that every team is playing in every round.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Captain Sinico »

To respond to Matt: what you're saying is by and large right, but doesn't really argue against what I'm saying. The rule as written (as Trygve has noted) arbitrarily does not count a match between playoff teams - there's no sense in which you can assert a priori that double-counting a game (in the sense you mean) is less fair than not counting another (or 6 others.) The fact is that both situations are unfair and so neither should come into play if evitable.
Now, on the contrary, I think I can persuasively argue that the mandated finals format is less fair for reasons more fundamental than the way in which losses are counted (in your sense, again.) For one, the mandated finals format potentially allows a team with an inferior record* (and even inferior record against common opponents and non-superior head-to-head record) to claim a tournament win. I think I'm not alone in finding that unsatisfactory. Further, the ranking method is unfair in another sense: it's systematically discarding some (unquestionally) relevant data (i.e. initial bracket record against common opponents) for no supportable reason.
To illustrate what I mean by that last point, I'll posit the following: by your argument justifying discarding the initial bracket record+, Illinois A ought to be the outright winner without any finals. Your argument is that to count the initial bracket losses would be to double-count them. That means that a fair accounting of Missouri A's final playoff round robin record would be 4-2 (1 win against each of 3 opponents from the other bracket and 1/2 win against each of Illinois B and Wash. U. A, vs. 1 loss to Illinois A and 1/2 loss to each of Illinois B and Wash. U. A,) which is a full 2 games behind Illinois A's 6-0. We thus see that, to justify not having a final, you would have to argue that to count the initial bracket common-opponent losses would be to more-than-double-count them, which I don't think is a supportable assertion-. So, I think this rule is due for reconsideration.

*I disagree with your assertion that the records are incommensurable a priori. The fact is that the teams will inevitably have a number of common opponents (or maybe even 100% common opponents,) so the record as a tool for comparison, even across brackets, always has some value at the end of the day, though not (clearly) as much as it would if a full round robin were played. For example, in this case, my Illinois A had beaten both of the teams that had beaten Missouri A, in addition to Missouri A itself, so the number of losses is eminently commensurable.
+While rejecting the conclusion you draw therefrom, obviously.
-In fact, this scenario supports playing a final in general only if you wholly discard the early common-opponent losses, which is to assert that to count previous common-opponent losses is to infinity-count them, which is to assert that that they have no predictive value whatsoever, which is clearly absurd - they are (potentially a very large number of) outcomes of previous games for the teams in question.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Captain Sinico »

ecks wrote:
Captain Scipio wrote:Right, but Donald is (correctly) saying that, if you'd run a full round robin and used the (one) bye team's packet where applicable for their bye round, you'd have had enough packets to run play-in games and a final (you wouldn't have to worry about the potential for remaining packets having been written by teams playing those rounds because such packets would have been read already.)

MaS
With a full RR, though, there wouldn't be any bye rounds - an even number of teams means that every team is playing in every round.
To make the full-RR efficient, you'd obviously have to do something to odd-out the field (e.g. seed a bye team or ask a club with more than one team to collapse to one fewer.) Perhaps that wasn't possible; I'd accept that being the case.

MaS
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Matt Weiner »

As I explained to Trygve privately, I don't see where the "common opponents" come from. By definition, in the situation we're talking about (two entirely distinct prelim brackets each sending some nonzero, non-100 percentage of their teams to a playoff bracket) there are no opponents that the entire playoff bracket has in common other than each other, hence they are ranked on their performance against each other in the playoff round-robin. To start saying that we have to rank Illinois B in relation to Missouri based on all 12 of their games since they came from the same prelim bracket, but we have to rank Illinois A in relation to Missouri based on 6 of their games since they only played common playoff opponents, leads to all sorts of unfeasible, if not outright impossible, demands on the tournament hosts (for the most obvious example of why this is more than just a practical concern, it seems entirely possible, especially with more than two prelim brackets, that this method would require you to rank Team A ahead of Team B, Team B ahead of Team C, and Team C ahead of Team A, based on the various comparisons of two-team common opponent combinations.) The bottom line is one of fairness and consideration of the meaning of a performance-based ranking: by including the prelim games, you are saying "Illinois B, you have to beat Missouri twice to earn two wins in the final standings; Illinois A, you only have to beat Missouri once, and your prelim win against some entirely different team, that is by definition not equal in strength to Missouri, will count the same as Illinois B's second victory over Missouri." Either Illinois B gets an unfair penalty for having to play Missouri when Illinois A played a weaker team, or Illinois A gets the same situation if the fourth example team is stronger than Missouri.

Would you accept a tournament of 7 teams using the format of "play a full round robin; then, everyone play 3 more games against an entirely random subset of the field"? That is equivalent to what counting the 6 playoff games and the 3 prelim games against playoff teams is.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Captain Sinico »

Okay, but you're not addressing what I'm saying again. You're saying (in both of your posts) that to count Missouri A's previous losses to common opponents would be to double-count them. However, you're attempting to conclude that the only fair, practicable thing to do would be to not count them at all, which does not follow. In fact, what your argument implies is that the fair thing to do is to count the earlier losses as half-losses, which, you must admit, is eminently practicable, and which would lead to Illinois A winning outright. Reason therefore compels you to point out where I'm wrong in the interpretation of your argument, to amend your argument (either by claiming the losses would then counted more than twice or by pursuing a different line entirely,) or to concede the point.

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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Matt Weiner »

There's no such thing as "half-losses" and I don't follow why we need to count those games at all. I'm still not sure what happened at this tournament, but if the situation was in fact that Illinois A finished the playoffs 6-0 and Missouri finished them 5-1, then yes, there should have been an advantaged final, because, as is my argument, what Missouri did in a game that Illinois didn't have to play at all shouldn't matter.

In addition to not seeing how the "half-losses" approach does anything beneficial, I specifically do not see how it avoids the problem of ranking all seven teams in the playoff bracket relative to each other; when you have more than two teams involved, figuring out the "common opponents" becomes a non-intuitive and difficult task, especially if you propose to rank all 21 possible pairs of playoff teams relative to each other by this method.
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by ecks »

Stats are now done. A few notes: I don't have the list right now of what packets were read what rounds, but I will have that sometime later tonight. Also, I don't have a scoresheet for what happened between WashU D and Missouri B in the Beta bracket. Does anyone know what happened in that game? Also, for the combined stats, without the forfeited final Missouri A is 9-3, same as Illinois B and WashU A.

Prelims Stats

Playoffs Stats

Combined Stats
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Re: ACF Fall Midwest @ Truman State (11-8-08)

Post by Captain Sinico »

Matt Weiner wrote:There's no such thing as "half-losses" and I don't follow why we need to count those games at all.
If there are no such things as half-losses, there's no such thing as double-counting single losses; those are exactly concomitant concepts. We ought to count those games because they are games between playoff teams and, therefore, their outcomes are, all else equal, as valid as predictors as any other outcomes between playoff teams, including the actual playoff games.
Matt Weiner wrote:I'm still not sure what happened at this tournament, but if the situation was in fact that Illinois A finished the playoffs 6-0 and Missouri finished them 5-1, then yes, there should have been an advantaged final, because, as is my argument, what Missouri did in a game that Illinois didn't have to play at all shouldn't matter.
What happened is: Missouri A lost two initial-bracket games to playoff teams, lost one playoff game to Illinois A, and won otherwise; Illinois A won every game. Illinois A therefore did have to play all the teams Missouri A lost to and, in fact, beat them - the games Missouri A lost were not against opponents Illinois A "didn't have to play."
Also, if Missouri A's record in games Illinois A didn't have play didn't matter, you'd have no basis for seeding teams into playoff brackets. Those outcomes clearly matter in some cases, as you and the rules implicitly acknowledge.
Matt Weiner wrote:In addition to not seeing how the "half-losses" approach does anything beneficial,
It offers the benefit (as outlined above) of not discarding unquestionably valid data in drawing a conclusion about which is the best team. But, while you attack and denigrate this approach, you should realize that this is the approach that you are demanding by your "double-counting" argument! You cannot reject this approach without abrogating that argument.
Matt Weiner wrote:I specifically do not see how it avoids the problem of ranking all seven teams in the playoff bracket relative to each other; when you have more than two teams involved, figuring out the "common opponents" becomes a non-intuitive and difficult task, especially if you propose to rank all 21 possible pairs of playoff teams relative to each other by this method.
All of these arguments and proposed procedures are equally applicable to determining any place in the final standings, so please don't lose sight of that fact. Naturally, we've focused on #1 because the rules make it exceptional by requiring finals in certain cases and because it has been a case of actual question recently. I think the point I'm making here is that there are any number of tractable ways to do this and we should evaluate how fair each is (not least because the argument for how we do it now is manifestly inconsistent with how we do it now.)
To step back for a moment, then, this whole question is essentially the following: "How one ought to weight each game to determine the final standings for the purpose of ranking teams (and playing/not playing finals?)" Therefore, all we have to do is come up with the fair weights and the ranking will fall out of the standings algorithmically with no more difficulty than that entailed by doing things according to the current rule (trivially, because the current rule is a non-intuitive instance of this scheme with unit-weight playoff games and zero weight otherwise, even for games between playoff teams.) Indeed, I'd assert that this could be done with less difficulty than the way we currently do things: weights could be built into SQBS/Taft/whatever to cause those programs to give meaningful final standings without any further input, for example.

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