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Post by t3h Icy on Jan 30, 2012 0:28:34 GMT -8
Hi guys! This place has been quiet for awhile, as always seems to be whenever I'm not active, but that's fine, I'm sure it'll jump up shortly.
Anyway, now that we're getting closer to tournament time, I decided it's best to get some information out beforehand so we can get maximum interest and talent for our tournament.
First of all, sign-ups will be up on February 15th, and hopefully the tournament itself will start shortly after. Last year, we expected just our own community and some of our regular guests to join, but we got a ton of players! This time we want even more, so we're doing advanced notice. Sign-ups will have no cap this year and any number of players can enter, so bring everyone!
The format will be Double-Elimination Bracket with no Pools, and seeding based on general skill and previous results. I'll also make the bracket, and then have it reviewed by our own staff and other major players/mods from other communities (such as Earthworm and Jackal) to make sure it's fair and well-made without needing to be random.
With making the bracket by hand though, we'll extremely stress on fairness and balance, both by separating players of the same communities as much as possible, and by spreading out the skill as uniformly as possible, and to ensure there's no bias, we're going to pass the bracket image around, and also have it public before the tournament actually starts to deal with any conflicts. If a lot of people are strongly opposed to this, I won't enter the tournament myself. If there's still a lot of disagreement with this idea, despite the offers of letting everyone make suggestions and fixes, then we'll just run a standard seeded, random bracket.
We also want to avoid random luck as much as possible and focus more of the skill of the game, which is hard to do with the nature of RBY, so all sets will be best 3 of 5 except Round 1 Winners' and Round 1 Losers', which will be best 2 of 3. The 2/3s will take care of over three eighths of the bracket, so the bracket doesn't take forever.
Since many players joining will be from other communities with slightly different rulesets, the tournament will have a gentleman's rule that if both players agree to play with Wrapping moves (Wrap, Fire Spin, Bind, Clamp), they may, but if either disagrees, house rules stay. Everything else is our usual OU rules.
Okay, so now the main thing. Last year we had a $50 pot prize, split up to $35/$10/$5, and while we're still confirming everything for this year, it looks like our sponsors are putting up quite a bit more this time. It will be split up between 1st/2nd/3rd place again, and exact amounts will be figured out once we know exactly how much will be up for grabs, but we already know that 1st place will get at least $50. If anyone is interested in donating towards the pot prize, please contact WaterWizard.
I want to see everyone sign-up for this! RBY2K10, Smogon, Antiquity, Brazil's players, oldschool, newschool, veterans, new players, EVERYONE! We really want to push this to be the greatest RBY tournament in years, so help spread the word and practice up!
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post!
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Isa
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Posts: 1,479
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Post by Isa on Jan 30, 2012 3:01:37 GMT -8
Oh wow
Oh wow
OH WOW
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Post by Crystal_ on Jan 30, 2012 7:06:53 GMT -8
Please, don't make it by hand. Make it random. Use seedings if you want, and/or force matchups between rby2k10-ers and outsiders in the first round as well. But making it by hand, especially by a player that is going to participate in the tourn, by a player that knows most people that are going to take part in it, would be pretty stupid imo.
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Post by WaterWizard on Jan 30, 2012 9:17:00 GMT -8
crystal, you just summarized the essential components of the planned bracket-making process. the random component is still there, but with extended parameters. skill and affiliation are the two official parameters, and it is perfectly acceptable to use them to influence a bracket to maximize freshness and balance.
honestly, Icy is maybe a bit too democratic sometimes, imo. it betrays his earnest honesty, but can create unnecessary complexity. our staff-made brackets have always been fine and we've never had a problem or complaint (aside from GGFan being mad at an early pairing with Nerd). I am not sure why you think this would be any different. and it remains the prerogative of the hosting board to make the bracket.
furthermore, Icy is just the one posting the bracket. as he said above, it is being determined by the set parameters, at random, and reviewed by the staff. naturally we wouldn't let him or anyone have an unfair edge, and it's silly to suggest that he would seek such.
as for the cash prizes, I am still working that out. Dexter and I are the only sponsors so far, but I'm waiting on one or two more invitations to come back. if anyone else wants to contribute $10 or $20, it is much appreciated. just message me and I'll give you details.
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Post by t3h Icy on Jan 30, 2012 9:31:01 GMT -8
Oh, WaterWizard edited the cash prize a bit in my post; I guess he wanted to wait until we're fully confirmed about it. Those that saw it beforehand know what's up for grabs though!  |
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Post by Crystal_ on Jan 30, 2012 10:07:34 GMT -8
I didn't mean to say that Icy wants to cheat, but this kind of seems to me like a student making by hand his own exam, but just not making it too easy.
Ok, I know it isn't the same.
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Post by Dexter on Jan 30, 2012 14:55:58 GMT -8
I'm really against handpicked brackets in the first place, and I think complete randomness is the least biased (and thus, the most fair) way to do things.
I don't even understand why skill should be an issue. Are you trying to avoid putting players of too big of skill difference against each other? Then you run the risk of all the best players knocking each other into the losers bracket and some mediocre player riding their way to 3rd place against easy opponents.
Are you trying to do the opposite and put bad players against good?That makes the tournament less exciting, and leads to people getting curb-stomped and kicked out earlier than they should.
Is your goal something in between? I think it should be, but I don't think it should be up to some democracy on where that arbitrary "somewhere inbetween" exists. Which is why I advocate random brackets. Random brackets are the best way to ensure an unbiased "somewhere in between" and you avoid the issue of players' skills being over or under estimated by biased or just unknowing judges.
tl;dr "fixing" brackets based on some arbitrary skill criteria is bad bad, bad. I agree with spreading out affiliation, but I have to side with crystal on the issue in that we should avoid people actually playing in the tournament deciding on it.
You could easily make a program that does random pairings with certain parameters that prevent X number of pairings from players of the same affiliation or something to that degree. Or just avoid the issue altogether and go completely random.
Just my 2 cents, do whatever you want.
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Post by cheese on Jan 30, 2012 14:59:52 GMT -8
I'm assuming the tournament will be non-stadium rules?
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Isa
Member
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Post by Isa on Jan 30, 2012 16:26:37 GMT -8
I don't see the issue with seeding. Putting better players against worse ones makes it HARDER to be kicked out earlier than you should.
We had a smash tournament in Sweden two years ago where we had random seeding. 40 entrants roughly, and a regular top 10 player got eliminated in two straight sets because he was up against the best player first round (Armada, ftr) and in the losers bracket he faced an old-school pro, also on top 10 level, who was seeded against a top 5 player.
The bracket was absurdly imbalanced. Pros were knocked out way earlier than they would be while half-decent players got top 8 placings.
Seeding should be used. The tournament isn't less exciting - in fact I'd say it's more exciting because there will be more tight sets towards the end instead of initially.
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Post by t3h Icy on Jan 30, 2012 16:30:49 GMT -8
Dexter: Tio can generate brackets based on seeds. Ideally tournaments are supposed to have higher seeds vs lower seeds, as to avoid good players knocking each other out, and bad players having an easy bracket, and it would be unfair to have two potential winners play super early. Since skill is difficult to evaluate exactly, especially with a high number of players, etc, seeding will be based off tournament results, and I'll look up every player that sign-ups, perhaps asking each player as they sign-up too to make sure. Random bracket or not, seeds will be set for the tournament. cheese: Yes, RBY, not Stadium, so the tournament will be played out on Netbattle, not Pokemon Online. Fortunately the Registry is back up for the first time in years, thanks to DarkestMoon.
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Isa
Member
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Post by Isa on Jan 30, 2012 16:40:35 GMT -8
"seeding will be based off tournament results"
Shit.
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Post by WaterWizard on Jan 30, 2012 19:13:06 GMT -8
Yes to Isa.
Seeding. That's how it goes.
Affiliation is really just an afterthought if the random generation (influenced by seeding) puts all of smogon in one slot and all of rby2k10 in another and all of the nobodies in another, etc.
All the tournaments here have been based off the parameters I've mentioned. It's nothing new.
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Post by Dexter on Jan 30, 2012 21:53:46 GMT -8
Agree to disagree then. *shrug*
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Isa
Member
FOREVER SECOND
Posts: 1,479
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Post by Isa on Jan 31, 2012 4:39:01 GMT -8
I hope I'll prove that I actually know how to play the OU metagame in this tournament  Track record in OU so far: 1 set win 3 set losses  |
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Post by hipmonlee on Feb 7, 2012 0:31:19 GMT -8
I am not much of a fan of seeding.. Especially when there is money on the line. Perhaps you could have a very simple seeding system like, divide players into 4 tiers, the top ranked based on your own tournaments, then your members, then something else, then people who you have never heard of or something, and otherwise make it random. I think that kinda gives you as good a result as you are going to get, without as much room for bitching? Just a thought.
You can put me against anyone you like though, I'm gonna stomp all you suckers.
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Post by thechaser on Feb 7, 2012 0:37:21 GMT -8
I don't like the idea of seedings based on subjective analysis, it should only be done if you had a clear numerical system beforehand. It should just be random in my opinion.
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Post by WaterWizard on Feb 7, 2012 0:38:41 GMT -8
I am not much of a fan of seeding.. Especially when there is money on the line. Perhaps you could have a very simple seeding system like, divide players into 4 tiers, the top ranked based on your own tournaments, then your members, then something else, then people who you have never heard of or something, and otherwise make it random. I think that kinda gives you as good a result as you are going to get, without as much room for bitching? Just a thought. You can put me against anyone you like though, I'm gonna stomp all you suckers. that is essentially what we are doing! and good, glad you're participating  prepare to lose, smogonite! |
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Post by DragonAura on Feb 7, 2012 8:58:17 GMT -8
I'm ok with letting them try out a seeded bracket. They said they are going to pass it around for evaluation and make it public so people will have a chance to voice their objections. If a seeded bracket can't be agreed upon, a random bracket is quick to make anyways so there's no real harm done in the end.
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Post by t3h Icy on Feb 7, 2012 9:19:39 GMT -8
Yeah, after a lot of disagreement, we're going to go with a mostly random bracket, but I will let Tio separate players based on where they're coming from, so that everyone gets a chance to play some newer people and we get more of a clash of communities. =)
I'm planning on a final update either today or tomorrow to clear everything up and make final preparations.
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