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motbob
United States12546 Posts
Game score should always be used as a tiebreaker before head-to-head. Already I can feel the angry posts being written. Let me explain why I think what I think.
![[image loading]](/staff/motbob/UKgroupA.png)
In this group, ForGG and Babyknight were tied in match score at 3-2. Because of that tie, a tiebreaker had to be used.
There were two pieces of information that the tournament organizers could have drawn on to make their decision on who to advance. The first piece of information was that Babyknight defeated ForGG 2-1. This implied that BabyKnight should have advanced over ForGG. The second piece of information was that ForGG's record against common opponents of ForGG/BabyKnight was 7-2, compared to the 5-5 record of Babyknight. The final game score of the group, derived mostly from the record of ForGG and BabyKnight against common opponents, implied that ForGG should have advanced.
So there are two conflicting pieces of information here. Depending on which piece of information is deemed more important, one of these two players should advance.
I think that the game score is a more important indicator of who the better player is than H2H because it draws on a larger sample size. Variance exists in SC2. The best player does not always win the game (or the series). As with all phenomena with variance involved, it's always better to increase your sample size to see what is really happening.
Tournaments choose the H2H tiebreaker as the one that takes priority because it "feels right." It feels like justice is served when a tie between two players is decided by the games played between those two players. But if Player A has beaten Player B, it's very difficult for Player B to overcome that loss and do better than Player A in game score. ForGG had to obtain at least a +3 advantage in game score over BabyKnight against common opponents to overtake him. If ForGG had lost 0-2, he would have had to obtain a +5 advantage! (In this way, you can see that the H2H tiebreaker is actually included in the game score tiebreaker.) If a player who has lost the H2H match has overcome that loss in subsequent play, he deserves to advance.
ForGG should have advanced over Babyknight, and players with better game scores should advance even if they have lost the H2H match which whom they are tied.
 
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EDIT:
([21:49:47] <@motbob> please rewrite your post to be angry)
I first thought you wanted a second "tiebreaking match" between those 2 players, which in my opinion would be the best way to decide who gets to advance.
Then again the only 2 kinds of tournaments that could possibly do something like that would be GSL (1 group per day, open end) and online tournaments, seeing that those sets of rules would destroy any schedule any offline tournament would have.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I actually feel the opposite, I can never understand why mapscore should be used over head to head in any instance. Starcraft is not a perfect game and there are many factors which influence the result of a game - blind countering, bad maps and so on. Players can drop a map just due to the random nature of SC2. Matches are Bo3 to eliminate this kind of variance and to encourage the 'better player' to win. Moreover, when players are eliminated they often mentally 'give up' which means that the map scores in the latter series with this player are more likely to be 2-0's - which influences the map score of player who are still in contention. This is yet another source of variation that should be taken into consideration.
Choosing map score over head to head is not inline with this. Map score says that random variation should influence who advances not who was 'the better player' during the series. Since tournaments choose Bo3s over Bo1s, and choose to eliminate as much random variation as possible - they should be choosing H2H every time.
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Yes, I think that is how you determine the better performance overall.
I don't know any other sport uses H2H over overall game scores.
On March 24 2013 05:48 Plexa wrote:
I actually feel the opposite, I can never understand why mapscore should be used over head to head in any instance. Starcraft is not a perfect game and there are many factors which influence the result of a game - blind countering, bad maps and so on. Players can drop a map just due to the random nature of SC2. Matches are Bo3 to eliminate this kind of variance and to encourage the 'better player' to win. Moreover, when players are eliminated they often mentally 'give up' which means that the map scores in the latter series with this player are more likely to be 2-0's - which influences the map score of player who are still in contention. This is yet another source of variation that should be taken into consideration.
Choosing map score over head to head is not inline with this. Map score says that random variation should influence who advances not who was 'the better player' during the series. Since tournaments choose Bo3s over Bo1s, and choose to eliminate as much random variation as possible - they should be choosing H2H every time.
But we aren't looking for the better player during the series, we are looking for the best players of the group. And because the opponents the tied players played against are the same we can think of the whole group as a BoX where all the same variables as in the H2H match alone are present. Except for players 'giving up' which should be eliminated by a prize money structure that takes this into consideration. I would go as far as say top heavy paying tournaments shouldn't hold early group stages. Also, games against players who have given up can work against your point just as well if you are beaten by a player who only ties with you by playing his last games against players who are already out of the tournament
Although I understand your point of view of reducing variables, in my mind going H2H before match scores would make the other games less important(=more random) which I don't think they necessarily are.
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
On March 24 2013 05:48 Plexa wrote:
I actually feel the opposite, I can never understand why mapscore should be used over head to head in any instance. Starcraft is not a perfect game and there are many factors which influence the result of a game - blind countering, bad maps and so on. Players can drop a map just due to the random nature of SC2. Matches are Bo3 to eliminate this kind of variance and to encourage the 'better player' to win. Moreover, when players are eliminated they often mentally 'give up' which means that the map scores in the latter series with this player are more likely to be 2-0's - which influences the map score of player who are still in contention. This is yet another source of variation that should be taken into consideration.
Choosing map score over head to head is not inline with this. Map score says that random variation should influence who advances not who was 'the better player' during the series. Since tournaments choose Bo3s over Bo1s, and choose to eliminate as much random variation as possible - they should be choosing H2H every time.
Variance is smoothed out by larger sample sizes. It is true that the individual pairs of matches (for example, ForGG vs AndyPandy compared to BabyKnight vs AndyPandy) that make up game score have higher variance than H2H due to this "giving up" concept. Taken as a whole, though, variance is still higher for H2H than game score.
It is worth noting that in the two instances of a tie in the example group I posted above (Jrecco/Snute and ForGG/BabyKnight), there's no way that an argument could be made that "giving up" affected the result of the game scores. Look at the match results to see what I'm talking about.
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Yup, you're right. Mapscore > head to head, or at least so I think as well. Statistically it's obvious mapscore is superior. The issue seems to be that people have an, to me, incorrect belief that if you beat someone in head to head, you're the superior player. It feels right, it feels like a direct comparison of skill, but it's not exactly so...
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Babyknight only needed 7 wins to score 3 wins, while ForGG needed 8 wins - so ForGG was less efficient therefore he shouldn't advance.
Head-to-Head vs Map-Score (or Goals in football) is one of those things where there is no objective better or worse I think, its just a matter of preference whats considered more fair. Even in such a global and established sport like football both of them occure (World Cup uses goal difference, UEFA Euro and Champions League use head-to-head).
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
I'm going to have to disagree for one simple reason. I'm not convinced that in every case a 2-0 win is an effective indicator of skill than a 2-1 win. As Plexa said, game score can be up to a bit of randomness and, as such, in any group stage that uses a game series instead of a Bo1, I feel that head-to-head is the way to go for first-order tiebreaks.
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On March 24 2013 06:20 TBO wrote:
Babyknight only needed 7 wins to score 3 wins, while ForGG needed 8 wins - so ForGG was less efficient therefore he shouldn't advance.
That doesn't make sense, haha. You can't use "more wins" to get the same amount of bo3 wins. Each person had to get exactly 6 wins to get 3 won bo3s, the rest of the maps are wins in their losses, losing 1-2 vs 0-2. In this way, ForGG won more maps (Had closer series), and lost fewer maps, giving him a better map score no matter how you spin it.
EDIT: I realise you weren't serious. >_<; *facepalm* Sorry.
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I don't agree using mapscore simply cause not all players get to play all 3 games in their bo3. Is mapscore really fair if not all players play the same amount of games?
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your Country52797 Posts
I think all the players should have played 15 games (3rd game even if 2-0). It will at least reduce these cases.
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On March 24 2013 06:00 motbob wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 05:48 Plexa wrote:
I actually feel the opposite, I can never understand why mapscore should be used over head to head in any instance. Starcraft is not a perfect game and there are many factors which influence the result of a game - blind countering, bad maps and so on. Players can drop a map just due to the random nature of SC2. Matches are Bo3 to eliminate this kind of variance and to encourage the 'better player' to win. Moreover, when players are eliminated they often mentally 'give up' which means that the map scores in the latter series with this player are more likely to be 2-0's - which influences the map score of player who are still in contention. This is yet another source of variation that should be taken into consideration.
Choosing map score over head to head is not inline with this. Map score says that random variation should influence who advances not who was 'the better player' during the series. Since tournaments choose Bo3s over Bo1s, and choose to eliminate as much random variation as possible - they should be choosing H2H every time. Variance is smoothed out by larger sample sizes. It is true that the individual pairs of matches (for example, ForGG vs AndyPandy compared to BabyKnight vs AndyPandy) that make up game score have higher variance than H2H due to this "giving up" concept. Taken as a whole, though, variance is still higher for H2H than game score. It is worth noting that in the two instances of a tie in the example group I posted above (Jrecco/Snute and ForGG/BabyKnight), there's no way that an argument could be made that "giving up" affected the result of the game scores. Look at the match results to see what I'm talking about.
Considering the "giving up" thing: In our case, ForGG only faced one ex-opponent of Babyknight after their set and the same holds vice versa, so I think that issue does not apply to our specific case.
Talking in general, if "giving up" were an issue, then head to head would favor the player, who has played more games before the in hindsight deciding showdown.
edit:
On March 24 2013 06:29 RaiKageRyu wrote:
I don't agree using mapscore simply cause not all players get to play all 3 games in their bo3. Is mapscore really fair if not all players play the same amount of games?
actually that is a valid point. anybody still remember the pokerstrategy league, where in a group stage everybody had to play everybody in a fixed number of maps?
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On March 24 2013 06:23 itsjustatank wrote:
I'm going to have to disagree for one simple reason. I'm not convinced that in every case a 2-0 win is an effective indicator of skill than a 2-1 win. As Plexa said, game score can be up to a bit of randomness and, as such, in any group stage that uses a game series instead of a Bo1, I feel that head-to-head is the way to go for first-order tiebreaks.
Agreed. TBO also raises a good point. H2H versus game score really depends on a degree of subjectivity.
In response to motbob's attempt to rebut Plexa's point about randomness: variance is a quantifiable number. Its impact is indeed mitigated by larger sample sizes but the declaration that randomness is greater for h2h than game score because of larger sample sizes is a peculiar one. The inherent randomness in h2h versus game score are both, to my knowledge, not genuinely quantifiable. His claim is that larger sample size reduces the statistical impact of variance and game score has larger sample size--therefore game score is ultimately less random than h2h. However, one cannot categorically conclude that game score is ultimately less random (and thus a better indicator of the better player and/or the player who should advance) simply because it posesses an advantage in a single instance.
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On March 24 2013 06:29 RaiKageRyu wrote:
I don't agree using mapscore simply cause not all players get to play all 3 games in their bo3. Is mapscore really fair if not all players play the same amount of games?
Yeah, this is a fair point to me. Playing all 3 games no matter the score. I do like that format personally.
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First tiebreaker should be head to head IMO. It feels right, and map scores can be inflated by players who have no chance of moving on giving up.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
On March 24 2013 06:36 Kasaraki wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 06:29 RaiKageRyu wrote:
I don't agree using mapscore simply cause not all players get to play all 3 games in their bo3. Is mapscore really fair if not all players play the same amount of games? Yeah, this is a fair point to me. Playing all 3 games no matter the score. I do like that format personally.
You still run into the issues of 'meaningless games' that can inflate map score inappropriately. However, if it truly was a format of "play X number of games against each opponent no matter what," instead of BoX, map score would definitely be the first-order tiebreaker to use.
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On March 24 2013 06:36 Kasaraki wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 06:29 RaiKageRyu wrote:
I don't agree using mapscore simply cause not all players get to play all 3 games in their bo3. Is mapscore really fair if not all players play the same amount of games? Yeah, this is a fair point to me. Playing all 3 games no matter the score. I do like that format personally.
MLG tried that once at an Arena. I don't remember the exact details but it felt pretty terrible iirc.
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thinking about it... some of the matchups in Starcraft 2 are way more volatile than others. I don't find the thread right now but I remember someone doing an analysis showing that when a better player played vs a weaker player (using TLPD Elo differences) the chance to win differed vastly depending on the matchup, TvT being the least volatile and PvP being the most volatile. Going by map score would therefore somewhat benefit Terrans and hurt Z and P (all 3 matchups of T were pretty unvolatile)
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I fully agree, it is a simple case of mathematics. Round robin is about who did better in the group. Beating someone does not mean you did better than them over multiple matches. In any sports league in the world you can beat the #1 and finish last, because points are what counts. Beating a single opponent does not mean a thing, and certainly should not outweigh who did better proven by numbers.
If you want to call upon randomness in mapscore over multiple series, you can do the same for the head to head that was played. It is a non argument. Variance will always exist, and should be negated as much as possible by looking at who did better overall.
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World Cup uses goal(~"map") score before head-to-head. Different type of game, but still the logic is pretty similar.
In the end, it forces you to play your absolute best in every game, which is good. When you are 1-0, you will still play very seriously the second game - and not just cheese it, because even if you lose, you get a game 3 - no, you will fight for 2-0.
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EPT
