WCG 2011 Grand Finals - Page 137

I have a serious question for these people complaining about Bo1. I think everyone here agrees that the larger the series, the larger the chance of the winner being the better player - so its quite clear that Bo1 < Bo3 < Bo5 < Bo7 < Bo9 < Bo11 < etc. for any given series. My question is this: Given that this event is hosting a global tournament with a variety of different games on a very tight schedule, what alternative to the given format would you propose which would complete the Sc2 section of the tournament in the same or less amount of time and also gives a better chance of having the final placement of the players reflective of their relative skill? This isn't some sarcastic shit either, I'm honestly curious for ideas on this.

Obviously a double elimination bracket starting with ~50 players would take more than 4x the amount of time available. Putting all the players in the single elimination bracket right away instead of using pools to cut it down to 16 would take less time than the current system because the average simultaneous games would be higher and also the total number of games lower. But then we are left with the distasteful proposition of having 3 of the best 4 players eliminated in the first 2 rounds, with 1st place still going to the best player and second and third to perhaps the 6th and 7th best players even if the best player wins, and also a much higher chance of the best player being cheesed out compared to the double elimination bracket. Obviously, an optimal approach would involve some kind of seeding which would prevent the best players from suffering for being placed together in early matches, and allow the bracket to pick matches that have a better chance of rewarding more skilled players with farther finishes (thats how seeding works after all). We'd also like a larger distribution of opponents per player to both strengthen the accuracy of the seeding as well.

Now the proposed system splits the players into groups of 7, so it takes 6 games to finish the seeding process. Since the tournament only pays to the best 3 players, we are most interested in ensuring their survival to the final rounds. Not only do they have low chances of being in the same groups, the top 2 make it out of each group anyway, so that serious bullshit has to happen to ruin their statistical edge on the competition (i.e. being placed in the same group + losing more than one game to worse players who manage to hold their own against other competition). All this is accomplished in the time of 6 games if the groups play simultaneously, or 12 games if they play as they are (half the groups at a time). Then the Ro16 single elimination starts: 8+4+2+1 series, each round of the bracket not beginning till the previous finishes in full, so unless not a single series goes to 3 games in a round (highly unlikely and not able to planned for), thats 15x3 = 45 games. So we have a tournament format with seeding, extremely high insurance for the top 3 to make it to the Ro16, and a total 57 game format.

Making a change to the format like "lol Bo1 is gay wut about Bo3 for the pools", keep in mind the following: 12 series have to be played for the pools to complete, with winners having to wait on conclusions of Bo3's, so this now makes the tournament running time 12x3 + 15x3 = 93 games if my math and estimates are correct. And we're now almost DOUBLING the time of the tournament for what? All we want is the best chance for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to go to the best 3 players. If they don't, the most probable way this will occur is in the round of 16, where a bad Bo3 can send them packing to a worse player, or the top 3 can meet with each other earlier in the bracket. The latter will occur if 2 of the top 3 are pooled together and thus don't achieve the highest seeds, which changing to Bo3 in pools will do nothing to affect. The former occurs entirely in the Ro16 so also benefits in no way from a Bo3 in pools. So all we really get is noticeably more accurate seeding and a very, very slightly better chance a top 3 player won't get knocked out before the Ro16 - and for this we double the tournament time?

Looking at my top 3-4 picks for the tournament and the pools, I find it hard to believe the tournament format is not working as intended or that it will jeopardize the results. I actually am curious as to what people think about how the format could be adjusted to be more efficient/accurate, but all I'm seeing is a lot of idra fanboys flooding the thread with their tears alongside nonconstructive criticism. But if anyone who has experience with this, especially people who participated in these kind of events, I'm interested in what you think about it