Serral wins HomeStory Cup 19 - Page 8

On July 02 2019 21:16 tigon_ridge wrote:


The concept of a tournament is to pit players together, under fair rules that apply equally to all participants, in order to determine who the best performers are, as accurately as possible. Suggesting to monetarily compensate the upper bracket winner, who was unfairly treated by a flawed tournament format, while of good intention is nothing more than offering apology money, or "Hey, we feel bad for robbing you of your fair chance for taking 1st prize, (and in this case you proven that you're better than the official crowned victor), but here, have some money." An advantage in having map decision is peanuts in compensation (imo).

"A best of 7 should involve 4 wins and a winner declared."

Except this isn't a normal Bo7, nor should it be. There is absolutely no reason why player B should be crowned the victor over player A, when player A is so blatantly handicapped by having no 2nd chance which player B enjoyed. The problem is that you are perceiving the +1 as the organizers having decided a real game was won, when really it should just be considered as merely a placeholder value. I would agree that the +1 score can be confusing for those unfamiliar with the tournament format, as it suggests the winners-bracket player won more games than he actually did. In my opinion, the +1 should be left out, and the match win should simply be awarded to the winners-bracket player if he wins 3 games, or the lower bracket player if he wins 4 games, and also NOT call it a Bo7. (Perhaps add an asterisk.)

If fairness was strictly adhered to, we wouldn't have any losers bracket, provided that the players were properly seated, so that a top elite player doesn't get knocked out of the tournament in the Ro8 because he was unluckily placed against the eventually tournament winner. The reason why we have a losers bracket is that we also want to have the additional factor of accuracy of measuring relative skill, to prevent the suspicions of "player X won due to a fluke of circumstances," or "player Y should've placed much higher but got really unlucky."

Now I acknowledge the argument that the losers bracket player oftens has to slug his way back to the top, having to win many more matches. However, these matches are all against players that are by default lower in standing than the winners bracket finalist. Now the fact these players all have a chance at taking a series even off of the supposed best player in the tournament, doesn't make it a probable occurrence, and no tournament can prevent a weaker player from defeating a stronger player. So, the fact that the lower bracket winner has beaten so many of them should not have any bearing on his merit aside from the fact that he'd earned his right to challenge the upper bracket winner.

Stripping away the best-performing winners bracket player's critical 2nd chance without just compensation is absolutely the worst possible scenario. Consoling him with money is insulting, and offering arbitrary advantages may work if they're enough, but that's largely a subjective decision, just as the +1 placeholder was a subjectively arrived upon decision. Map decisions alone is nowhere near enough, but that is also just my subjective opinion, as no one has quantified the statistical advantage of being able to dictate what maps and their order are to be played.