Ladder Play [Was Re: NAQT ICT Details]

lone1c · Wed, 23 Feb 2000 05:21:41 -0800

"The playoffs will consist of four rounds of
ladder play, after which the first- and second-place
teams will advance to a best-of-three series with the
top team being given a one-game advantage."

A
simple calculation proves that, if the ladder play
system works as it did last year, if there are only four
rounds, only teams ranked in the TOP SIX have any chance
of winning whatsoever. In a 42-team tournament, that
would be like running four divisions, and taking only
winners and two wild-cards. This hardly seems
fair--especially to the two "runner-ups" who didn't quite make the
playoffs.

Moreover, I am not at all clear as to how four rounds of
ladder play is an effective technique to decide who are
the "top two teams," in light of the fact that the
power matchings prior to that are also determined by
the tournament directors. 

The questions I
have regarding this are:

1. Why should only the
top six teams be eligible?

2. Can NAQT
guarantee that a team that goes undefeated in its first
eleven rounds will obtain a spot amongst the top
six?

3. Why not consider a more "dynamic" ladder play. If
we reasonably assume that the differences between
teams in the same level are relatively small compared
to the difference between the top and the bottom of
the pool, there should be no reason not to allow
teams to move up and down more quickly.

As an
example of this:

Within each group of six teams,
the three winning teams take the top three positions,
and the three losing teams take the bottom three
positions.

For example, if we look at seeds 7 through 12, we
have:

Old New

7 Winner of 7 v. 8
8 Winner of 9 v.
10
9 Winner of 11 v. 12
10 Loser of 7 v. 8
11
Loser of 9 v. 10
12 Loser of 11 v. 12

This
way, more teams have the ability to be in contention
for the title, and the "winning penalty" of winning a
game yet being no closer to title contention is
reduced significantly.

Just a few random
musings.

--AEI