CBI R4 Format cont'd

cooterchekov · Sun, 18 Feb 2001 12:38:11 -0800

- Now the big one: The playoff system, as
presented, is inherently unfair. There's no two ways about
it. Consider that the field is divided into Gold and
Silver, with Gold by definition and by intent containing
the six strongest teams (by the first round-robin) in
the tournament and Silver the six weakest. The
assumption has, therefore, already been made that the
weakest part of the Gold field is stronger than the
strongest part of the Silver field (although in practice
it's probably a coin toss between the weakest record
in Gold and the strongest in Silver, #4 in Gold is
almost certainly stronger than #1 in Silver). The
playoff system, as used, thereby automatically excludes
at least two, possibly three, stronger teams from
the playoffs in exchange for one which is almost
certainly weaker.

Furthermore, consider the
following situation: a team with a 3-2 record from the Gold
bracket may not make the playoffs, while a team with a
3-2 record from the Silver may (this happened). That
is to say, a team with an equal record in Gold
against a stronger field is excluded from the playoffs in
favor of a team with an equal record in Silver against
a certainly weaker field. On those grounds, I think
it very likely that Susquehanna did not receive a
playoff spot that it probably deserved.

Finally,
consider that if a team wins no games in Red/Blue, it
automatically moves to the Silver bracket. It needs to win a
minimum of three games in Silver to advance to the
playoffs (3-way tie at 3-2, wins by differential). The
above actually happened. Now consider that a team sure
of its strength against all but three opponents
could deliberately sink its Red/Blue games, move to the
Silver bracket and even there possibly take two
inadvertent losses, and thereby receive a playoff bid, which
it might not have received if it had performed to
its best ability in the Gold bracket. I'm not
accusing anyone of doing this -- as far as I know, all the
teams performed honorably -- but the possibility
existed, was clear, and might have been exploited; such
things have been known to happen.

It should also
be pointed out that the above playoff system,
inherently flawed as it is, was not the one given originally
on the schedule; but for the intervention of an
experienced member of the staff, the playoff system as
originally stated would have taken only the top two in Gold
instead of the top three, and taken the top two in
Silver, effectively the 7th and 8th teams in strength,
instead.

I'm not presenting this out of anger, although
perhaps I am with a hint of chagrin. The players and
staff who participate in College Bowl, who take their
time out to drive to central Pennsylvania, to compete
in good faith and in friendship, in my opinion
deserve better than the system we were given. I present
the above as a demonstration of what has happened
once and can happen again, and I hope that anyone
reading will encourage their own regional coordinators to
do better.

Edmund Schluessel
GW Academic
Competition Club