Stephen asked: <<Assuming that the above numbered propositions are accepted, the logical consequence of Eric Hilleman's assertion that head to head record should have no relevance beyond its effect on W/L record would be that swiss or mod-swiss scheduling cannot be used in an NAQT event. Have I missed something here?>> Yes. The point is that tiebreakers should never prevent someone from winning the tournament. Examples of what NAQT is asking you not to do: 1) Three teams are 8-1 after the round-robin, only two are invited into the final. If you use (commonly used) points-differential, somebody goes home because of points, not because they had one less win. 2) After the a round-robin in a bracket, there is a 8-0 team and three 6-2 teams. Only three teams make the next "high" bracket in the cross-bracket play. Again, if you use points-differential somebody does not advance to the bracket eligible to win the tournament because of points, not because they have one less win. 3) After preliminaries, there are going to be four rounds of ladder play. A team in sixth place could win all four rounds and climb the ladder to second, earning in a berth in the final. A team in seventh would only climb to fourth place. If 6th and 7th are tied in record, breaking the tie on head-to-head, points, or anything means that some team can not win the tournament because of a tiebreaker, not because they had one less win. 4) The final features two teams with 11-1 records. Because team A beat team B while team A lost to some team not in the final, A is given a one-game lead and needs to win only once more to take tht title. Thus team B is at a disadvantage due to a tiebreaker and not because they had one less win. I hate tiebreakers, all of them, and I am in total agreement with NAQT's intent on this matter. I especially hate head-to-head because in example 4 the team who lost to a lower-ranked team is rewarded for doing so. The point here is the number of wins you have, and not who they were against, or by how much. Yes I know statistical tiebreakers make your tournament easier to run, but how many times have you been on the wrong end of one? I know one year Dickinson had the same record as West Virginia (and in fact beat them in the last round) at CBI regionals, but West Viriginia got to go to the semifinals while Dickinson got to go home. Swiss-paired rounds do not go against this. As long as you are pairing in fair ways (random, by points) and are basing the *final* rankings on number of wins, there is nothing wrong with this as far as I can see. -Bill
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