Another Possible Alternative

• From: Durham_Devil
• Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 13:35:05 -0700
• Message-ID: <000SF4ENP.001RUT8BO.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

While it seems that most of the quizbowl
community retches at the sight of single-elimination, it
strikes me as perhaps the best method, especially when
you can't afford a full round-robin. So, with that as
a preface, here's my alternative. Support or deride
as you see fit.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Well, we got 42
teams here, so let's divide them into 7 groups of 6.
These groups can be formed however NAQT sees fit, with
the following two rules ironclad:

(A) Each
group has a "top seed".
(B) Two teams from the same
school MUST be kept separate.

These groups then
play a 5-game RR. That's Friday night, eveyrone's done
a round early, hit the bars or the hotels or
whatever.

SATURDAY MORNING: By this time, the stat gods of NAQT have
processed how everyone finished in the RR, noting that only
ordinal position (1,2,3,4,5,6) matters. All those with
rank 1 are in one group, rank 2 another, etc. So now
we have 6 groups of 7, each of which plays a RR.
Result: everyone gets more "power-matched" games against
their level of teams. Yay.

And now, as the
players head to lunch, the real fun begins. Each of the
teams is ranked 1-7 within their group. This then gives
each team a seed. The teams in groups 1 and 2 are
seeded 1-7 and 8-14, respectively. The top six teams in
group 3 are seeded 15-20. The top five teams in group 4
are seeded 21-25. The top four teams in group 5 are
seeded 26-29. The top three teams in group 6 are seeded
30-32. And a big single-elim bracket is filled out as
expected.

The teams then play the "Swiss pairs single-elim" to
fill out slots 1-32. The finals -- and only the finals
-- are best-of-three.

Meanwhile, the ten
other teams are placed in two consolation brackets of
five. The first bracket has those teams in groups 3 and
4, plus the highest team in groups 5 and 6, that did
not make the single-elim phase. The second bracket
has the remaining teams in groups 5 and 6. It's a 5-5
split, and each bracket plays a round-robin for
positions 33-37 (first bracket) and 38-42 (second bracket).
Everyone plays Playoff Rounds 1-5, then runs to the
auditorium to catch game 2 (and maybe game 3) of the
final.

I'll discuss its advantages (aka Why I Like It) in the
next post.

Andy Goss