At the moment, I cannot state with 100% certainty what the format of the tournament will be, but I can state that the format will almost certainly depend on the number of teams we have. If we have 60 teams or fewer, I expect that we will have four preliminary brackets, followed by a six-round, 16-team playoff consisting of: (1) three rounds of Swiss pairs, in which teams must win two out of three games to advance; (2) three rounds of single-elimination among the eight remaining teams. For more than 60 teams, though, this format would necessitate a total of either 22 or 23 rounds (for 60 teams it would require 21, which is the most I want to run); using 22 rounds would require splitting the field into two ber-brackets, which, given the packet requirement, is undesirable. Therefore, with more than 60 teams, the field will most likely be broken into FIVE preliminary brackets. After a 13-round round robin, the top FIVE teams in each bracket (25 in all) would advance to a second 5-round RR. In all, each team in the top 25 would ultimately play eight matches against other top-25 teams. Using W/L record, head-to-head (where possible), and, if necessary, points-based criteria (NOT total points**), the top eight teams would then advance to single-elim. In either case, we would arrange consolation matches for those teams not making the playoffs who wish to continue playing. More detailed information will be available once the field has stabilized (although we have 67 teams registered so far, a number of them are tentative). --STI (**) Any points-based criteria--whether points/TU heard, bonus conversion, or whatever--would most likely be limited to the second RR only, and adjusted to account for differences in packet means across teams in the top 25.
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