NAQT and tiebreakers

ehillema · Thu, 14 Feb 2002 12:33:51 -0800

Host guidelines for the SCTs contained
this:

"Ties that have no consequences for awarding any of the
three titles, or for advancing into playoffs or further
bracketed play, need not be resolved, they are simply left
as ties. Ties that do need to be broken should be
done by playing additional partial or full game(s) as
needed, if at all possible -- that is, unless all 20
rounds provided are already being used. In no case
should previously used head-to-head results or
points-based statistical comparisons be used as tiebreakers
for NAQT SCT events."

Some hosts have reported
their standings with some ties (below the level of any
titles) broken due to head-to-head or PPG criteria.
Actual order of finish below the title level has no
bearing on anything for NAQT ICT selection purposes
(though wins and losses within given sectionals do have
great bearing), but in any case people should know that
"officially," despite what some hosts have reported, ties that
do not need to be broken, and weren't broken by
further play, remain as ties in our books. Head-to-head
results or point-based criteria should have no place as
tiebreakers in any NAQT tournament for any purpose except, in
the case of ties between odd numbers of teams,
determining who gets a bye while other teams play first, with
the winner to play the bye team to break the
tie.

Unfortunately, the policy about head-to-head having no relevance
beyond what it does directly to the wins and losses
columns did not get applied in the Mid-South sectional,
where in D2 Rhodes and Tennessee met in a playoff
semifinal with records that were tied, each with 3 losses.
NAQT would approve either a one game playoff between
the two in this situation, or straight best two out
of three. Instead, Tennessee was given an artificial
one game lead, despite the two teams actually being
tied, due to head-to-head criteria that should not have
been given any place in an NAQT event. Rhodes won the
first game, and Tennessee won the second. At this
point, if NAQT guidelines had been understood and
followed, the teams should have been considered tied again,
each with four losses, and another game should have
followed -- it should not have mattered that three of
Rhodes' four losses had come to Tennessee. Instead,
Tennessee was advanced into the finals, which they
won.

Though this was not following NAQT policy, it happened,
and the clock can't be turned back to correct a
semifinal error. (Error in the sense that the announced
playoff format didn't follow NAQT policy; the tournament
did play itself out as per the information announced
to teams by the TD.) Though it's regretable that
NAQT's policy was not better understood, the format as
played should take nothing away from Tennessee's
performance in doing all that was asked of them to win. Both
teams are, frankly, sure to get ICT invitations in any
case, so there is no practical consequence as far as
that goes.

I believe that NAQT will be giving
more prominence, with a webpage in future, to our
rules for tiebreakers, and to offering recommended and
acceptable SCT formats meeting our guidelines (at least 12
games for everyone and fair determination of titles)
for any field size from 4 to perhaps 24
teams.

Eric Hillemann
NAQT's ICT invitations coordinator