When I first came out as a heretic with the article about implementing chess clocks, the reaction was about what I expected. Most people were firmly against the idea, while a few were willing to try it. In that, I had to defend the idea, which I was fully expecting to do from the time I sent the article. As all of this is easily accessible from this site, I will not go further into it here.
But that issue wasn’t the first one in which I have had variant ideas from current DCI orthodoxy. And so, since I have already branded myself a heretic, it only makes sense to add another one. If you’ve seen this before, you’re as much of an old-timer as I am. If not, this should give you something to think about (if you haven’t already).
First, some questions to get you thinking about the issues to come:
1. Under what circumstances can a person only lose two games in a tournament and finish behind a person who lost six or more games?
2. If you get a bye in the first round, then sweep your next three opponents two games to none, lose the fifth round in three games, and win the sixth in three games, how many more matches must you sweep to get a game win percentage over 80%?
3. List the benefits of finishing first in the Swiss portion of a tournament, and indicate whether they apply to Limited events, Constructed events or both.
4. Out of the benefits above, which, if any, also apply to the person who finishes second as opposed to third in the Swiss portion of a tournament?
Take as much time as you need to think about the answers, and feel free to revise your answers as you go along. I’ll post the answers later.
If you have ever been to a tournament, you know that you play matches against people, and the results are recorded and used to determine what happens from round to round, but have you ever thought about why certain things happen one way and not another? I would not expect most people to have done this, but I have, and here are some observations that I have made.
Section 1: Game, Set, Match
The first observation is that game records are almost irrelevant, given the current format for scoring Swiss events. Currently, players are ranked by match record, with a player getting 3 points for a win or a bye, and 1 point for a draw. If there is a tie for an important spot, the computer calculates tiebreakers. In order, these are:
Opponents’ Match Win Percentage: This is found by taking each opponent’s match win record (not counting byes) and dividing it by a number equal to 3 times the number of opponents played. If any opponent’s rating at this point is less than 1/3, it counts as 1/3 for this purpose. These values are then averaged to determine the final value.
Player’s Game Win Percentage: This is found by taking each player’s game records (calculated the same way as match records, but not counting byes) and dividing it by a number equal to three times the number of games played.
Opponents’ Game Win Percentage: This works like Opponents’ Match Win Percentage, except game wins are used.
As game records only impact the second and third tiebreakers (which, for almost any event over 30 players, goes unused), the primary incentive to actually finish a match when you are a game ahead is either the satisfaction of finishing, or the threat of a penalty for slow play. In play, match record is far more important than game record.
This leads to the first question:
1. Under what circumstances can a person only lose two games in a tournament and finish behind a person who lost six or more games?
The answer is, when both those losses occur against the same opponent. In that case, the person in question has lost a match, and is behind every player who has not yet lost a match, even if they have lost far more games.
Does it make sense that a person who goes 15-2 in games over a 7-round Swiss ranks behind someone who went 14-7 just because both of the first person’s game losses occurred against the same opponent, while the second player has managed to spread the losses evenly over all seven matches? Does it matter if either or both of those game losses were due to mana problems? Is one extra match win really worth more than a 21.5% advantage in game win percentage?
Now that we’re dealing with the game win percentage statistic, let’s look at the next question:
2. If you get a bye in the first round, then sweep your next three opponents two games to none, lose the fifth round two games to one, and win the sixth in three games (again, 2-1), how many more matches must you sweep to get a game win percentage over 80%?
The answer is two. At the point of the question, you have 27 game points. (4 match wins with 2 game wins each, plus one match loss with a game win means 9 total game wins. At 3 game points per win, that’s 27.) There are 36 game points total (12 total games played), and each sweep adds 6 to each column. The value passes 80% at 39/45, which is two matches away.
I bring this up because, at the point of the question, the match win percentage, not counting byes, is 80%. So why is the game record only 75% at this point? Because a match that is won by a two game to none sweep only contributes two games to the percentage, while a match that goes to a third game contributes three. Add a third game win to each sweep and we have a game record of 80% now, not two rounds from now.
As was established before, this is a minor consideration in the current format, so it hasn’t had much impact. Even so, it is still a quirk of the system that needs to be acknowledged.
Section 2: Swiss Folly
Tournament players, ask yourselves: If you can guarantee that you will finish 5th in the Swiss by taking a draw in the final round, but playing would mean that you finish either 1st or 9th, do you take the draw? I can hear all of you saying that you’ll take the draw in a heartbeat, and some of you are looking for documents to sign to that effect. For those who don’t understand why, I’ll break it down here. But at this point, it’s time to deal with our other two questions:
3. List the benefits of finishing first in the Swiss portion of a tournament with a Top 8 final, and indicate whether they apply to Limited events, Constructed events or both.
4. Out of the benefits above, which, if any, also apply to the person who finishes second as opposed to third in the Swiss portion of a tournament with a Top 8 final?
The seeding for the final matches is based on Swiss finish (1st plays 8th, 2nd plays 7th, 3rd plays 6th and 4th plays 5th) in both Limited and Constructed. When Rochester Draft (Limited) is used for the finals of Pro Tours (or Pro Tour Qualifiers), the person finishing 1st in the Swiss could choose who drafted first. When paying off for a Pro Tour (Philadelphia “skins” payoffs excluded), the person finishing higher in the Swiss counted as finishing in the higher position among those who were eliminated in the quarterfinals or semifinals.
As the above indicates, there are some benefits to finishing high in the Swiss. But as the first paragraph of this section indicates, most people won’t play for them if they risk a Top 8 finish by playing for them. This indicates that the benefits above aren’t all that beneficial, at least in comparison to the risk involved.
For those who despise the idea of intentionally taking a draw for a match instead of playing it out, here are two of the factors involved. First, game wins are all but meaningless, so you can’t compensate for a match loss by sweeping the remaining games. And second, the difference between 1st in the Swiss and 8th is minimal at best, so there’s no reason to take the risk of playing a match when a draw gets you into Top 8. Add these together, and you get the general “admission” among judges that intentional draws are here to stay.
Section 3: What do we do now?
But is it really such a foregone conclusion? If you limit yourself to the current system, I might have to agree. But that is begging the question of whether we should consider a change. If such change is considered, here are two places I would look:
1. Include Game Performance in Primary Scoring. In the olden days (before the millennium), I read of some reports from British tournaments that divided the match points based on the outcome of the match. I would modify it a bit (using a 12-point system instead of the 10-point system described) and score accordingly. If a person wins the match 2-0 with no draws, he or she would get the full 12 points, and the loser would get 0. If there were any drawn games, the winner would only get 11, and the loser would get 1. a 2-1 win with no draws would score 10 for the winner and 2 for the loser, draws would change it to a 9-3 split. A 1-0 win (with any number of draws) would score 8 for the winner and 4 for the loser, and a drawn match would provide a 6-6 split. Although this gives more credit for a draw (awarding half the match points available instead of 1/3 now), it also works to separate scores even from the opening round.
2. Give a play advantage to finishing higher in the Swiss. Instead of making Swiss finish an afterthought, why not offer a real incentive to finishing higher in the Swiss? The one I’m leaning toward now is to make Top 8 matches 4 games, with the person who finished higher in the Swiss winning tied matches. If that were the situation, would the choice be so clear to take the draw for the guaranteed 5th place if playing could get you the Swiss win? Other ideas would be to base part of the prize fund (25-40%) on the Swiss rankings, with the rest based on Top 8 performance, or giving the higher seed the first play/draw decision in the match.
I am sure there are more than enough controversies in what we have here. The next time I do a Heretic’s Corner column, I will take on the rating system.