FIBS Board backgammon forum

No doubt sixty will find a way to equate tournaments where some players are handed a bye based on their rating, with tournaments where every player has an equal chance of getting a bye.

that's correct, dorbel .. it is me and a vast conspiracy of virtually every tournament organizer other than you that suggests when a bracket is seeded by rating the byes go to the top seeds .. give it a rest

Quotethat's correct, dorbel .. it is me and a vast conspiracy of virtually every tournament organizer other than you that suggests when a bracket is seeded by rating the byes go to the top seeds .. give it a rest

When a bracket is seeded by rating, the byes do go to the top seeds. It isn't a suggestion, it is a fact. Moreover, the lower rated players can never get one, even if they enter every tournament every week during the year.
Not only does this hugely disadvantage them in each individual tournament, it now disadvantages them in the race for points in your "tournament player rankings".

The fact that you can't see that this serves no useful purpose and is a disincentive to tournament entry by lower ranked players does not mean that I should cease to campaign against it. Every player should enter a tournament draw with an equal chance of getting one of the byes, as is done in the excellent and desrvedly popular Bago tournament twice a week.

dorbel, debating this with you ad nauseum seems pointless .. you have long labelled the Bloody Mary, seeded by rating, as "unfair" .. but you seem to ignore the weekly evidence that top seeds do NOT win Bloody Marys with an unfairly disproportionate frequency despite often receiving a first round bye .. it just doesn't happen with the frequency you apparently imagine .. certainly it happens occasionally, but i have no evidence that suggests it is unfair

more importantly, you also seem to ignore the popularity of the Bloody Mary tourney which speaks for itself ..  if the FIBS community agreed with you, in time it would opt out of registration in the Bloody Mary .. it has not .. if fact, registration has grown steadily .. now, the Bloody Mary consistently has 20-25+ players per week, often the best registration of any weekly tourney

perhaps then, it is no coincidence that i am in favor of a weighting system suggesting wins in tourneys with a higher registration than others are worth more in comparison .. for example, i consider a Bloody Mary win with 27 players equated with a win in a tourney with 7 players as patently "unfair" .. therein is the crux of the issue .. that is the topic i was hoping to see discussed here

i am seriously considering moving these posts to a different thread where they can be appropriately discussed without causing disruption and distraction to the topic at hand, but frankly it is more trouble than it is worth at the moment

Quotebut you seem to ignore the weekly evidence that top seeds do NOT win Bloody Marys with an unfairly disproportionate frequency despite often receiving a first round bye .. it just doesn't happen with the frequency you apparently imagine

The frequency with which "top seeds" win the BM isn't relevant. The draw is still rigged. The popularity of the tournament is irrelevant, the draw is still rigged.

I can quite see that winning a 15 player tournament is worth a weighting over an 8 player tournament for example, but if you automatically give your top seed a bye in the 15 player tournament, his win isn't worth any more than winning an 8 player tournament! You can't compare tournaments where the draw is seeded by rating with tournaments where the draw is random.

It may be nauseating to debate this, but if you want the idea to catch on, be a success and mean something, then you need to ensure that the rules and the criteria by which you award points are fair for all.

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Quotei am seriously considering moving these posts to a different thread where they can be appropriately discussed without causing disruption and distraction to the topic at hand, but frankly it is more trouble than it is worth at the moment

I'm not quite sure what this last sentence means. "Appropriately discussed" and "disruption and distraction" sound uncomfortably like some dictact from Peking!

Dorbel's  repeated emphatic assertion that top seeded players get byes has piqued my interest. If this is indeed the case, then I would agree its not equitable and my sympathies lie with the underdog weaker player who continually gets the shaft.

Though dorbel hasn't submitted any evidence for this that I can see, I regard his backgammon analytical skills (as evidenced in his daily dorbel blog) to be quite advanced and so would therefore tend to regard his viewpoint and analysis on something of this nature to be credible despite the lack of evidence.

So what is the evidence that the byes are given to top seeded players? Is this easily verifiable or testable?

In response to sixty's rejoinder to dorbel:

Quote from: sixty_something on December 01, 2010, 09:25:07 PM
dorbel, debating this with you ad nauseum seems pointless .. you have long labelled the Bloody Mary, seeded by rating, as "unfair" .. but you seem to ignore the weekly evidence that top seeds do NOT win Bloody Marys with an unfairly disproportionate frequency despite often receiving a first round bye .. it just doesn't happen with the frequency you apparently imagine .. certainly it happens occasionally, but i have no evidence that suggests it is unfair

The debate can easily be settled by disproving dorbel's claim that top seeders are routinely given first round byes, which sixty has failed to do.

Rather, sixty has unsuccessfully attempted to shift the subject of the debate to the strawman of whether Bloody Mary top seeds win or not and in what proportion, then blow it down by claiming this is evidence that refutes dorbel's claim

Quote from: sixty_something on December 01, 2010, 09:25:07 PM
more importantly, you also seem to ignore the popularity of the Bloody Mary tourney which speaks for itself ..  if the FIBS community agreed with you, in time it would opt out of registration in the Bloody Mary .. it has not .. if fact, registration has grown steadily .. now, the Bloody Mary consistently has 20-25+ players per week, often the best registration of any weekly tourney

Just because the popularity of the Bloody Mary has reached all time highs does not disprove dorbel's claim that top seeds get byes and the low seeds don't and neither does it mean dorbel is ignoring that fact, as that was not the subject of the debate.

sixty's finally abandons any pretense of logical argumentation altogether by claiming that if the FIBS community agreed with dorbel, they would opt out of Bloody Mary registration.

Quote from: sixty_something on December 01, 2010, 09:25:07 PM
perhaps then, it is no coincidence that i am in favor of a weighting system suggesting wins in tourneys with a higher registration than others are worth more in comparison .. for example, i consider a Bloody Mary win with 27 players equated with a win in a tourney with 7 players as patently "unfair" .. therein is the crux of the issue .. that is the topic i was hoping to see discussed here

Clearly,  sixty was hoping the discussion would lead in this direction and it seems to me he has put a great deal of thought into making things as equitable as possible, given the inherent inequality and disparity of the the various tourneys.

However, I think dorbel's claim that top seeds get byes deserves some consideration and should not be dismissed out of hand by sleight of hand argumentation,  especially since dorbel has apparently a simple remedy.

However,  as I said earlier, i would like to see a little more 'evidence' from dorbel as to why he claims top seeds get byes.

Convince me.

Quote from: sixty_something on December 01, 2010, 09:25:07 PM
i am seriously considering moving these posts to a different thread where they can be appropriately discussed without causing disruption and distraction to the topic at hand, but frankly it is more trouble than it is worth at the moment

I think this is relevant, only its not the topic at hand sixty wishes to discuss.

Perhaps if dorbel can provide some better arguments for why top seeds get byes, sixty would be willing to at least consider taking that into consideration.

I would.

The Bloody Mary tournament is a deservedly popular tournament. There are several reasons for this. It has an enthusiastic and popular TD who works hard to promote it, it has a day/time slot that is accessible to both Americans and Euros and it functions as a qualifier for a seasonal championship.
It is a tourney that uses tourneybot. One setting on tb allows the TD to select "Seed by rating". This instructs the bot to pair the highest rated entrant with the lowest, second highest with second lowest etc. When the tourney has a full bracket (4,8, 16, 32) this is a reasonable way to go. It smooths the path for the higher rated players to make it to the later stages of the tourney, but it also means that the lower rated player doesnt get a disproportionate number of heavy hitters in his/her half of the draw, so nobody is much disadvantaged, if at all. The inequity appears when, as usually happens, there are first round byes. The tb includes the byes in the draw and rates them lower than any entrant. Obviously the higher rated players hoover these up and equally obviously the majority of players in the draw can't ever get them.
Well, it's sixty's tourney and if that is his rule, that's it, can't argue with that, if like me you object to this then you vote with your feet. Now however his tourney is to be a qualifier for Tournament Player of the Year or whatever it is going to be called. You can't compare tourneys where the draw is seeded with those where it isn't, because for higher rated players points are obviously easier to pick up in seeded tourneys! You get given them for turning up.
The KISS principle works well here. Win a tourney, get a point. If that encourages people to enter some of the less popular tourneys or start some new ones, all well and good. Points handed out to higher rated players just for turning up is not, in my view, good for the game.

This topic should be read in conjunction with..

http://www.fibsboard.com/tourneybot/tournament-seeding-a-good-thing/

I thought I had a strong sense of deja vu...

thanks, diane, i had forgotten about creating that poll and the excellent dialog we had about using seeding by rating .. my personal debate with dorbel has gone on so long, i am bored with it .. i suspect others may be as well .. the sound of two old bulls butting heads for the apparent sake of butting heads is not the happiest sound in the valley

i will say more and provide some interesting stats on who wins a tourney when it is seeded by rating, but for now, i am occupied with other things

BTW, moonshadow,  when a tournament is seeded by rating there is no need to prove how byes are assigned, it is defined in what is meant by seeded by rating .. brackets are always paired in the following order, 1-32, 2-31, 3-30, ... 13-18, 14-17, 15-16 .. when there are 27 players registered, 5 players will receive byes .. when seeded by rating they are always the top 5 seeds

as i explain in the thread which diane reminded us about, my goal all along has been to raise the Bloody Mary tourney to that of a "Special" tourney, i.e. one that attracts high quality players both in terms of rating, experience, and RepBot reputation .. in that, i feel i have been successful and have nothing to prove in that regard

i welcome all opinions, but clearly this topic deserves a life of its own .. therefore, to avoid completely highjacking the original thread, i have split the topic from Tournament Player Rankings where it began

in closing, for now, come join us for a Bloody Mary on Sunday at 10 AM Texas time (1600 UTC) .. you may find you enjoy playing in it as much as you appear to enjoy critiquing it

re topic split..your original post http://www.fibsboard.com/other-tournaments/fibs-tournament-player-rankings/ asked folks what they thought..

Quotethere are other considerations such as player ratings and length of tourneys, but we can deal with those later .. for now, a way to settle the debate over the value of a tournament win appears to be doable .. what do you think?

and as Diane has reminded us, there is a poll and further discussion on
http://www.fibsboard.com/tourneybot/tournament-seeding-a-good-thing/

i have just voted, and note that the majority vote so far is in favour of random seeding

a TD is entitled to set whatever parameters they want for their tourney, but Dorbel is correct -- if that seeded tourney is then included, along with other 'random bye' tourneys for assessment of an overall winner, then there certainly remains a discrepancy, and a bias toward the more highly rated player

I've got the picture now and the issues have been clarified.

If sixty had earlier conceded dorbel's point but then immediately re-asserted his authority on what his decision would be instead of confusing me with a lengthy straw man argument, I would not have gotten between the two bulls butting heads in the valley.

Thankfully, the bulls didn't mistake me for a red heifer.

I'm sure something can be worked out with the seeding. Its evident Sixty is putting some thought and work into organizing the tourneys and though it may not be perceived as fair by all, its perhaps apropos of backgammon, which is likewise perceived as an unfair game.

If one isn't shafted by the seeding, then one will get shafted by the crooked dice.

It should be noted that all live tournaments, as far as I'm aware, are seeded.  Therefore, seeding may be desirable for that reason.   

I, however, shall continue to run my tourneys in the sequential order because I think it's a fairer prospect for the underdogs in the tourney.     Also, I've always been a rebel!   

socksey



"Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others." - Joseph Butler

I have been playing backgammon, including numerous live tournaments, for over 20 years. I have never played in a live tournament that has been "seeded", nor have I ever heard of such a thing.
All players should go into the draw with the same chance of getting a bye in the first round. Good players don't need any further advantage from being given a bye. Weaker players don't need any further disadvantage.

Quote from: dorbel on December 03, 2010, 08:42:39 PM
I have been playing backgammon, including numerous live tournaments, for over 20 years. I have never played in a live tournament that has been "seeded", nor have I ever heard of such a thing.
All players should go into the draw with the same chance of getting a bye in the first round. Good players don't need any further advantage from being given a bye. Weaker players don't need any further disadvantage.

Then I apparently have a misunderstood.  Thanks for clearing that up for me and I will continue to run my tournaments unseeded.   

socksey



"And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death." - Walt Whitman

always two sides to a coin ::

I will share a little .. dorbel is wrong most big live tourneys use a seeding method to get big time player to come in .

who wants to go in and have mochy vs falafel first round .

Yes random seeding is the most fair , but higher rated players will not join .. if they care so much about ratings .

This is for fun , and i think it should stay random .

QuoteThe second question to be decided is whether to seed the good players. It depends what you want to achieve. There is no doubt that it gives the good players an advantage to be seeded. Let no one teil you the opposite. Suppose you seed the best eight players in a field of 64. The result is that none of those eight themselves meet any of the other best players until the quarter-finals. On the other hand, every other player in the tournament will certainly meet one of the best eight before he reaches the quarter-finals unless the seed is beaten earlier. So, if fairness is the only consideration, you definitely should not seed anyone.

But it sometimes helps a tournament if it is known that a number of good players are going to play in it. Players enjoy the prospect of playing against a champion. There is always the pleasure of a gloat after a win. In that case, you may have to seed the draw just to get the good players to agree to play. They hate it if they are drawn against each other early on.

first, thanks for the continuing stream of great responses .. vic, in particular, came right to the point with his quote from $$$ Backgammon Tournament $$$ -- Running a tournament .. however, IMO, vic really nails it when he says quite directly "This is for fun ..."

i think it is also very important to add this is not about right or wrong, this is not even about fair or unfair .. obviously, right or wrong and fair or unfair can be debated ad nauseum, but the answers to those questions are not on point from my perspective as a tournament organizer

today, in an early morning email reply to Tom on Tournament Seeding, i spent some time thinking and sharing my thoughts on this issue .. i realized then and understand even better now that it has never been about fair or unfair, neither has it been about right or wrong .. for me, it has all been about tournament promotion .. here is a little background familiar to some, perhaps interesting for others

i observed when i first began hosting the Bloody Mary that, like most other tourneys, it had no real attraction other than a nice time slot .. people just played because they wanted to play which is fine .. in time there were regular players representing a good cross section of FIBSters .. i really enjoyed and still do enjoy getting to know folks by playing and meeting them in tournaments .. indeed, other than playing BlunderBots it is about all i do at FIBS

however, in those early days of the Bloody Mary, i noticed that top rated players like Zorba, donz, dorbel,  vegas_vic, and others were not playing even when logged in and actively participating in shouts .. in chats with them, i discerned a common issue was that they didn't like entering tournaments only to be paired randomly with a 1400 rated player they didn't know or want to know and promptly lose a match on dice .. another common issue was the problem of setting aside the time, entering and looking forward to a few matches, only to be paired by a random draw with another top seed resulting in one of them being knocked out in an early round

hello? anyone notice the common theme there and in the second paragraph of vic's on point quote

QuoteSo, if fairness is the only consideration, you definitely should not seed anyone.

But it sometimes helps a tournament if it is known that a number of good players are going to play in it. Players enjoy the prospect of playing against a champion. There is always the pleasure of a gloat after a win. In that case, you may have to seed the draw just to get the good players to agree to play. They hate it if they are drawn against each other early on.

fairness never was a consideration of mine .. after repeated unsuccessful attempts to coax highly rated players to play, i began increasing the Exp and Rep limits to levels most thought absurd .. my thinking then was to create a "Special" environment for the Bloody Mary .. those limits have repeatedly proved to be easily attained by most regular players at FIBS .. also, since i have never refused anyone who asks to play, i don't think the limits are interpreted as an indication of exclusivity -- anyone that is other than my pal, dorbel, who seems to enjoy his role as critic as much as i enjoy his feedback

as the Bloody Mary evolved, a change to seeding by rating came next when Tom at my request made seeding by rating work correctly on TourneyBot .. with no additional promotion by me, top players soon started showing up and registering with regularity .. with the singular and very vocal exception of guess who, no one has ever complained about seeding by rating

few folks, even other TD's, knew this background or understood my logic for seeding by rating .. now, the Bloody Mary regularly has the highest weekly registration .. excluding outliers, the average continues to increase closing in on 32 .. i began noticing these trends ONLY after the changes described above a few years ago

further, when i was away for a year recently, the tourney continued thanks to players demanding it and volunteer TD's who stepped up to run it, but the substitute TD's began dropping those changes .. average registration also began dropping .. when i resumed hosting, i reverted to my original recipe .. with very little active promotion by me, registration began rising steadily once again .. in a few weeks we hit 31 players and have pretty much remained around 25 players ever since .. i don't think it was just because of my good looks .. so, i have been resistant to change for a singular and, IMO, very important reason -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it

nevertheless, i am not totally resistant to change .. indeed, as i began pulling back from FIBS related activities recently in anticipation of no longer being around as a weekly TD at the Bloody Mary, i planned to return the seeding to random and drop all limits at the beginning of the new season, our sixth .. (hmm, whatever happened to that plan?) .. now, we are 8 weeks into that new Bloody Mary season and here i am still lurking about finding new ways to involve myself at FIBS 

so, what's a boy to do?

for now, i'll just go with the old hucksters maxim that any publicity is good publicity, even bad publicity

from day one as a tournament organizer here at FIBS, i have attempted to increase participation and improve the promotion and awareness of tournaments .. other than the fun of just doing it, such remains my sole motivation .. on reflection, i am satisfied we continue to move in a positive direction along that path .. if a little unfairness along the way has aided in accomplishing those goals, so be it

QuoteI will share a little .. dorbel is wrong most big live tourneys use a seeding method to get big time player to come in .

who wants to go in and have mochy vs falafel first round .

I just don't believe that this is true. A live and random draw is the norm and has been in every tournament that I have ever played in, in the UK, France, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Eire, Denmark and the USA. No doubt Vic can give us examples of tournaments where this is not so, including details of how the TDs rated the players to be seeded.
I have though played in tournaments where the byes are auctioned which nobody objects to as it boosts the prize pool.

Quotehowever, in those early days of the Bloody Mary, i noticed that top rated players like Zorba, donz, dorbel,  vegas_vic, and others were not playing even when logged in and actively participating in shouts .. in chats with them, i discerned a common issue was that they didn't like entering tournaments only to be paired randomly with a 1400 rated player they didn't know or want to know and promptly lose a match on dice .. another common issue was the problem of setting aside the time, entering and looking forward to a few matches, only to be paired by a random draw with another top seed resulting in one of them being knocked out in an early round

This isn't true either as far as it refers to me. This should be obvious from my many posts on this subject. I can't speak for the others but Vic regularly enters Bago with its random draw.

It is worth reiterating that  I have no objection to seeding by rating in a full bracket. My objection is to the top seeds always getting the byes and the rest of the field never.
It is also worth repeating that if Sixty wants to run his tournament that way, that's fine by me. I won't enter it but he can make any rule that he wants. That is his right. My only reason for re-opening the debate about seeding is that now he proposes to collate all the tournament results for an end-of-year tournament. This is a good idea well worth a try, but all the qualifying tournaments should use the same draw method, for reasons given in my previous posts. It's not a big issue, it doesn't matter much I guess, but I thought it was worth bringing up. I'm done on this subject, with the exception of correcting any further misrepresentations of my views.

Quote from: dorbel on December 04, 2010, 09:21:59 AM

It's not a big issue, it doesn't matter much I guess, but I thought it was worth bringing up. I'm done on this subject, with the exception of correcting any further misrepresentations of my views.

Can you correct this misrepresentation?

dorbel shouts: I hear sixty has a new plan to record every match on fibs for a "Fibs Best Player and All-Round Top Human Being" end of season play-off for the top 512 players.

Joke. n. A jest: a witticism: anything said or done to excite a laugh: anything provocative of laughter: an absurdity.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary.

Quote from: dorbel on December 04, 2010, 01:47:40 PM
Joke. n. A jest: a witticism: anything said or done to excite a laugh: anything provocative of laughter: an absurdity.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary.