QuizbowlPostmodernist wrote:Let us start out by saying that a full round robin is the ideal tournament format, but is usually unpractical. This leads to other tournament formats, usually involving divisional round-robin plus some sort of playoff system.
Proponents of total points (or point differential or bonus conversion) feel that head-to-head overvalues a single game, when superiority over several games is more important.
In tournaments where teams played a multiple round-robin, you can take instances where teams were tied for win-loss after the first round-robin (or multiple round robins) and take the game in the next round-robin as the theoretical tie-breaker game that could have been played. Other tournaments may have teams that tied for win-loss in a preliminary round-robin facing each other in a playoff bracket.
QuizbowlPostmodernist wrote:I am also still concerned about paper tiebreakers involving points requiring the resolution of every protest over even five points. If forced to use such a paper tiebreaker, does anyone disagree with the notion that every protest that could theoretically impact the tiebreaker being used should be resolved (or at least noted and resolved if it matters)?
Phil Castagna wrote:Jerry's point about being ahead of Berkeley after one half is misplaced. There is no "perfect" number of tossups/bonuses to differentiate top teams from each other. That is an isolated vagary of questions that happened to skew in Jerry's favor. By any measure of paper tiebreaker, I am sure that they would be ahead of you as a one-person team, and if they are clearly superior, why play to break the tie at all? If you were still ahead after 20 tossups, should that then be the marker?
Phil Castagna wrote:My problem with total points is when the concept of a clock is in play, this can get skewed.
Matt Weiner wrote:
This is somewhat vague as to why head to head is unfair, so I'd like to elaborate. Every game can, should, and does matter, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with determining anything you like based on a format that comes down to a single game (for example, breaking an exact tie in the standings for 1st and 2nd with a single-game final, which is the format used by both ACF and NAQT nationals and which I doubt anyone objects to). If someone finishes 9-3 and someone else finishes 8-4, and there's only one playoff spot left for the two of them, then the team that's 8-4 has been knocked out by one game's result, and again, I doubt anyone objects to that.
The problem with head to head is not simply that one particular game determines the team's fate, is that you are counting that particular game twice. The team that would come out of a head-to-head tiebreaker as the winner already received credit for that win in order to get into the tie in the first place; there's no sound reason to single out that game and give them an additional win without also double-counting all their other losses, and thus creating the tie all over again.
Really, it just doesn't make any sense on a rational level. If formats were designed from the ground up and no one was trying to emulate the way the NFL does things, I doubt we would have even considered using head to head.
compucomp wrote:I disagree. By using statistical tiebreakers the tournaments shifts the focus away from the main objective of every contest in everything, which is to win. The relevant mantra from sports is that the "only stat that really matters is the number of points you scored versus the number of points your opponent scored". Using H2H as the paper tiebreaker guarantees that this principle is preserved. Using other statistical tiebreakers means that the objective isn't to win, it's to prove that you're a good team by putting up good numbers. These goals are not identical. A 20-15 win is a win, as is a 600-15 one. Of course the 600-15 win looks better, but the 20-15 is still a win, and this fact is usually forgotten when statistical tiebreakers are used, because the 20-15 win will make the team look much worse. Besides, the best team doesn't always win, and using statistical tiebreakers is an attempt to help the best team win, which I think is wrong. I think the team that wins should win, and H2H preserves that.
grapesmoker wrote:compucomp wrote:
I think you're missing the double-counting argument. The point is that if two teams have an equal record but a different H2H (i.e. one team has a loss to the other), then that team had to win the game to tie the record anyway. If you then award them the tiebreaker on the basis of that one game, you've effectively given them twice the credit for winning that game, and that's not fair.
I don't think statistical tiebreakers are an attempt to "help" the best team win. I think a statistical measure is going to tell you who that best team is. Remember, it's a tiebreaker, so at least as far as win-loss is concerned they are equal. That doesn't mean that one team isn't better than the other, though, and a statistical tiebreaker shows you that difference.
yoda4554 wrote:I don't entirely agree with compucomp, but a tournament using a PPG tiebreaker should keep in mind that it will cause a team to try to play aggressively even while winning handily or playing a weak opponent purely for the purpose of racking up points, and this purpose can be antithetical to the purpose of simply trying to win the game.
yoda4554 wrote:I don't entirely agree with compucomp, but a tournament using a PPG tiebreaker should keep in mind that it will cause a team to try to play aggressively even while winning handily or playing a weak opponent purely for the purpose of racking up points, and this purpose can be antithetical to the purpose of simply trying to win the game.
Matt Weiner wrote:Again, we can avoid this dilemma by caring about the quality of the tournaments we produce and having sufficient packets available to break ties.
yoda4554 wrote:Is this really a difficult concept? Do none of you play differently based on the margin of the score in the game? I certainly do. Examples in which playing to get the most points is antithetical to trying to win--
A. You have a lead of 85 points with 2 questions left in an mACF format (or, for that matter, any lead of slightly over 40n with n questions left). If you were playing purely to win, you would simply not buzz. If you were playing to accumulate points, you would continue to buzz aggressively and potentially neg and open the game up for your opponent.
B. You have any sizable but not insurmountable lead. If you were playing purely to win, you would buzz only when you were sure of the answer, so as to avoid a streak of negs that would hand questions over to the other team and give them an easy path back into contention. If you were playing to accumulate points, you would continue buzzing aggressively to so as to increase that lead.
C. The inverse of B; you are trailing by a sizable but not insurmountable amount. If you were playing purely to win, you would buzz very aggressively (particularly when against a team that frequently knows the answers to tossups early), as that's about your only chance to get back into the game. If you were playing purely for points, you would not buzz more aggressively, so as to avoid a string of negs and potentially pick up a few tossups
D. You're leading by between 10 and 45-50 points in a timed format with 5 seconds left when the last tossup begins. If you were playing purely to win, you'd neg immediately to kill the clock. If you were playing to accumulate points, you'd overlook the small chance the other team would pick up the tossup in such a short time and sit on your buzzer.
E. You're playing in a timed format and you have a small lead with less than a minute left when you answer a tossup. If you're playing to win, you answer the bonus as slowly as possible, so as to lower the amount of time left when the next tossup starts, hoping that it will go dead when time runs out (which would still lower your PPTH). If you're playing for points, you answer the bonus quickly so as to get more time to answer the next tossup yourself.
Bruce wrote:Except that negging hurts your statistics. If you are playing to maximize your score, you will not simply buzz in aggressively, you will attempt to avoid negging as well. So that carefullness will still be there.
pblessman wrote:Sorry about being a broken record...
I think ALL statistical tiebreakers are anticlimactic, especially when it comes down to the slimmest of margins. I don't mind my team being eliminated because we lost a match by 5 points, but saying that we won't advance because our bonus conversion was 22.4 points to the other team's 22.6? That just seems silly... I think EVERY tournament should be able to have even just a few questions (and minutes) available to play off the spots. If you plan ahead, this shouldn't be aproblem.
grapesmoker wrote:It's important to remember that tiebreakers by definition happen to teams that are on the margin.
jonpin wrote:Except if you have 3 teams who are X-1 at the end of the day and need to seed them in some way for the final.
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