How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

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How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by vinteuil »

Hey, so I don't want to clog up the ACF Nationals discussion thread with this discussion, but I figured people might want to air some opinions on tiebreaker games. It does seem excessive to me that 9th (!) place was decided via tiebreaker, especially given that last year 4th place was left unbroken (to the satisfaction of all involved).
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by Cheynem »

I'm not really sure why tiebreaker games are a problem unless they unnecessarily drag a tournament on (or if there are no packets). Obviously, if this is a one day Penn Bowl and it's 8 PM, maybe we don't break that 15th place tie. Or we don't have enough packets to break every decision about "what bracket do you end up in for playoffs."

But I don't know, for determining national rankings...on a Sunday afternoon (unless some team has to leave, stat, I guess)...if there's packets, I guess I'm not seeing the problem.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by grapesmoker »

vinteuil wrote:Hey, so I don't want to clog up the ACF Nationals discussion thread with this discussion, but I figured people might want to air some opinions on tiebreaker games. It does seem excessive to me that 9th (!) place was decided via tiebreaker, especially given that last year 4th place was left unbroken (to the satisfaction of all involved).
Actually this was kind of cool; because we had two way ties for these places, we could break them all at the same time on the same packet. I thought it was nice that we could rank the top bracket teams properly and I'm not sure anyone is upset about more quizbowl. We didn't have to break these ties, but since we already had ties we did have to break, there was no additional time needed to run these games.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by Cody »

I do not remember why we let 4th place stand last year; that tournament is mostly a blur to me. 4th place would be exactly the type of game we'd want to tiebreak, even if there is no trophy involved. Regardless, policies change.

Jerry and I decided to break all ties in the top-bracket, down to where it was feasible to do so. (i.e. a 3-way tie for 7th might not have played off since it would ideally have involved using Finals 1 and it would've been a headache from a question security standpoint). Since UG & D2 finals or tiebreakers have to run as soon as rounds end (if they exist, and they usually do), there is plenty of time to run other tiebreakers simultaneously.

Berkeley is not a good example here. Due to some sort of misreading when tracking wins, we originally thought we had a 3-way tie for 7th and decided we would just break the 2-way tie for 5th. As stats hero Jon Pinyan finished the top bracket stats, it became clear we had a 2-way tie for 7th and 9th. Since we had already potentially released those teams (Oxford / Penn / Berkeley A / Berkeley B), the decision was made to offer both pairs of teams a chance to play off their tie. Both pairs of teams accepted this offer and I was extremely pleased that we were able to break all the ties in the top-bracket.

edit: it's not that we won't break a 3-way tie in the future, FYI. It just wouldn't have happened this year.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

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why do you hate fun jacob reed
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by dhumphreys17 »

grapesmoker wrote: I'm not sure anyone is upset about more quizbowl. We didn't have to break these ties, but since we already had ties we did have to break, there was no additional time needed to run these games.
Quiz bowl is always better than the lack thereof. What has gotten into your head, Mr. Reed?
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by vinteuil »

dhumphreys17 wrote:
grapesmoker wrote: I'm not sure anyone is upset about more quizbowl. We didn't have to break these ties, but since we already had ties we did have to break, there was no additional time needed to run these games.
Quiz bowl is always better than the lack thereof. What has gotten into your head, Mr. Reed?
Have you ever played 15 rounds over two days, been incredibly tired, wanting to go to lunch, and perfectly happy to share the higher of two spots with a friendly opponent?
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by grapesmoker »

vinteuil wrote:
dhumphreys17 wrote:
grapesmoker wrote: I'm not sure anyone is upset about more quizbowl. We didn't have to break these ties, but since we already had ties we did have to break, there was no additional time needed to run these games.
Quiz bowl is always better than the lack thereof. What has gotten into your head, Mr. Reed?
Have you ever played 15 rounds over two days, been incredibly tired, wanting to go to lunch, and perfectly happy to share the higher of two spots with a friendly opponent?
yes, no, yes, no
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

vinteuil wrote:
dhumphreys17 wrote:
grapesmoker wrote: I'm not sure anyone is upset about more quizbowl. We didn't have to break these ties, but since we already had ties we did have to break, there was no additional time needed to run these games.
Quiz bowl is always better than the lack thereof. What has gotten into your head, Mr. Reed?
Have you ever played 15 rounds over two days, been incredibly tired, wanting to go to lunch, and perfectly happy to share the higher of two spots with a friendly opponent?
No, but I have played through 9 rounds of a tournament with food poisoning and a massive headache to get to the point you mentioned. So instead of playing the final, the opponent and I split the title. However, if I would have been healthy, I would have certainly played a final and skipped out on food for 40 minutes. What's more awesome than playing an extra game on a high quality packet for the chance at a higher national ranking? Play more quizbowl, ya dork.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by jonah »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:What's more awesome than playing an extra game on a high quality packet for the chance at a higher national ranking?
The choice is between tying for nth place, and breaking the tie to get to nth and (n+1)st place (etc. for a more-than-2-way tie), so in fact it's playing an extra game (maybe good) on a high-quality packet (good) for the chance at a lower national ranking (not as appealing).
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

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EDIT: This post deleted due to apparent stupidity.
Last edited by dhumphreys17 on Tue Apr 25, 2017 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by vinteuil »

dhumphreys17 wrote:
jonah wrote: so in fact it's playing an extra game (maybe good) on a high-quality packet (good)
Since when has playing an extra game of quizbowl been downgraded to "maybe good"?
You're right Devin, I must hate playing quizbowl! I'm so glad that everyone has exactly the same opinions about everything in all situations.

EDIT: In all seriousness, playing high-stakes games on high-difficulty questions is _tiring_ and _stressful_, and the accumulated effect of like 10 of those games is massive.
Last edited by vinteuil on Tue Apr 25, 2017 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by John Ketzkorn »

dhumphreys17 wrote:
jonah wrote: so in fact it's playing an extra game (maybe good) on a high-quality packet (good)
Since when has playing an extra game of quizbowl been downgraded to "maybe good"?
This varies person to person, but everyone has a limit for how much quiz bowl they're willing to play over the span of 1-2 days esp at higher difficulty levels against good teams.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by jonah »

Playing another game of quizbowl is often very good. It's also sometimes not, due to a combination of many possible factors (fatigue, stress, hunger, mood, health, bodily functions, environment, non-quizbowl commitments, …). Certainly different people will make different judgments on all of these factors. Maybe you, Devin, always want to play another game of quizbowl no matter what else is going on in your life and around you, but most people have their limits.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by Cody »

I think you can expect that top-bracket ties at ACF Nationals will be broken in the future, where feasible. Whether teams want them to be broken (and at least 4 of 6 teams did) isn't a factor: it's a national championship, and giving concrete final placements is a good thing. If it were feasible, I'd love to break ties all the way down, but it is not.

I understand that some teams were not expecting to play a TB game this year, but I hope that expectations in the future will be different.

That said...Devin you have no idea what you're talking about and are offering nothing useful to this topic. Not all topics need to be commented on by people without relevant experience.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by Cheynem »

Am I parsing Jerry correctly to note he never gets tired? I guess that's why he's sadistic.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by grapesmoker »

Cheynem wrote:Am I parsing Jerry correctly to note he never gets tired? I guess that's why he's sadistic.
MORBO HAS NO USE FOR YOUR CONCEPT OF FATIGUE
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by grapesmoker »

But seriously, I don't think one additional game over two days is a huge ask. If a lot of people think this truly a terrible imposition, we can revisit this question, but given that most teams were pretty happy to play these games, that doesn't seem super unreasonable to me.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by Tippy Martinez »

Personally I think it's a good idea if you have enough resources. Just means more teams get to play later on in the tournament. I think that's fantastic.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

ACF Nationals seems to have had fewer rounds this year than in the previous umpteen years as well. Each team got approximately 15 matches this year (over two days) as opposed to the usual demanding 18 or 19 round schedule (at least for the top teams). Certainly you can handle 16 rounds over the course of 2 days.
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Re: How many tiebreaker games do we really need?

Post by gyre and gimble »

For us and Chicago, it was more that we didn't want to play a game where we could only lose a spot in the standings, when we both felt that we had earned "t-5." The tiebreaking thing should at least have been announced ahead of time. Being mad that I had to play a tiebreaker definitely affected my play in that last game (and probably everyone else's play).
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