I have top 12 going to finals and I know already that one or two of the players won’t be there, so I am just wondering how you all handle that. To me it would be logical to make it so those missing players just get ranked as 11 or 12 respectively, rather than pull players in to replace them, which seems unfair since they didn’t make the cut. Thoughts?
They are tied for 11th, or you can use seed position to place them 11,12.
It’s also permissible to move them down to 13th and replace them with players that are available for finals. If you’re using group match play and publishing the groups ahead of time replacing them with players that are present means redoing the match-ups and a few minutes of work.
Make note to update your league rules to include how missing players will be handled in finals.
For league, I put those people as tied for last in their respective division. No pulling people up from the lower division.
For Pincinnati, a no show or someone that chooses not to play finals, is put to the bottom of their division and replaced with the next player in line to keep the matchplay finals groups full.
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I think you can handle it however you want if your rules are clear and players know ahead of time so there aren’t hard feelings. For what it’s worth, in our league, if we’re going to have a 12 person A finals, we have a 12 person A finals regardless of who shows up, moving people up from the lower division as needed. We rank the no-shows below the players who attended, in seed order.
Just sharing verbiage from our rules doc for our league:
- The Top Eight players will partake in A-Division Finals
- You need to have played in at least two of the six weeks of Team Play to make A-Division Finals
- If there are absences in A-Division, the top seeds in B-Division will move up to fill the slots
- If there is a tie for 8th, Tied Players will play a single-game playoff on a game chosen at random
- All other players will partake in B-Division Finals
- This includes folks present who did not participate in any Team Play weeks
Link: Weekly IFPA Best Game Team Competition - 2022 Late Summer - Google Docs
My league has 16 qualified players per division and there are always some absences for playoffs. Those spots just become ghost players in their groups.
Here is the breakdown I use to be prepared for any number of players who may show up for a division’s playoffs. PAPA style, 3 game round, top 2 advance.
Agree with bringing others up. You haven’t finished the season yet if you haven’t played in the playoffs. That’s how BAPA does it and because there’s also B division playoffs same day, there are always people available to bring up.
I’ve seen it done multiple ways but I would suggest one of the following to KIS:
- The slots got unfilled. Absent players finish tied for 11th/2th or 11th and 12th based on an arbitrary tiebreaker. Do top 10 for finals, with top 2 seeds getting a bye.
- Bring up 2 people (13th and 14th) and do top 12. The people who are absent finish tied for 13th/14th or break the tie somehow.
When breaking ties be consistent and follow any rules you’ve written out. If there are no rules, well time to pick a methodology and update the rules for the future. 
For IFPA submission, you can actually submit ties for every position but 1st. The points get split evenly so if 2 people tie for 11th & 12th, the points for 11th & 12th get added up and split by 2. (EDIT: This is wrong, the players would tie for 11th in this case.)
The key if there are no written rules for how to deal with absentees in playoffs is to pick a methodology, write it down in the league rules, and stick with it for future seasons. I’m sure most players will be fine with this as this is the first season of the league and things are still being established.
I think you guys changed my mind and I’ll be bringing people up from the lower division. It just seems better for the groups to be even and a full 12 participating.
What prizes are there for B? Do the B people want to move up?
Wrong! They both get 11th place points in this situation.
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Wow! I always assumed it worked the way @Binkley described. It looks like a more complete description is that every tied player gets the points for the average position among tied players; use the lower (better) position number in the case of a tie between an even number of players.
So a tie for 11-12th is 11.5, which becomes 11(yay! the tournament just awarded more WPPRs than expected). A tie for 13-17th becomes 15th; I’m not sure if this is more or less or the same overall WPPRs for the event because the dynamic distribution of points for everyone other than first place.
Thanks for pointing that out @JShop.
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