Reporting Ties in Results

I took over a league at the last minute for another director who had already run 2 seasons. The format was 4 weeks of group play to determine seeding for a double elim, head-to-head finals on week 5. For finals, we split into A and B brackets that do not converge at the end.

I was looking back at the results from the first two seasons, and I noticed that the prior director didn’t report any ties, when naturally in a double elimination bracket there will be some. I figure he must have broken the ties by the players’ initial seeding.

When I have run stand-alone tournaments in the past, I have reported ties as ties. So I’m curious if this is just a stylistic choice that the prior director made, or is there a “right” and “wrong” way to do this?

If it’s considered normal, I’m tempted to submit the recent results as he did. But if it’s odd, I’ll just do it the other way.

Neither choice is wrong. I prefer to call a tie a tie.

I like to be consistent with whatever you do. Since I play in my own tournaments I don’t like to switch things up because it can look bad. I’d do whatever the league has done in the past since you didn’t state that at the beginning of the season.

If you didn’t state the change pre season, stick with what’s been done in the past.

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That was my intuition as well. When I have run tournaments in the past I have reported ties as ties, but when I saw that this league didn’t do that in past seasons, I figured I’d just do it the way it’s been done before. I was just concerned that maybe that wasn’t considered “best practice” and maybe should be changed. But if the general consensus is that breaking ties by seeding is OK and just a TD’s choice, then I’ll go with what’s already been established.

Thanks for the comment!

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This has come up again recently in circuit events.

At CLEPIN this year, it was TD’s discretion to have qualifying decide tiebreakers for final results.

CLEPIN 2016
5th JPW-45
6th Myself-40
7th Fugate-35
8th Metz - 30

PPO2015 had a similar finals format (head to head single elim), with papa style qualifying
5th Replogle 45
6th Harmon 40
7th Delzoppo 35
8th Mahesh 30

Had all of us been tied, we would all have 38 points. This decision gave JPW 7 points and took 8 points away from Aaron. Similarly it gave Replogle 7 points and took 8 away from Mahesh.

Should a unified decision be made so that noone is either screwed out of or given an advantage of circuit points in the future? Wpprs are another stat affected by this too of course. PAPA style finals aren’t a factor as much because the generally use the papa points from finals to decide final standing.

I personally don’t mind either way as long as the TD is clear about which it’s going to be before the event starts. It might affect the prize pool if players feel tempted to put more effort into qualifying.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Furthermore, should papa style qualifying have more/less merit over unlimited/limited best game formats when it comes to deciding final results?

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In regards to the Cleveland Show, ties were broken going into finals, and to keep it consistent ties were also broken coming out of finals. The reason this was done going into finals is because players like to have an exact reason as to why they are the seed they are, since it determines their opponent. To make a hypothetical example using data from the Cleveland Show, say Ed (who was tied for 20th) would have preferred to play John instead of Derek. Were it just decided by how things showed up on the list, Ed could have gotten the matchup he didn’t want, however due to how he played in qualifying, he worked himself into the one he may have found more favorable.

As far as what I think about breaking ties in submitted results, that also seems fair, as it’s based directly on data of how you performed. To use an example for that, I got out in the first round, which places me in the 17th - 24th area. Due to my play earlier in the tournament, I ended up at the lower portion of these results, at 22nd place. This caused me to be 4 WPPR points below Andrew Rosa, who finished 17th. Personally I see this as perfectly fair, though, because I can go back and look at the results and it will prove that Andrew played better than me, and deserved to get those extra points.

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I agree with this. Some people probably don’t but I think qualifying is a perfect way to break ties.

that better Bingham???

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I have issues with the use of qualification based seeding to determine tiebreakers and final standings. In my opinion it is too strong an advantage, especially when 5th compared to 8th, and 9th compared to 16th have drastically different values in both wpprs and circuit points. It’s fair for those toes to finish what they finished in finals, tied : 4 way tie for 6th and 8 way ties for both 12th and 20th respectively. The definition of qualifying is to become eligible for something, in this case the final rounds. While high seed gets several asvantages: byes, game pick or order, “easier” matchups whereas high v low or softer group, it seems to contradict what qualifying position means if it also determines final standing. The qualifying rounds or period and the final rounds are separate entities of a tournament. I don’t see why a tie being a tie is a problem if there is no time for a physical tiebreaker. Just my two cents.

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“Any tournament breaking ties via qualifying results will see a reduction in their TGP by 20%”

To add to the WPPR 5.3 change list, or not . . . hmmmm :slight_smile:

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what about a reduction of TGP % equal to how much TGP % the qualifier was worth? :smiley:

Josh, that’s perfect does that mean you agree with me? lol

If finals is papa groups I like points earned in round eliminated. If head to head if it’s 2/3,3/5, or 4/7 I suppose wins can be the tiebreaker in round eliminated. All the same I feel a tie is a tie, I usually only break them if the payout is different like 3rd/4th or when otherwise specifically necessary. One thing I saw happen in 2014 was crazy though, an ifpa tournament where there was a tie for first. That I would def break :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:.

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I don’t really care personally, because to me every other place besides first is meaningless :wink:

As far as using qualifying results, when the qualifying is the ‘same for everyone’ so either match play or limited Herb, I think that’s a better reason to support using them.

For unlimited qualifying events, people have various motivations for qualifying where they want to (happy to be there, really want to aim for a bye, spending $100 no matter what, etc). With the various differences in the amount of play between the field of qualifiers, I consider those qualifying results as less meaningful and accurate with respect to judging which player played “better” than any other player.

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LAX opted for tied places in finals despite a papa format where it’s clearer to discern where folks ended up in the rankings. Thoughts?

Always nice to have tiebreakers if possible.

If tiebreakers aren’t possible because they are liable to make things run long due to game availability or whatever, I’m not going to complain. My interest in where I place diminishes rapidly below 4th.

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I definitely agree. Also if a TD is going to use qualifying as a deciding factor for tiebreaks in the finals, I would like that to be communicated clearly before qualifying begins.

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If it’s a 4-player match play finals like PAPA, Pinburgh, etc finals, then I agree that the match points scored by those that didn’t advance should be used to differentiate between finishing places.

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IFPA points distribution, how are they effected by ties? If you add up two tied players totals, do you get the same total of points if they finished separate from each other, and you added those points up?

Yes, unless it’s a tie for 1st where both get first place WPPRs.

This is not possible.

The point distribution does not take into account whether a position is tied or not. The way our formula works is that it assigns a value for each finishing position (a portion based on a dynamic distribution and a portion based on a linear distribution).

Two players that tie for 4th place, BOTH get full 4th place WPPR value. It’s not the 4th place + 5th place value divided by 2.

Three players that tie for 4th place all get 5th place WPPR value. The way our formula works this is not the average of 4th/5th/6th place for WPPR’s, it’s simply the 5th place value for all 3 players.

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