bump

I still don't like being in more than 2 1v1 games, and I believe I am not alone in that respect.
I wonder, if people already have such trouble getting 2 games finished in a set time, how they would be able to finish 5 games in a relatively short time.

I will join this time around.

Yes, you're right. I've changed my mind a bit. I still think that the 5 games Match is perfect, but you should not be playing more than 2 games at once. A good Tournament requires time. Months. Every rule you put to make it shorter ruins it a bit. We were discussing about 9 or 14 week. The ended Tourney lasted 5 months (21 weeks)....Where's the problem? I'm not hurry.

Count me in on this one!

I will be a little busy from now until Mid-November (one should note its been over a month since I have actually joined any new games). If I am to host it as I did last time I will be unable to do so until then.

However I would be happy to participate in any tournament posted under this name should someone be willing to do so earlier.

@Guaroz: For online games there are 3 types of people:
Addicts: Those who are on at every waking moment and will do nothing unrelated to the game. This statement may be a complete exaggeration, but almost reflects the lives of many people (including me, being logged on to this and webdip whenever I have internet access) on this forum have. These people would prefer a long tournament.
Regulars: These people check 1 or 2 times a day. Not much to say here other then these people generally have more busy lives and/or don't care as much about the game as addicts. These people would prefer a short tournament because they are worried about the time constraints in the future.
Testers: Every time they here about something new they want to try it out. They move from site to site, game to game, looking for interests and although they will sometimes log in 24/7 at other times they will not log on for weeks.

These players would prefer long tournaments, since they like making commits, but will, shortly after the tournament starts, opt out. We saw many of these in the last tournament.

These 5 month tournaments although seen ideal will eventually have a lot of people drop out and will 'ruin' the tournament.

The other issue with the 5 month tournament is future events. For example, for spring break I am going to BC to Ski. I have the fortune of knowing this months in advance since we do this every year. However there are other events that will put me without internet access that I wont have the fortune of knowing that long in advance.

My 2 week trip to China in August, for example, was booked in June.

Given that 5 months is an incredibly long time, there is no guarentee, for most people who would sign up, that they will stay in for those 5 months.

That being said, what might be an interesting idea (and will allow us to take into account absences) is a team vdip cup. Where rather then playing individually like last time, we have teams of 3 participating in the tournament.

This not only gives way for allowing 5 games a week to be spread among the 3 team members, this could also take into account absences in the result that one team member was absent for a period of time. This would also make it more enjoyable for the likes of Gobble and RoxArt, who are specialized in one map and have little experience in the other maps. Gobble was invincible on AvF last tournament, but it was his inability to do anything on IvG that caused him to be eliminated. Being in a team, he could volunteer to play all the teams AvF, and not have to worry about other maps.

The disadvantages of this would be:
1) More players needed to start up the tournament
2) No longer an individual game, as if your teammates loose, you could still be eliminated despite being undefeated.

Thoughts?

@Fasces. You made many good points, but I see things slightly differently. Let's see.

PLAYERS. (5 Types)
- Addicts: Although I think I am, I still wonder how some people can play more than 6-7 games at once. There are many like those here...How do they find the time? In some other sports they call them "professionals". Here, they got always a window opened on Vdip, even on holidays, and sometimes they play live-paced-games.
- Agonisti: It's italian, sorry, my vocabulary didn't find a translation. Those who often play official competitions. The sport in question is their main hobby and they can do some sacrifice for it (weekends out and so on). Here, they check Vdip: morning/coffe-break/lunch/tea-break/before-after dinner/before-bed. Many of them have Vdip on their smartphone. Sometimes they play games with phase between 12 and 24 hrs.
- Amateurs (Regular): Having a healthy brain, they check only 2-3 times a day (you can't follow a 24h/phase game checking only once, and 24h are the most frequent, you must admit). In other sports, they play often...but only in their hometown. (I'm referring to similar sports like Chess, Bridge, Backgammon. I understood I was a Bridge-agonist when I did Rome-Montecarlo-Rome in a weekend and people who usually played more often than me in Rome didn't). Not many sacrifices for competitions.
- Occasionals: easy to find: they don't play games faster than 36h/phase because they can check only from 0 to 2 times a day.
- Testers: agree with you.

GOALS
Whatever Tournament Formula you use, you can't satisfy all types. Even if you focus on the first 3 types (AD-AG-AM), you can't satisfy all types. Each type's players have a different "fair Formula" in their minds. So a compromise is needed.
The goals/issues are:
1- RELIABILITY OF OUTCOME. What is? I.e. a knock-out tournament (16ths/8ths/Quarters/Semis/Final) is not reliable because the champion (say Devonian) could eliminate the 2nd strongest player too soon (say Gobbledydook in the 16ths).
2- PLAYERS' NUMBER. The Formula should manage any number of players. We don't know how many player will sign up and we don't know how many will abandon/withdraw ANY long the Tournament is (the past tourney, some people abandoned after only 2 or 4 games. They lasted 1 week.).
3- COMMITTMENT. That's the point. It must not be too heavy because we all have Real Lives, but it must not be too light or the Tourney would have no significance, with an unreliable outcome.
4- ATTENDANCE. What we all want is that many players sign up. So what is the compromise that can meet all expectations? An unreliable-outcome Formula would not interest AD and AG players. Perhaps it would not interest anyone. On the other side, a too committing Formula would keep too many AMs away.

THE POINT
As we said before in this thread, the Danish Formula perfectly solves:
-Reliability. Accuracy of final standings is comparable to a Round Robin Tournament, but with so many less turns to be played.
-It can be played by ANY number of players. This ALSO means that you don't care if someone misses a Round or 2 Rounds or definitely quits, because he simply take 0 and his opponent takes the "bye". If half of competitors quit the tourney, the tourney is NOT RUINED. Or at least is much less ruined than any other system. But I don't think there are so many sore losers on this site, nor many people who doesn't understand what he's signing up for. But surely there will be people whose RL makes them change programs.

It can solve also the "Committment" point fine-tuning parameters like number of rounds and games per round, or set some addictional rule like max lenght of a game/of a Match.

That's the point. We just need to agree on what a fair committment is, to have a maximum number of competitors without being playing a fake Tournament.
If you want to make a 12 games 4 weeks Tournament just to have 80 competitors, well, I'm not interested. Have fun. (just a provocation, lol) You'd have a lot of Occasional players. Missing turns. And people would go away anyway.

You said "These 5 month tournaments although seen ideal will eventually have a lot of people drop out". NO. Most of the players (4? 5?) abandoned during the round robin, in the first 2 months. Even in the first 2 weeks. There's no a "fair tournament's lenght" for sore losers. Those people would quit it any committment you provide. One who quitted after a week, a young boy, said something about his scheduling commits for school or something. Ok, he's not a sore loser but...ONE WEEK! There's nothing you can do about it... quitting people (for any reason), as well as CDers, are there and always will be...any lenght you choose. Nothing you can do about it, just give the bye and go on.

I say:
Let these players who have a commitment which goes up and down, whether they're sore losers, or not enough keen on the Tourney, or unlucky with RL issues, roam the second half of the standings. For them, better luck next time.
And let the most committed players have their fair and significant Tournament.

That said. You convinced me. Now I'm ok with only 6 Rounds.
It's 30 games. Last Tourney it was 37 till the end (14+7+7+9 = RR+Quarter+Semi+Final).
_____________
PS. Don't forget that last tournament stopped for a (long boring idle) month because of a 3-way tie-break serie, otherwise it would have been 4 months. No extra games in Danish.

I would prefer as many rounds as possible. I think 6 is to short to accurately find a winner. However there are constraints.

I personally wouldn't mind a 5 month tourny cause I know I will still be using this site in 5 months. But I am not sure how many people would...

Oh, you proposed six. Seven would be perfect.
Since we don't want to play more than 2 games per time, a 5 games mathch would last 3 weeks in the worst case, but probably less.
3 weeks x 7 Rounds = 21 weeks = 5 months.
Probably something less.

The truth is that until we don't try a Danish we won't know how long will it take, only conjectures.

True, which brings us back to an earlier post:
I will be a little busy from now until Mid-November (one should note its been over a month since I have actually joined any new games). If I am to host it as I did last time I will be unable to do so until then.

Oh, no problem. Take it easy. Two "VDip 1v1" Cups per year are enough :)

We could use next month to discuss some other issue like:
- Round 1 pairings (I propose the "serpentine" with Vdip rank)
- Tiebreaking (I propose the "best cumulative")

Serpetine and cumulative.

As for rankings I was thinking of using 2 factors:
1. Rank in the previous vdip cup (if applicable)
2. Total points on this site.

Mmm. Nice idea. Let's see...where's my file?

In the meanwhile, if anyone doesn't know what a cumulative tiebreaking is:

TIEBREAKING. At some point, there could be the need to break a tie. This could happen when: a) Final Standings is made (Ties are not allowed in Danish); b) you can't say in which Board two or more Competitors should be put (Say 3 Competitors are tying 4th Place: you can't say who is supposed to be put in Board B and who in Board C).
In this cases, the "BEST CUMULATIVES'SUM SYSTEM" will be used. To calculate this, sum the running score for each round. For example, say Competitors "aaa" and "bbb" tied at 19 after Round 3. Now:
"aaa" has scored 19 in this order: 10, 6, 3 then the sum of his cumulatives will be 10+16+19= 45.
"bbb" in this other order: 3, 6, 10 then the sum of his cumulatives will be 3+9+19 = 31
This system places more weight on good performances made in the early rounds and the least weight on good performances made in the final rounds. The rationale for this system is that a player who scored well early in the tournament has most likely faced tougher opponents in later rounds and should therefore be favored over a player who scored poorly in the start before subsequently scoring points against weaker opponents.
If the tie persist we could favour the player with the best VDip ranking (at the start of the Tourney).

So this could be the pre-ranking
1- Devonian
2- Guaroz
3- Gobbledydook, RoxArt
4- myrmidon, President Eden, langaidin, canaduh
5- ezpickens, Hellenic Riot
6- Jimbozig, gantz
7- Alokomot, Sacred Digit
8- gman314, fasces349
9- any new player

ties of players of the same pre-rank group will be broken with the Vdip ranking as it is when the player signs up. So a player that replies to the Tourney Ad invite thread should reply something like:
"Hey, count me in. I'm ranked #135"
Thoughts?

1. Devonian
2. Guaroz
3. RoxArt
4. Gobbledydook
5. Langaidin
6. President Eden
7. Canaduh + Myrmidon
9. Hellenic Riot
10. Ezpickens
11. Jimbozig + Gantz
13. Alokomot + Sacred Digit
15. Fasces349 + Gman314
17. any new player.
I separated those who were tied by their position in the prelims. In the result that the 2 people were in different groups, I left them as is.

Ok. So the goal of all this would be having a "Turnament Number" to be used both in first Round's serpentine and in tie-breacking (the cumulative can't work after Round 1), right?

Say, as small example, those players sign up (ranking by fantasy):
Devoinian #230
Langaidin #50
Canaduh #75
Myrmidon #20
Aaaaaa #1
Bbbbb #170
Ccccc #23
Ddddd #113

Their TN would be:
1-Devoinian #230
2-Langaidin #50
3-Myrmidon #20
4-Canaduh #75
5-Aaaaaa #1
6-Ccccc #23
7-Ddddd #113
8-Bbbbb #170

The first Round pairings would be
Board A: 1-8
Board B: 2-7
Board C: 3-6
Board D: 4-5

Further, say Canaduh & Aaaaaa draw their first Match 5-5 and in consequence of that they're tying, after Round 1, the 4th position. Cumulative DOESN'T help yet. Canaduh would be choosen for next board B having TN=4, and Aaaaa for board C, having a higher TN.

Does it all sounds right? Thoughts?

that is correct. This thing should start in ~2-3 weeks

..............................................*** S U M M A R Y ***.............................................

We used Round Robin groups in the first Tournament. The best 4 of each group went to Knockouts.
This system had some issues:
- Dropouts and substitutions are hard to manage, if not impossible.
- Many unmeaningful Matches (i.e.: already-qualified vs already eliminated)
- Already eliminated players often give up, screwing the tournament.
- Long pauses for tiebreaking Matches
- No Final Standings. If you're not the Champion, you'll never know what your Rank was.

All these issues are eliminated or minimized by a Danish system.
Danish is when each player will be pitted against other players who have done as well (or poorly) as himself. So, after a Round is ended, you look at the updated Standings and next Round will be: 1st vs 2nd - 3rd vs 4th - 5th vs 6th...
Same 2 players can face more than once (unlike the Swiss that, although it has been discussed having some advantages, it won't be used for this 2nd Edition being too complex for a "first time").

Decisions:

1) SYSTEM. Danish 7 Rounds
2) STANDARD MATCH will be 2 GvI + 2 FvA + 1 Duo. So each Match assigns 10 Victory-Points (10-0, 9-1, 8-2, 7-3, 6-4, 5-5)
3) TOURNAMENT NUMBER (TN). Players must declare their VDip ranking as they sign up. Pre-ranking allow players placed in the previous Tournament to have lower TNs. Once the signing-up phase is over, TN are assigned by pre-ranking and ranking as stated just above in this thread.
4) FIRST ROUND'S PAIRINGS will be made with the SERPENTINE method by TN:
Board A will be: lowest TN vs. highest - Board B: 2nd lowest vs. 2nd highest - and so on.
5) TIEBREAKING. The "BEST CUMULATIVES' SUM SYSTEM" will be used. If it doesn't help, the lower TN will be favoured.

question about ranks: is it based on how many points you have? I suppose that would be the best way, but just wanna make sure if any other factors effect it

mongoose998 - #139 as anyone else who got 132 as well.
Was this the answer you were looking for?

btw, ranking affects only the first round pairings so it's not that important after all... you have 35 games to play.... just win as many of them as you can! :-)

Next issue: the BYE.
It could happen that Match can't start or be completed. 3 cases:
1) There's an odd number of competitors in the Tournament. In this case the last Board (the one with the higher letter) is "maimed" all Tournament long, being in it a player (usually different from Round to Round) that obviousely won't play any Match, not having an opponent.
2) A Match didn't start at all because one of the 2 players didn't show up for ANY reason, whether it was expected (he said before he withdraws/gives up...) or not.
3) A Match can't be completed because a player disappeared before joining the 5th game of the Match.

All this cases need an arbitrary score.
When the match didn't start at all (cases #1 & #2), I propose that the BYE should be 60% of full score that is to say 6 Victory Points. So the player who hasn't got an opponent gets 6 VPs.
If there's a missing player (case #2), he gets 0.
The case #3 looks thougher, because if I'm winning a Match 8-0, I don't want to get only 6 because my opponent disappeared before joining the last game. On the other hand, if I'm losing 0-8, it would look unfair giving me 6 only because I was lucky having an opponent with some RL issue. So I propose this partial-bye for case #3:
The score of started games stays put (if a player disappear during a game, the other player will win it) as it is.
The score of unstarted games is:
- For the player who showed up, the first missing game gives 2, the remaining games give 1 VP each.
- For the player who disappeared, all missing games give 0.
Examples:

Say A & B are players in a Match and after 2 games, ended 2-0 and 0-2, B disappears
A gets: 2+0+2+1+1=6
B gets: 0+2+0+0+0=2

C & D. First 4 games ended 2-0, 2-0, 1-1, 2-0 then D disappeared.
C gets: 2+2+1+2+2=9
D gets: 0+0+1+0+0=1

E & F. 3 games: 0-2, 1-1, 1-1 then F disappeared
E gets: 0+1+1+2+1=5
F gets: 2+1+1+0+0=4


An alternative solution for players who didn't show up or disappeared could be this:
- if he didn't play any game he gets -1
- If he played at least a game, then the first missing game gives -1, the remaining games give 0 VP each.
E & F. 3 games: 0-2, 1-1, 1-1 then F disappeared
E gets: 0+1+1+2+1=5
F gets: 2+1+1-1+0=3
This little penalty would speed up those definitively disappeared players in reaching the bottom of the standings, without penalyzing too much those players that had a RL issue, skipped some games or a whole Round, and came back and want to play on.

Thoughts?

I like the -1 penalty.

bump

So were using Danish with that plus 1/-2 for the games were players do not show up.

any complaints?

Not from me, if the rules are these:

1) SYSTEM. Danish 7 Rounds
2) STANDARD MATCH will be 2 GvI + 2 FvA + 1 Duo. So each Match assigns 10 Victory-Points (10-0, 9-1, 8-2, 7-3, 6-4, 5-5)
3) TOURNAMENT NUMBER (TN). Players must declare their VDip ranking as they sign up [or the Tournament-Master takes note of it]. Pre-ranking allow players placed in the previous Tournament to have lower TNs. Once the signing-up phase is over, TN are assigned by pre-ranking and ranking as stated just above in this thread.
4) FIRST ROUND'S PAIRINGS will be made with the SERPENTINE method by TN:
Board A will be: lowest TN vs. highest - Board B: 2nd lowest vs. 2nd highest - and so on.
5) TIEBREAKING. The "BEST CUMULATIVES' SUM SYSTEM" will be used. If it doesn't help, the lower TN will be favoured.
6) GAMES NOT STARTED (BYE). If a player skip one or more games of a Match then:
- The player who showed up gets 2 VP for the first game not started and 1 VP for the remaining games not started.
- The player who forfeited gets -1 VP for the first and 0 for the others.
So if a player skips an entire Match the result will be 6 to -1. No more penalties, no disqualifications.

Those are the rules that have been decided.