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[Insomniac]

Here we can talk about how to structure the losers bracket so that it can incorporate people from later rounds.

[Insomniac]

My thoughts are as such.

Signups for Week 1 end Saturday, we take up to 64.

Signups for Week 2 end one week from saturday, we take up to 32 people that lost in round 2. They get woven in to make another bracket with up to 64 people

Signups for week 3 end two weeks from saturday, we take up to 16 people that lost in round 3. They get woven in to make another bracket with up to 32 people.

and so on and so forth until we have 1 remaining.

[Qvist]

Like said in the other thread, best would be a standard Double Elimination Bracket, problem OTOH is that probably not all 128 will participate and the signups will be only for 64. And that also means that there will be 64 more losers of the main bracket in Round 2 against 32 winners of the first Elimination Round. So that means I'm not sure how it can be done best. Maybe at some point we have to switch that all losers of the main bracket first play against each other and these winners can then play against the winners of the Losers Bracket so that the number is the same again.

Side note: Standard Double Elimination is something I wanted to propose as this year's format, but forgot in the end. 

[Axxle]

Double elimination bracket: http://www.printyourbrackets.com/pdfbrackets/64teamdoubleseeded.pdf

We'd use just the lower bracket which would have to be extrapolated to twice the size.

[Insomniac]

Im not sure we can just make it double elim because we have no way to guarantee we get the right number of signups. (because the tourney wasn't implemented as double elim to start with)

[Axxle]

My thoughts are as such.

Signups for Week 1 end Saturday, we take up to 64.

Signups for Week 2 end one week from saturday, we take up to 32 people that lost in round 2. They get woven in to make another bracket with up to 64 people

Signups for week 3 end two weeks from saturday, we take up to 16 people that lost in round 3. They get woven in to make another bracket with up to 32 people.

and so on and so forth until we have 1 remaining.

This won't work like you think:
End of week 1 we have 32 people,
Start of week 2 we add 32 so we're now at 64.
End of week 2 we're back at 32.
Start of week 3 we add 16 so now we have a bracket of 48.

edit: I think what you propose is basically a double elimination bracket anyway, but I guess not as structured.

[Insomniac]

My thoughts are as such.

Signups for Week 1 end Saturday, we take up to 64.

Signups for Week 2 end one week from saturday, we take up to 32 people that lost in round 2. They get woven in to make another bracket with up to 64 people

Signups for week 3 end two weeks from saturday, we take up to 16 people that lost in round 3. They get woven in to make another bracket with up to 32 people.

and so on and so forth until we have 1 remaining.

This won't work like you think:
End of week 1 we have 32 people,
Start of week 2 we add 32 so we're now at 64.
End of week 2 we're back at 32.
Start of week 3 we add 16 so now we have a bracket of 48.

edit: I think what you propose is basically a double elimination bracket anyway, but I guess not as structured.

I don't think we're going to hit any of my caps any week either.

[jonts26]

So the choice between allowing further participants after the week one loss seems like it fundamentally changes the losers bracket tournament. If you only allow week 1 losers (and do another losers tourney for later losses?) you are basically having a lower level tournament which gives weaker players a realistic shot of winning or at least staying alive longer. If you allow later losers into the bracket, it's likely that a player who gets in later in the tournament will win because they are more likely to be a better player. Both have their pros and cons, and I'm not really advocating one over the other. Just keep in mind what you hope to accomplish with this bracket.

[dondon151]

Well, there are a handful of high seeds in the loser's bracket right now anyway after having suffered upsets in the first round.

[Titandrake]

If you want a logistics nightmare, you could have a separate single elimination bracket for each round.

So there's a bracket for people who lost Round 1 (capped at 64)
And then a separate bracket of 32 for people who lost Round 2.
And a separate bracket of 16 for Round 3 losers, and so on.

From my understanding, this is just to have more tournament matches for people who lost early, and likely won't have a reward for winning (besides personal satisfaction). So if it's just for fun, it makes better sense for the participants to be around the same level, because that leads to closer/more interesting matches.

[Insomniac]

For my sanity if someone was willing to run a loser's bracket for each round (ie one for people who are eliminated round 2 one for round 3 etc) that would be ideal.

Then at the end the winner from LB1 faces the winner of LB2, LB3 faces LB4 and so on until we have a losers bracket champ which is worth nothing except the redemption of your pride.

[mith]

The problem with doing it as separate brackets is that you can end up with awkward numbers is every pool; whereas if you add in the fresh losers each round, at worst you have an odd number and one bye each round (which you can assign in some reasonable way so that no one ever has a bye twice).

As I said in the other thread, I would be happy to help set this up, and am willing to do so even in the absence of a cap on the number of players. Personally, I would set the cap for the first round at 128 and allow anyone who missed the main tournament to join this one, with preference given to losers from the actual tournament if we somehow get over that cap (only in the first round, of course - after that, only losers from the main bracket can join).

[Insomniac]

The problem with doing it as separate brackets is that you can end up with awkward numbers is every pool; whereas if you add in the fresh losers each round, at worst you have an odd number and one bye each round (which you can assign in some reasonable way so that no one ever has a bye twice).

As I said in the other thread, I would be happy to help set this up, and am willing to do so even in the absence of a cap on the number of players. Personally, I would set the cap for the first round at 128 and allow anyone who missed the main tournament to join this one, with preference given to losers from the actual tournament if we somehow get over that cap (only in the first round, of course - after that, only losers from the main bracket can join).

Alright mith I'll take you up on that let's do an awesome loser's bracket.

[mith]

Sure. You should announce that we're accepting signups from players who missed the tourney, and remove the cap from the thread title.

I'll flesh out some seeding and other structure options later for discussion.

[mith]

Seeding Options

• The simplest option is to not seed at all and just have a random draw.
• The next simplest alternative is to seed for the purpose of determining a top and bottom half, and randomly pair players from the two halves to form the matchups. This is more like what they do in, for example, tennis, where the top seeds don't face each other early but otherwise the matchups are randomized (so you might end up with a 1-3 and 2-4 semifinals, rather than 1-4 and 2-3). One offshoot here is that we could manipulate the pairings based on timezone, but I would want an objective method of doing this so as to be totally transparent.
• Or, we could just totally seed the field, preserving seeding from the main tournament, adding new players based on where they would have been seeded on the day the seeds were determined (or based on their current ranking, if last week's leaderboard is unavailable). Because we are adding new players each round as the main tournament progresses, this will require re-seeding each round.

I prefer option two here, personally, but I like a little chaos in the matchups...

Odd player count - byes

• The simplest approach here would seem to be to give a bye to the highest remaining seed who has not already received a bye.
• Alternately, we could require that the player receiving the bye must have already played a match in the losers bracket (for later rounds) or in the main tournament (for the first round). New entries can't get the bye.
• One final variation on the above would be to give the bye to the highest remaining seed among those who have played the most games in the losers bracket.
• A more exotic method would be to have an "extra" match in the event that at least two players have received a bye - they would immediately play each other to get back to the same number of matches as everyone else. This would require the byes to come from the middle of the seeding, rather than the top - otherwise, you'll end up with two top players facing off very early.  This has the obvious disadvantage of potentially holding things up if the extra match can't be scheduled immediately, so it's probably too much of a hassle.

I like the idea of the last option, but of the practical options, three is my preference.

[Insomniac]

For seeding, I prefer seeding based on the main tourney if we have the requisite information as we have allowed new entries and I don't know if Theory/GE/Jonts have it for the players that WERENT in the main tourney, if they don't we could default them to being low seeds and use option 2.

For byes, I agree with option 3.

[mith]

We could also just re-seed everyone based on their current level?

[Insomniac]

We could also just re-seed everyone based on their current level?

Thats alot more work then seeding as is, essentially if we declare seeding based on one timestamp reseeding is a breeze as it's already done.

[mith]

I mean if we don't have access to the old leaderboard to get the correct seeds for new players.

[Insomniac]

I mean if we don't have access to the old leaderboard to get the correct seeds for new players.

ahh yes, the problem with that is we still have to reseed going forward as we are excepting people from later rounds without knowing whom we are accepting ahead of time.

[theory]

We got the data for old leaderboards here: http://bggdl.square7.ch/leaderboard

[greatexpectations]

We got the data for old leaderboards here: http://bggdl.square7.ch/leaderboard

the date i used for the tournament was december 1, 2012. the vast majority of your players will already be in the spreadsheet though, complete with all of the level information you would want. just make a copy and sort how you want it.

[mith]

Aha, I knew the old leaderboards must be up somewhere.

[Insomniac]

We got the data for old leaderboards here: http://bggdl.square7.ch/leaderboard

the date i used for the tournament was december 1, 2012. the vast majority of your players will already be in the spreadsheet though, complete with all of the level information you would want. just make a copy and sort how you want it.

Yea I was already snagging overall seed from the "Final Entry List" thread.

[Insomniac]

so is there any way to get challonge to do what you want it to do. I gave it seeding information for 37 players for a single elim tourney and its forcing multiple round 1 byes I can't get it to not do that. (without having 32 or 64 I don't think)

[mith]

I'll put together a "bracket" in a google spreadsheet for you, if nothing else. Can just move things around each round to reflect the way the matchups came out, and eventually we'll end up with a bizarre looking bracket at the end.

[Insomniac]

I'll put together a "bracket" in a google spreadsheet for you, if nothing else. Can just move things around each round to reflect the way the matchups came out, and eventually we'll end up with a bizarre looking bracket at the end.

Thanks!

if it helps any I've already sorted the entrants by seed (from entering them into challonge)

1   TheSadPanda   -   
2   Master Shuffler   -   
3   ibavly   -   
4   Qvist   -   
5   Powerman   -   
6   Antonidas   -   
7   loppo   -   
8   AdamH   -   
9   Gandi   -   
10   Moomi   -   
11   GwinnR   -   
12   Axxle   -   
13   jider   -   
14   xeiron   -   
15   Forge!!!   -   
16   Emeric   -   
17   bitwise   -   
18   Joseph2302   -   
19   Masticore   -   
20   Dsell   -   
21   TDog   -   
22   Tonks77   -   
23   Khan93   -   
24   Dekryr   -   
25   warrior297   -   
26   Geefour   -   
27   Insomniac   -   
28   BestKenEver   -   
29   -dg-   -   
30   hsiale   -   
31   KC-KC-Scout-Scout-Scout   -   
32   Psyduck   -   
33   Tasman1414   -   
34   funcrusher   -   
35   BlackJackDavie   -   
36   liopoil (jefhw)   -   
37   Harniver   -

[theory]

Should we put this in a subforum?  Or will that hide its visibility too much?

[Insomniac]

Should we put this in a subforum?  Or will that hide its visibility too much?

I'm fine with that, I actually suggested it a while back was told it probably wasn't necessary

[mith]

Perhaps just a sticky for visibility and reporting results? I propose calling this the "Rats! Division".

We can link to the current round's signup thread there, and all the signup threads can go in a subforum.

[mith]

Btw, I count 38; you're missing hongrich. (Looks like you doubled up on a number in the signup thread?)

[Insomniac]

nice catch, i doubled up on 29 and so he missed the double check of satisfying the number i thought I had.

[mith]

<iframe src=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Al5tXBExrSovdENKd2hQOHFwQ0tKczFuVVlnM1dmcXc&output=html\" width=\"712\" height=\"1000\"></iframe>

[mith]

Guess that's a mod only feature... should work for you though, if you want to copy it to the OP of our results thread.

[Insomniac]

Will do

[theory]

Arbitrary HTML is an admin-only feature.  If you PM me after you make the thread I can edit it in and the topic will accept it (until you edit it again).

[Drab Emordnilap]

Arbitrary HTML is an admin-only feature.  If you PM me after you make the thread I can edit it in and the topic will accept it (until you edit it again).

Maybe you should edit in to the second post, then, so that when he edits the original post, it won't break.

[Insomniac]

Arbitrary HTML is an admin-only feature.  If you PM me after you make the thread I can edit it in and the topic will accept it (until you edit it again).

Maybe you should edit in to the second post, then, so that when he edits the original post, it won't break.

Unless something crazy happens we aren't editing the first post now

[kn1tt3r]

I'm only an observer, but nevertheless: How will this losers bracket combine with the 4 normal brackets? I mean, as far as know it's currently not covered in the tournament structure, which is "4 brackets => elite 8 with #1 and #2 of each bracket => final"...

There's also the time schedule, where the losers bracket is always 1 week behind the others, which might conflict at some point.

I'm sure this can all be solved, but well, at first it has to be on the agenda at all.

[mith]

I'm not really sure what you're asking in the first question. We're pulling losers from each round of the main tournament, regardless of which division they come from. Just ignore the divisions and think of it as one big 256 player bracket (which is what it is, really, the divisions are just to make the presentation and result reporting manageable).

For the second, being 1 week behind isn't an issue at all, as this is an unofficial tournament with no feedback into the main tournament (i.e. the winner of the loser's bracket isn't going to get a second chance at the DS.com 2012 champ or anything like that). Depending on the number of players who actually participate, we may finish the same week as the main tournament anyway (I'm assuming a third place match, so we're probably not going to be having to deal with new entries at that point).

(FWIW, if everyone participated in the losers' bracket who could, it would take 11 rounds, plus already being one week behind, which means we would finish a full four weeks later than the main tournament. Obviously that won't happen, as we only had 38 out of a possible 128 in the first round.)

[kn1tt3r]

I'm not really sure what you're asking in the first question. We're pulling losers from each round of the main tournament, regardless of which division they come from. Just ignore the divisions and think of it as one big 256 player bracket (which is what it is, really, the divisions are just to make the presentation and result reporting manageable).

For the second, being 1 week behind isn't an issue at all, as this is an unofficial tournament with no feedback into the main tournament (i.e. the winner of the loser's bracket isn't going to get a second chance at the DS.com 2012 champ or anything like that). Depending on the number of players who actually participate, we may finish the same week as the main tournament anyway (I'm assuming a third place match, so we're probably not going to be having to deal with new entries at that point).

(FWIW, if everyone participated in the losers' bracket who could, it would take 11 rounds, plus already being one week behind, which means we would finish a full four weeks later than the main tournament. Obviously that won't happen, as we only had 38 out of a possible 128 in the first round.)

Ah ok, I thought the winner of this losers' bracket would be somehow merged into the official tournament again. Now it's clear, ty.

[loppo]

Looking Back at the evolution of the losers Bracket, wouldnt it have been better to make the whole touirnament organized swiss style. That would have taken care of the seating discussion, because the good players play each other starting from round 2, and everybody can play as long as he desires.

This last point is what i always liked in m:tg tournaments. No matter how bad you are (and i was quite bad) you would not be eliminated. So you feel like doing good, even if you are losing. And in the end you get a very accurate ranking of all the players.

[mith]

We haven't heard from either opponent in two of our matchups... Assuming that remains the case tomorrow, it seems the only solution will be to remove both participants from the tournament. Hopefully it won't come to that, though.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Looking Back at the evolution of the losers Bracket, wouldnt it have been better to make the whole touirnament organized swiss style. That would have taken care of the seating discussion, because the good players play each other starting from round 2, and everybody can play as long as he desires.

This last point is what i always liked in m:tg tournaments. No matter how bad you are (and i was quite bad) you would not be eliminated. So you feel like doing good, even if you are losing. And in the end you get a very accurate ranking of all the players.

The difficulty in doing a swiss tournament with this kind of timing is, it's hard enough to make sure everyone still in contention contacts each other and plays there matches as it is. At least with single elimination, the next round can mostly continue even if a couple matches still haven't been played. With Swiss, you can't even pair the next round until every match from the previous round is completed.

[Qvist]

After how many rounds after you lost in the main tournament will you still be allowed to join here?

I mean, after this round there are 12 players left with currently no new sign-ups for the next round.
And at some point we need to get to 4/8/16 players to get a nice bracket which we could play until end without late free tickets.
If no-one joins we will have at some point 3 players left.

I suggest that we don't allow new sign-ups after we got 4 sign-ups for 16 players this round or after we got 2 sign-ups for 8 players the next round or after we got 1 new sign-up for 4 players in 2 rounds.
I don't know what we should do if we don't get any new sign-ups.

[mith]

Well, we'll get at least one new (round 5) signup after I lose to -Stef- on Saturday... >_>

My intent was to only close signups here after round 6, based on the assumption that the main tournament will have a third place match again. The possibility of byes is annoying, but it's inherent in the nature of trying to do this style of tournament with running signups and an unknown number of players.

That said, if it makes sense to close signups after round 5, I will do so. We can always arrange a separate thing for the round 6 losers, if any of them want to participate.

[soulnet]

Also, if we run into a last 3, I think we could go all-vs-all and the double winner is the champ, solving ties by game-difference and repeating in case of triple tie (which is not likely at all). This may make someone a Kingmaker in the third of this games, but we can agree to hold out on posting results until all matches have been played, or, if all 3 players can schedule simultaneous play, round-robbin the games of all 3 matches (this would be extremely cool).

[Qvist]

Sorry, I don't want to hurry or anything and sorry if I missed it, but when will the Round 4 Matchups announced?

[mith]

They're up now.

[mith]

soulnet, I wouldn't be opposed to arranging some sort of round robin between the final three if we got to that point.

On the other hand, we may end up in a situation with three players left and two have already had byes, in which case giving the third player a bye to the final would probably be more fair.

The problem in any case is that at the moment it's not just a matter of getting down to three and decided what to do there... if no one else joins and I stay in, we have the following numbers:

Round 4 (current): 13 -> 7 advance (1 bye)
Round 5: 7+2 -> 5 advance (1 bye)
Round 6: 5 -> 3 advance (1 bye)
Round 7: 3 -> 2 advance (1 bye), or round robin

That's a lot of byes... A single bye late in the tournament doesn't bother me so much (the format is prone to somewhat screwy matchups anyway), but I'd rather avoid four in a row. And if I drop myself:

Round 5: 7+1 -> 4 advance (0 bye)
Round 6: 4 -> 2
Round 7: 2 -> 1

[Qvist]

soulnet, I wouldn't be opposed to arranging some sort of round robin between the final three if we got to that point.

On the other hand, we may end up in a situation with three players left and two have already had byes, in which case giving the third player a bye to the final would probably be more fair.

The problem in any case is that at the moment it's not just a matter of getting down to three and decided what to do there... if no one else joins and I stay in, we have the following numbers:

Round 4 (current): 13 -> 7 advance (1 bye)
Round 5: 7+2 -> 5 advance (1 bye)
Round 6: 5 -> 3 advance (1 bye)
Round 7: 3 -> 2 advance (1 bye), or round robin

That's a lot of byes... A single bye late in the tournament doesn't bother me so much (the format is prone to somewhat screwy matchups anyway), but I'd rather avoid four in a row. And if I drop myself:

Round 5: 7+1 -> 4 advance (0 bye)
Round 6: 4 -> 2
Round 7: 2 -> 1

That's what I meant. 9 players in Round 5 makes it rather complicated. I think it would be best if we limit it to 8 players.
The only other alternative that I see is, change over to a Swiss style tournament or something similar.

[mith]

I'd rather not cap it artificially. I'm fine with taking myself out to avoid the byes, but if someone else wants to join (to get us to 10 for round 5) we'll just eat the round 6 bye and then see where we're at for round 7.

[soulnet]

I think its best if you don't have to leave, even if it means 4 byes in a row. I know I would not want to be asked to leave, and I would rather have everyone wanting to play playing, especially the ones making extra effort to make the tournament possible.

In any case, it makes it likely that everyone gets a single bye through the tournament, and it does sound fair. The problem is that we may run into a forced 2nd bye to the same person in the semifinals.

Another option is to have groups of 3 with round robbin when there are 9 people left, and then a round robbin with the 3 winners (and maybe round robbins for the 4-6 and 7-9 spots, assuming people is willing to participate in that). I would love to get in that format, should Qvist let me make it that far.