From: Larry Kaufman
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------=_NextPart_001_0000_01C0DD32.0ADE0680------- Original Message ----- From:= B> Pieter StoutenSent:= Tuesday, May 15, 2001 6:12 AMTo: SHOGI-LTECHUNIX TECHNION AC IL Subject: Re: U.S. Shogi Championship--- "J. Andrew Lipscomb" <ewwa
CHATTANOOGA NET> wrot= e:
> by my count, that means that since all four top boards, at= least
> three second boards, and at least one third board will hav= e 4 or
> more points, the fifth-board players were eliminated from<= BR>> contention before they even started to play. I can imagine someon= e
> being upset about that (but if they were ok with it, then it's = not
> a problem).
>This is t= rue, although in fact one of the fourth board players did qualify for the= A group. Initially I planned to have three groups (A,B,C) so the b= ottom boards would still be eligible for B. However due to popular = demand I merged B and C. The objection could be overcome by giving = only half a point more for each higher board, but I feared that this woul= d lead to weak players qualifying at the expense of the top ones.
=
The system employed was basically a McMahon system with the added
= restriction that pairing occurred strictly within the initial McMahon
= classes.Thanks for pointing that out.&n= bsp; I hadn't realized that this was so.
The drawback of any McMah= on system is that lower-ranked
players (who may well be underrated or = in exceptional form) have to
score more wins than higher-ranked player= s in order to secure the same
position. In the case of the US Champion= ship this meant that the
lower-ranked players could not compete for th= e championship's title at
all. The advantage of a McMahon system is th= at there are no artificial
group barriers, that no "almost-walkover" g= ames are necessary just to
separate weaker from stronger players and t= hat the players that
perform above (below) their formal rating get to = play stronger
(weaker) players as the event progresses, overall leadin= g to the
best-matched pairing of players.
If one wants to have = a team match, final knock-out rounds with an
unambiguous winner that i= s decided in the last round and accomplish
all of that in one weekend,= compromises have to be made. Since no
cross-games between initial McM= ahon groups takes place during the
preliminaries (the team match), the= distribution and absolute
strengths of the different teams as well as= the accuracy of the
pre-event ratings/grades may play a decisive role= in determining the
composition of the A group, but (unless a highly u= nderrated player,
who plays on board 5 is actually the strongest one p= resent) it is
unlikely that that would have affected the final outcome= of the
championship. Given a choice, I personally might not have inte= grated a
team match into the event, but that may not have been an opti= on.We had an early deadline to leave= the building the first day, plus we wanted everyone to have chances to p= lay the pros, so there was only time for three tournament rounds that day= . This meant either normal prelims or team match, but not both.
=
Just my $0.02,
Pieter= Larry