Category: Uncategorized

Having considered the process of adding a third bracket in a few simpler contexts, we now return to the Big Peculiar Bracket (BPB) to look particularly at the third bracket that worked with the upper two, which together constituted a double elimination.

In the first part of this analysis, we identified some questionable structural elements. But the apparent flaws in the upper two brackets pale in comparison to those of the third bracket.

Still to come in this series are the results of simulations, comparing the BPB to alternate formats for the same number of entries.

Continue reading “The Big, Peculiar Bracket, a Postmortem: Part II”

Adding a third bracket to a double elimination or a consolation tourney is uncommon, but not unknown. In this post, I’ll walk through the process of creating three third brackets.

One will be constructed on entirely conventional principles as a triple elimination 32 bracket. I’ll do only enough of this process to show why you probably don’t want to run such a tourney. The other two will be “last chance” brackets – third brackets added to a consolation tourney which are never reconciled to either of the other brackets. I’ll show the differences involved in doing this for brackets of 32 and 48.

In the next post, I’ll return to the post-mortem analysis of the Big, Peculiar Bracket to consider its third tier, which presented unusually difficult challenges.

Continue reading “Adding the Third Bracket”

In principle, it’s possible to add another bracket to any knock-out tourney to make it a double-elimination format, and to turn a double elimination into a triple elimination by adding another bracket. In practice, however, there are a number of difficulties that need to be overcome.

Tourneygeek has spent a good many words on the way that these practical challenges may be met in the context of the double elimination, and I will presently offer some advice for those who want to run triple eliminations. First, however, I’d like to give some attention to the question of whether double- and triple-elimination tourneys make sense in the first place. As in other contexts, I’ll use the FEPS framework.

Continue reading “Double and Triple Eliminations”

In an earlier post, I discussed a large bracket that was being prepared for a major backgammon tournament the summer in Michigan. The tourney was to be a full double-elimination format, with a consolation as well, capable of accommodating 96 entries.

For reasons I don’t fully understand (and would probably be impolitic to discuss if I did), the director chose not to use the bracket I prepared. The tournament was played using another very interesting and elaborate format that presents a number of bracket design issues.

In this post, I’ll discuss the structure of the format that was played. In subsequent posts, I’ll report some simulation results, and compare the format used to the unused one I suggested, and to a more conventional bracket.

Continue reading “The Big, Peculiar Bracket, a Postmortem, Part I”

In the previous post, the new f(b) measure was used to gain a clearer picture of the way that the unshifted lower bracket for a 32-team double elimination tourney differed from either of the two available shifts. In this post, I’ll continue that discussion, and show how different levels of skill progression, resulting from different luck factors, affect the performance of the three candidates.

For those more interested in the practical result than the details of the method, here’s the result: The ED shift is to be preferred, except in the very low-luck scenario, where it’s a dead head between the unshifted bracket and the CD shift.

Continue reading “Using the New Tools: the Analysis of the 32 Bracket Continued”

For some time, I’ve been concerned that the fairness statistics I report are harder to interpret than I’d like. The new version of fairness (B) in particular has made the problem more apparent to me, and so I’m finally ready to make a change that I should probably have made long ago.

The difficulty is that the measures I’ve defined really measure unfairness more directly than they measure fairness. I define fairness (C) by adding up the instances of a less skillful player being rewarded in preference to the more skillful player. Fairness (B) is determined by adding up the inequalities in the result of similarly-placed competitors. In both cases, a higher number meant less fairness, not more.

To date, I’ve been flipping this around by then taking a reciprocal, and that makes higher numbers good and lower numbers bad. But it also has a tendency to scale the numbers in ways that make them hard to interpret. For the new fairness (B) measure, the difference between a score of 3 and a score of 4 is quite significant – a format scoring 3 is much less fair than one scoring 4. But the difference between a fairness (B) score of 70 and one of 100 is pretty trivial, nothing that the designer should worry about.

For this reason, I’m getting rid of the reciprocals. Henceforth, lower numbers are good, and higher numbers are bad.

Continue reading “Fairness Turned Upside-Down”

Two posts ago, the fairness (B) statistic was generalized so as to be applicable to any round in a bracketed tourney. And in the last post, I inverted the fairness (B) and fairness (C) statistics to make them easier to interpret. It’s time to put these new tools to work to show how they can provide a clearer picture than the old ones. To do this, I’ll revisit the question discussed by one of the earliest of tourneygeek’s empirical results in Shifting a 32 Bracket.

n.b., this analysis was briefly posted using the old, un-inverted statistics and (much worse) with significant mistakes in the analysis – the current version is, I hope, not only clearer but more correct.

Continue reading “Using the new tools: f(C), f(B) and f(b) in the 32 Bracket”

Fairness (B) has been defined as the quality of a tournament design that answers the desire to give everyone an equal chance. As discussed elsewhere, it is sometime in conflict with other forms of fairness.

The only fairness (B) metric defined so far is rather a crude measure, suitable only for assessing the equality of opportunity in first round of a tournament, and then in a form that was greatly affected by the structure of the prize fund. In this post, I’ll propose a new fairness (B) metric which can be applied to any round, and is normalized so as to be unaffected by the absolute value of the prize fund.

As will be made clear in future posts, this new fairness (B) metric will be a powerful tool for analyzing various aspects of a tournament.

Continue reading “Generalizing Fairness (B)”

In casino craps, there are specific requirements for a throw of the dice to be considered valid. The details vary a bit, but in all cases, the dice are thrown a considerable distance, and required to bounce off of a wall. This is impractical for backgammon because there are only a few inches of space to deal with.

One method of ensuring fairer rolls is the use of a device that attempts to ensure that the dice bounce around a good deal within a limited space. Such devices are generally called “baffle boxes”, though they are also sometimes called “dice scramblers” or “dice towers”. These devices have been used for many years, but have recently become more fashionable, and perhaps also more controversial.

Continue reading “Rolling the Bones, Part IV”

The first two parts of this short series called attention to what I called the “kabuki” elements in the rules and customs surrounding the throwing of the dice in backgammon. This was perhaps, a little unfortunate. Recent figurative use of the term “kabuki” seems intended to be derisive, and often in a way that’s rather offensive to Japanese culture.

Most of the kabuki elements of the dice-throwing rituals in backgammon are said to be in aid of deterring dice cheats. And some of them, but by no means all, are actually useful for this purpose. In this post, I’ll discuss the extent to which the dice rituals of backgammon relate to cheating.

Continue reading “Rolling the Bones, Part III”