CDZ CUP first lustrum edition - discussion thread

[Schip]

Before the smoke even has cleared from the battle grounds of the already famous and worshipped CDZ-CUP 4th edition, past and future participants are screaming for the next one.

It will be our first lustrum! [goodjob]

The main theme of this edition will be:
[duelist]

So I started this thread to discuss 5th editions set-up, start date and whatever topic comes up!

Fire away........[charge]

[socralynnek]

So, to say what I think about it:
What was good and should be done again:
-Everyone plays matches till the end

A proposal:
How about playing with a Swiss rating system
For those not familiar with it (used mostly in chess tourneys):
The first of the actual table plays againts second, 3rd against 4th,...
(one can avoid double matches against a team by slightly altering it)

Big advantage: There are only thrilling games because one plays against the teams of similar strength.
Another advantage is that you just play as many rounds as you wish, the system is fine with every number of rounds and teams (in theory it should even be no problem for a team to join a week later)

One disadvantage that I see is that since the weaker teams play each other they get less spectators which means less money.

If someone wants to know more about Swiss system , ask me ( We have e.g. used it in a company badminton tourney and it was fine)

[Kemal]

I think what we definitely want to preserve, or at least that's what I understood from the earlier edition's discussions, is the international character of the cup... as much internationals as possible, which I think might not be very compatible with the Swiss rating system, especially since there seem to be so many Dutch teams at about the same strength (based on the previous edition's ranking).

I have to say I'm quite okay with another poule system, though that does mean the amount of participants heavily influences the schedule and organisation of the Cup, and which also prevents a possible earlier start, since a team which progresses far in the national cup can't join the cdz cup later when using a poule system. It does allow, however, a sure amount of international friendlies for all participants.

[English_brit]

I don't really understand how the Swiss system works, but wouldn't it mean that many teams would know they can't win the Cup before it's even started as they don't have a chance to beat any of the better teams as they won't get to play them?

I like the Cup as it is although yeah it can be tricky if someone progresses a long way in their national cup, although I don't think many of us will get too far in our Cups. I'd be suprised if anyone gets past the 4th round of their Cup. (waits to be proven wrong) lol

[socralynnek]

quote:Originally posted by Kemal

I think what we definitely want to preserve, or at least that's what I understood from the earlier edition's discussions, is the international character of the cup... as much internationals as possible, which I think might not be very compatible with the Swiss rating system, especially since there seem to be so many Dutch teams at about the same strength (based on the previous edition's ranking).


We used for a our badminton tourney the program "Sevilla" which can be found at http://www.jbfsoftware.com/
There you can enter criterions for the pairing, e.g. you can make teams for example "Dutch" , "English" etc. and there is a flag "Allow pairing of teammates" so that the program avoids pairing of teammates as much as possible. The program also allows to enter some pairings and only calculate the others etc.
So, it might not be compatible with the "pure" version of Swiss, but with a relaxed version where you can set criterions it would even make sense...

And surely some teams would know that they wouldn't win the cup (e.g. me, but there it doesn't matter which system we use), but you could still play some stronger teams, because if you win a match you move up in the table. But you wouldn't play that many matches where you would know before that you have not a single chance of winning.
And by setting the criteria that no match is played twice, you would get 8 different teams in 8 weeks...

[Dell19]

I can see the major benefit of using the Swiss style would be that there is the potential for teams to enter later or earlier so perhaps the pairings could go on throughout the season. The other benefit is what Socra said in that in this edition of the cup I played at least two games that I had no chance of winning even with most of my first team so the current cup idea doesn't give everyone a fair chance of winning.

Then again I am biased towards this system as I may be entering another competition at the BDF in week 3 and that could take 4 weeks at least.

[yndy]

It certainly sounds interesting and like Kemal said we want to keep it international. I’ll try to take a look into the Sevilla thingie.
On the start of the next CDZ Cup, I believe that by Round 6 of the Cup, we’ll all be available. With Dell sort of committed to something different, we may either start in Round 8 or use this Swiss system from Round 6.
PS: I'll finalize the final ranking real soon.

[socralynnek]

How about starting next week?
I'm out of the cup, so we can start right away....
No, just kidding, maybe we can start in week 5 or 6, how about that?

[Melifluous]

I too am out of my cup.

Ready and willing to play!

Melifluous

[Dell19]

I may be free in two weeks after the friendly this week that has been arranged and the first round of the Newbie Cup. Potentially that could go on for 3 more weeks but I have to win to get to the following round. I also have one pre arranged friendly to play after the cup so a minimum of 3 friendly slots before I will be completely free.

[English_brit]

I'm still in the Cup atm but I'll most likely go out over the course of the next 2 rounds.

[yndy]

I'd go for 8/9 March, but in this case I need to put the add on right now and will let everyone know inthe following week. Registration is open. [shout]

I've been looking at the Swiss system. The main problem as I see it is that the system is for chess games, so there is not score there, only win-draw-loss. It is also not sufficiently intuitive for me, I'd stick to my excel for now.

[Kingreno]

I do not agree completely Yndy. There are several advantages of the swiss system over the one we use now!
First, and most important, the swiss system allows the CDZ-cup to begin very early in the season, as soon as 4 teams are out of the cup it can start. Secondly, it will allow a chance to go to the finals to a team that suffered a loss innthe first round, or even tyhe first 3 rounds. Something that particularly disappointed me in the system where only the group-winners go on, where thus one WO for a team in the league could mean a certain loss in the CDZ cup.

As me and schip spend a rather long time discussing how the swiss system works I will expalin this now.

First, the basics.

let's start with 12 teams that are available (more can come at a later stage, but that's later)
These are divided in two poules (based on country/ranking/whatever). Let's stick to poule 1, where there are six teams (A to F)

first round. A vs B, C vs D and E vs F. lets say A, C and F win based on Goal dif, the ranking in poule 1 is:

A
C
F
E
D
B

Next round:
A vs C, F vs E, D vs B. Now it is easy to get to the ranks, the teams that win, go up, the teams that lose, go one down. Of course, if A wins, it remains on top, if B loses it remains last. What if C beats A? well, this is the "trick" in this system. Numbers 1 and 2 should be seen as a "single" place 1. So, the loser of this match will play the next number 4, while the winner plays the next number 2! And this goes for ALL matches! Let's go to an example again:
the ranking:

A
C
F
E
D
B

It is realy NOT that hard if you think of it like this: A and C play their match at Stadium I. the loser will play the next match in Stadium II. the winner will remain in Stadium I. In Stadium II F plays E. winner will go to Stadium one (to meet the winner of A vs C), the loser will go to Stadium III, to play the loser of D vs B. In Stadium III D will face B, where the loser cannot go any lower so remains in Stadium III, vs loser of F vs E. The winner will go up, to Stadium II to play the loser of Stadium I (A vs C).
It all makes perfect sense if you know this system comes from tennis (or badminto/tabletennis). Just think of 5 tennisfields and 10 players. winnner advances a field further, loser one back.

of course, after X rounds of play new teams can easily be inserted! just create a new "stadium" somewhere in the middle! very very easy and fair as well, as going up can be done very fast!:)

Now after Y rounds to be selected beforehand there can be semifinals like we always had. the teams of both poules that play theior next match in stadium I will now semi against the other poule's Stadium I occupants. the rest can be worker out in a very similar way.

Any question sat all? feel free to ask them! IMHO it would be great to have the CDZ cup begin many weeks earlier in a new system that takes a bit getting used to but if you use the "stadium-approach" is very easy to maintain. :D

[Kemal]

I'd very much rather use the old-school system to be honest, and start a bit later.

I personally think the system is quite confusing and not well suited for the (international) cup character we wish to preserve. If you assign numbers to each venue and let teams play in a certain slot on each venue based on the result in their previous match, it is imo very likely that teams will have to face each other more than once in the cup, which is not what I think is something that should happen. Another point I'm not sure about is the initial ranking as presented in your example after the first match, where the ranking should be made according to goal difference... but what if 3 teams end up with the same goal difference (i.e. the first 3 matches end up 3-0)? What to do with the rankings then?

But what is more, if you can move up one "venue" with each victory, and one does use the "traditional" cup ranking of having the players in venue 1 in poule A play the players in venue 1 in poule B and call that the semifinals, the effect is that, as you already mentioned, in a poule of 6 teams, the first 3 games mean absolutely zilch, right? If you lose all 3, you still only need to win the next 2 to grab a slot in venue 1, i.e. the semifinals, while if you have won the first 4(!) games, but lose the final 5th, you are pushed down to venue 2 in your poule, and thus miss out on the semifinals. That would mean that a team with 4 wins and one loss would not qualify, while a team with 2 wins and 3 losses would, which is totally unacceptable I feel, and a sure way of making the first 3 rounds of the cup a joke.

So to put it short, the way I see it now is that I'd prefer the traditional cup organisation really, even though it would start a bit later, and that I have no realistic chance of winning it since my reserves are not good enough. Improving on my previous results (+playing a good amount of internationals both away and at home) is something good enough to aim for (for me personally) as well.

[akots]

The Swiss system is exceptionally good for chess tournaments with at least 30 participants and over to essentially indefinite number. IMHO, it is not soo good for a rather small number of teams since one of the conditions of it is that the rivals for games should be always different. If A has played with B in round 1 and then B will become number 2 in the ranking, A will not play B but will play other less strong teams. The point is that B gets a certain advantage by losing the first game since B has to play with weaker opponents the second and probably third games whereas A will have to struggle all the time with the strongest teams in the roster. When there are many participants with more or less even distribution of strength, this gives some balance but with rather few teams, it will result in extremely chaotic assignments of matches and poorly predictable results. The system which has been used previously is more fair IMO. In the Swiss system every game increases or decreases ranking and hence changes the assignments for the subsequent matches which is not a good thing always.

I've played a lot of chess tournaments when I was active player (15-20 years ago) and Swiss was always a nightmare since too much depends on chance and too little on actualy strength. The cup with knockout is also not so fair but the prelimiary games with division into groups are great and exclude the "acute" effects of the chance component. In Swiss system, for example, I might never have a chance to play with Yellow Boots. [sad]

But this is a rather personal opinion and I would certainly go either way since the goal is to get interesting international friendlies and friendly competition.

[English_brit]

I'm defo with Kemal and Akots about the Swiss system. The first loads of games will be pointless and uninteresting and you may well get a winner who's won far less games than other teams in the tournament just due to it's organization.

Seems to have many shortcomings and not many advantages over the original system.

[Kingreno]

On the swiss system some counter-arguments don't fully work for me.


quote:(by Kemal) and a sure way of making the first 3 rounds of the cup a joke.
In the old system, losing the first 2 matches (or a draw and a loss) would be end of tourney as only the number 1 in a poule of 6 goes through. Making the last three matches of the cup a joke. I understand this is not true for all teams as it is nice for the teams that do well. The fact remains, there will be many teams that do not have anything to figh for long before the groupstage is over.

It is also not true that the first three rounds in a swiss system are a joke. Surely you would rather enter the last two rounds beginning in Stadium one then in stadium 3 or 4!

quote:(By English Brit) may well get a winner who's won far less games than other teams in the tournament just due to it's organization

I do agree that it is by no means a "fair" system by clear ammount of points obtained in total matches. But since the swiss system does not pursue that, I do not really mind. The poulesystemitelf is not flawless at this as one team that got 5 points in group A may go through while another team with 9 does not in group B.

quote:(By Akots) In Swiss system, for example, I might never have a chance to play with Yellow Boots.

That is as true in any system! Last season we had 18 teams in 3 different groups, thus giving you 5 out of 17 opponents. The chance you meet YB would thus be 5/17th. (and yes, I calculated Akots not reaching the next round ;))

Now, I am not a crusader for this system but there was a demand from the CDZ-hattrick-crowd, asking whether the cupstart could be arranged earlier in the season (check the first 10 posts in this thread!). That is very much possible in the swiss system. There are flaws, I definately agree to that...I am merely looking for a solution here.:)

[Schip]

Well, I’m not sure about what approach to take. Maybe the Swiss system is not suitable for small numbers of participants. But it might be a way to set up a continuous cup (although I’m not sure that is what we want). I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t really matter with regard to the number of international friendlies we will play. We have to few countries and to low classified teams to really profit from this cup. That said, profit from friendlies really only is interesting for lower level teams, and the high level teams usually don’t want to play any 8th or below.

The purpose of trying a different system was starting earlier and having a more exciting cup. I was thinking about a system where others might join later but that seems to be impossible without resetting if you use a pool system.

Thinking of it we could use the Swiss system to organize the games. (I do not agree that it is to difficult to figure out who you are playing) but use a different system to determine to eventual winner of the CDZ-cup.

Something like:
- we rank the teams before we start (based on cup performance, league, money spend, etcetera).
- you get awarded more points for winning from a higher ranked team
- you get awarded more points for playing in a higher ‘slot’ (stadiums in KR’s example.)

All in all, I started this post an hour ago and just came back to finish it. Doesn’t seem to be easy to setup a scoring system. I am happy playing the old system, though I think we still should try to find, other maybe better, solutions.

PS: I’ll think about a way of determining the cup standings.

[Kemal]

quote:Originally posted by Kingreno


It is also not true that the first three rounds in a swiss system are a joke. Surely you would rather enter the last two rounds beginning in Stadium one then in stadium 3 or 4!


To be honest... I'd rather never be in the 1st stadium (and certainly not before the 5th round) except when the semifinals are calculated in this system, since you can expect to be playing the strongest competition in the 1st stadium, meaning it is more difficult to maintain your position in the 1st stadium than it is to get there from the 2nd stadium, which thus results in a higher chance of not making it to the final round. :)

Which means losing the first 3 rounds as big as possible would actually be beneficial with this system, since you will then face the weakest opponents in the last two games that you need to win to reach the semis.

[Kingreno]

And to be honest, I'd rather spend every match in stadium one as that will get me a more beneficial match for starters and I do not see the reason why it is easier after losing the first 3 matches intensionally? Keep in mind as well that "new stadiums" enter the contest as more temas enter (after their national cups are done for).

But forget about it. No swiss system as there seems very little willingness around here.[hmm]

[yndy]

KR, I think tossing ideas sure is interesting and there are certainly points to be taken. In order to maximise the benefits of the Swiss systems there should only be one poule and most probably no knock-out stage.

Demand for knock-out stage still is high and by setting up smaller groups (of 4 instead of 6) means that the first three games will be highly competitive and then you'll have the knock-out stage where every match would count. And that's what we actually want.

Schip's idea of a scoring system is also interesting. We could end up with an alternative ranking system which could go in paralell with the regular one.

We shouldn't rule out anything yet.

[Håkon]

I think the Swiss system is very interesting, but I'm easy either way. I'd like to have a bit shorter cup this time around, though, as I'd try to chase some cool flags in my new community first...

[Dell19]

I do like the idea of a cup but maybe it would be nice to have a shorter cup. Maybe we keep the cup format but with smaller groups and then have a Swiss style league that people can participate when they are free for the rest of the season?

I think I may actually have 6-7 weeks of friendlies booked now which looks like not allowing me to compete in the cup. I'm still not exactly sure since the other cup seems to change each week but it will be starting soon.

[yndy]

There's now a new feature for friendlies on neutral ground. W emay use that for the knock-out stage.

[socralynnek]

quote:Originally posted by yndy

I've been looking at the Swiss system. The main problem as I see it is that the system is for chess games, so there is not score there, only win-draw-loss. It is also not sufficiently intuitive for me, I'd stick to my excel for now.


OK, the Sevilla program is not that intuitive, but there is a feature to account football games (In the ranking options, there is an option named "Use minor scores")

And to the ranking thing, where a win against a stronger team counts more, you can use Buchholtz calculation (comes from chess) which is used if two teams have equal number of points.

For the amount of international friendlies, you can tell the program to exclude some pairings (by grouping the teams by country), so you can make it that there are only international friendlies.
And you can avoid multi-pairings.
( The rule would be: if 1st and 2nd already played against each other the 1st plays against the third )

And one more thing: With a Swiss system, the team with the most wins wins the cup, in a cup system with a league phase before, a team with only a few wins might win (In RL soccer we once managed to become 2nd in an indoor tourney of 12 teams but only winning one match out of six!)

That's why I think a swiss system would be the fairest, but I don't mind playing it the classical style...

[socralynnek]

Another thing to discuss:

Should every match be an international match?

With the new possibility of having matches at neutral ground, the income and the experience points can be higher then in national matches.

The only two drawbacks are that the home advantage is lost and both teams have to pay the voyage fee.

(Since there aren't that many German teams in the cup, I don't mind, but I'm thinking about our many Dutch friends...)

[Dell19]

International friendlies cost more and not everyone here has close to a 1000 supporters so the attendences may not match the travelling expenses.