Playing in a tournament right now and I got the first round bye. The TO can't find where it says the bye counts as a win against opponent with full SOS. He says FFGs software is counting the bye SOS as 0. Was almost positive it was full SOS (why else would regional / national / worlds byes be worth it).

Can anyone help with direction with supporting facts?

Thanks in advance.

The Bye NEVER wins; is record is 0 win and X losses. It gets to count as a "Full Win" for you but not that getting those is a lot easier I'm guessing there will be more ties broken on SOS so you probably don't want them.

I'll admit I'm not sure what a "full SOS" means but that almost sounds like someone who has one ALL of his games. Basically the exact OPPOSITE of a bye. Counting a bye as having even one win is just wrong which should be obvious.

Why are byes "worth it?" Because you get one of those you start with a 1-0 record, get a chance to rest up and maybe observe some others playing. Now if you end up with the same record as someone who never was given a "free win" I'd expect they should place higher but that just how things fall. Is there anything saying you HAVE TO use a bye if awarded one going into a tournament? If you don't want the free win you should be able to play all rounds if you're afraid of the bye's SOS.

The Bye you get from a store championship or a regional event counts as a win against an opponent who won all his games except for yours. Its called a super bye. however it is different from a first round bye which counts as a win from a complete loser.

The Bye you get from a store championship or a regional event counts as a win against an opponent who won all his games except for yours. Its called a super bye. however it is different from a first round bye which counts as a win from a complete loser.

Can you point to a source for this? Would be good to have for when my regional tournament comes up.

It would be nice if this was addressed by FFG at some point as a first round bye given due to there being an uneven # of players really penalizes a random player when the bye has a SOS of 0. In future rounds it goes to the lowest scoring player which is fine as it is awarded as a function of their previous performance.

Luckily I was able to implement the best mitigation strategy to getting boned by the combination of Lady Luck and poor tournament scoring design...."Just win baby!"

It would be nice if this was addressed by FFG at some point as a first round bye given due to there being an uneven # of players really penalizes a random player when the bye has a SOS of 0. In future rounds it goes to the lowest scoring player which is fine as it is awarded as a function of their previous performance.

Luckily I was able to implement the best mitigation strategy to getting boned by the combination of Lady Luck and poor tournament scoring design...."Just win baby!"

Lady luck isn't in the game. Yet.

It would be nice if this was addressed by FFG at some point as a first round bye given due to there being an uneven # of players really penalizes a random player when the bye has a SOS of 0. In future rounds it goes to the lowest scoring player which is fine as it is awarded as a function of their previous performance.

Luckily I was able to implement the best mitigation strategy to getting boned by the combination of Lady Luck and poor tournament scoring design...."Just win baby!"

Lady luck isn't in the game. Yet.

Nicely done!

The first round bye is supposed to give you a full SOS besides the loss to yourself.

In all seriousness, byes and Stength of schedule don't work together excessively well. If I had to choose I'd say assign your strength of schedule to that round at the end of each round. As in, how many games you won.

So if you get the first round by your stength of schedule is 1.

If you lose the next two games, but win another 2 that bye would add 3 to your strength of schedule.

But if you win all 5 games it adds 5 to your strength of schedule.

I'm sure this breaks down something in the tournament setup, but it seems the best way to benefit good players while not giving inordinate benefits to mediocre players.

Feel free to tell me how this breaks the tournament though.

The first round bye is supposed to give you a full SOS besides the loss to yourself.

The first round bye is supposed to give you a full SOS besides the loss to yourself.

That's what I thought too, but could not find anything in print to support it.

I really like the TO and appreciate the way he conducts business and handled this situation. He told me he's using FFG's software and it was giving a 0 SOS bye. He re-reviewed the FAQ and tournament rule set and searched online / in the forums and couldn't find anything that gave him reason to override what was in the software. He then gave me the opportunity to the same saying that if I could find anything firm to support he'd honor it (thus my initial post here).

So even though the ruling went against me, I was very comfortable with how it was determined.

In all seriousness, byes and Stength of schedule don't work together excessively well. If I had to choose I'd say assign your strength of schedule to that round at the end of each round. As in, how many games you won.

So if you get the first round by your stength of schedule is 1.

If you lose the next two games, but win another 2 that bye would add 3 to your strength of schedule.

But if you win all 5 games it adds 5 to your strength of schedule.

I'm sure this breaks down something in the tournament setup, but it seems the best way to benefit good players while not giving inordinate benefits to mediocre players.

Feel free to tell me how this breaks the tournament though.

Agree that they don't mix very well. Giving too much SOS to a poor finisher and too little SOS to a stronger

finisher doesn't create accurate rankings.

Nowhere in the rules does it state about the Store Championship bye giving a full SoS win, but I believe this was part of the news release for the Store Champ kits (or addressed in an email someone posted here). As pointed out above, this is typically referred to as a super bye or something due to it being different (and better) than a traditional bye.

A regular bye isn't explicitly stated anywhere that it provides a SoS of zero, but that's how swiss byes work, google it. Furthermore, there's no basis for it to grant anything besides that. Theoretically the bye is a pathetic player always matched up against the worst player that round, and the worst player always wins, as such the bye does indeed have a SoS of 0.

Though I suppose that means that when calculating your oSoS, you'd use all the players that had the bye as well... heh...

If you need software that has the super bye built in, try out Cryodex in the AFewManeuvers.com download menu.

The first round bye is supposed to give you a full SOS besides the loss to yourself.

That is just SICK.

Assuming no one goes undefeated you're telling be the SOS of the BYE should be that of the TOURNAMENT WINNER? That's basically what you get when you say the SOS of the bye gives it a record of (x-1) wins and 1 loss where X is the number of rounds in the tournament. Maybe that doesn't always win tournaments but it sure should place in the top 4.

The first round bye is supposed to give you a full SOS besides the loss to yourself.

That is just SICK.

Assuming no one goes undefeated you're telling be the SOS of the BYE should be that of the TOURNAMENT WINNER? That's basically what you get when you say the SOS of the bye gives it a record of (x-1) wins and 1 loss where X is the number of rounds in the tournament. Maybe that doesn't always win tournaments but it sure should place in the top 4.

I get what you're saying, but to get to that point you have to win a whole tournament to get the super bye then be in the top score bracket in the tournament you use it. Sounds like a justified win to me.

How would you handle it? You can't give them no SoS for the bye otherwise no one would use it.

SteveO, the super bye is useful for sure. But it's not the end all to win a tourney. At the PA tourney that you and I attended, you had to go 4-1 to get to the top 8, and all 4-1 folks made the top 8, which means that the SoS didn't really matter at all.

At the second regional I attended in Ohio, there were a few folks that were 4-2 that made the top 8 (2 to be precise). I went 4-2 with a super bye, but the SoS of my opponents actually ended up putting me dead last in the 4-2 group. So even though I had a super bye, several people that just played the first game still surpassed me in the tie breakers (I was 10th heading into the final game, won my last match, but since no one else I had played that day besides the super bye won their final match, I ended up dropping from 10th to 14th).

you never want the bye, unless you can go undefeated which is never a guarantee. i got the 1st round bye at 1 of the 3 IA events i attended and was worried about it all day affecting my placement for scoring and SOS. i mitigated it by going 6-0 for the day

on topic, the regular bye is bad news for you in a tournament. instant handicap unless you are able to stay ahead..pray you miss it before gameplay starts for the day.

you never want the bye, unless you can go undefeated which is never a guarantee. i got the 1st round bye at 1 of the 3 IA events i attended and was worried about it all day affecting my placement for scoring and SOS. i mitigated it by going 6-0 for the day

on topic, the regular bye is bad news for you in a tournament. instant handicap unless you are able to stay ahead..pray you miss it before gameplay starts for the day.

That's the point of the super bye. It doesn't hinder your SoS in fact some would say it helps it too much. I agree with regular byes though, they ruin your SoS and that is why it is given to the last place person. Unfortunately if you get stuck with it in the first round that can be bad. Like you said though, all is fixed by not losing