Hello-

I'm running a tournament for my mates at home and I have a question about breaking ties (using schedule of strength and tie-breaker points) in scores when sorting and ranking players for the next round. The tournament rules posted for download try and cover it but lack sufficient examples to clarify the frankly confusing system they are trying to present.

can anyone help?

also there are only six players all competing for the grand prize of a Lambda Class Shuttle, I'm running it and so am not playing to preserve fairness. I was thinking about running 3 rounds and then playing a final knockout round between the top two scorers.

do you think I've pitched this about right? or would you reckon 2 rounds plus a final?

thanks for any advice

3 rounds gives you a max of 1 undefeated player, 2 rounds it's possible to have 2 undefeated players so might be better for cutting to a final but doesn't provide many opportunities for losing players to catch up. I like, even with just 6 players, to run at least 4 games.

If a player completely eliminates his opponent within the time limit, he earns 5 points and his opponent gains none. If a player eliminates 33 or more points by the time the time limit ends, then the same applies. If a player eliminates 32 points or less more than his opponent, then that player earns 2 points and his opponent earns 1 point. If both players have eliminated the same amount of points when time is called, then each player earns 1 point for a draw. In all cases, the players complete the current round then tally points.

Hi

Thanks for your reply, I understand the way the game is scored generally, that part at least was clear in the rules, but if you have 3 players with the same number of match points you're supposed to sort them in order based on the schedule of strength using tie-breaker points to be able to pair up opponents in the next round. How to actually do that part is skimped over in the rules and could be interpreted in different ways.

A player's Strength of Schedule is the sum tournament points of everyone he's played. So going into Round 3, if my Round 1 opponent has gone 2-0 (10 points) and my Round 2 opponent is 1-1 (5 points) my SoS is 15.

Not sure whether they use points destroyed or points lost for the points tiebreaker, but I usually combine both to score by differential. So if you wipe out your opponent while losing 30 points of ships, your differential for that game is +70. If it went to time, and you killed 60 while losing 45, your differential is +15.

In a perfect world I'd say you would want to get in five games so everyone gets to play everyone else once. If you play four rounds everyone just misses playing one opponent but of course who one avoids can make a big difference in the final record.

After two rounds you'll have one person at 2-0, two at 1-1, one at 0-2, but the problem is the final pair who could each be 1-1 or you could have another 2-0 & 0-2. I was trying to figure out how to run this double-elimination style but you could lose one or two after round 2 which makes that hard to compute unless you have other measures.

A player's Strength of Schedule is the sum tournament points of everyone he's played. So going into Round 3, if my Round 1 opponent has gone 2-0 (10 points) and my Round 2 opponent is 1-1 (5 points) my SoS is 15.

Not sure whether they use points destroyed or points lost for the points tiebreaker, but I usually combine both to score by differential. So if you wipe out your opponent while losing 30 points of ships, your differential for that game is +70. If it went to time, and you killed 60 while losing 45, your differential is +15.

I think part of the problem is the labeling of points. The points awarded for winning, loosing or drawing are called "Tournament Points". These are used to determine a winner. If these points are tied between players then we are told to look to see if the tied players have previously played each other, and then decide the winner based on who won the previous match. However if the tied players haven't played each other then we are supposed to create "Tie-Breaker Points" using "Total Match Points" of all their opponents. This is the ambiguous part especially when trying to relate to the official scoring card which labels points either as "Points Destroyed", "Points Lost" or "Judge Use Only Tournament Points"

For me and possibly others too the problem is that the tournament rules don't clarify what "match points" are or how they are derived and thus cannot instruct us in how to calculate the tie-breaker points that breaks the tie.

The more I look at the rules the more I'm understanding... I think. But then more questions follow.

Am I correct in saying that these so called elusive Tie-Breaker points are only used when breaking ties for winning the tournament proper or calculating the champion bracket and that if I am simply working out the pairings for the normal rounds of play then I use the rules detailed in the section titled Seeding?

The section recommends putting players in score order and then if there is more than one player with the same score just put them in player number order?

So here's a walk-through for my six players.

players randomly assigned a player number so we have;

1-Mike 2-Ric 3-Bryn 4-Marc 5-Paul 6-Daz

round one players are randomly paired. here's what might happen with the outcomes: Mike vs Paul (5-0); Daz vs Ric (3-0), Bryn vs Marc (0-5)

the order of players preparing for round 2 pairings would now be?

Mike (score 5), (player 1)

Marc (score 5), (player 4)

Daz (score 3), (player 6)

Ric (score 0), (player 2)

Bryn (score 0), (player 3)

Paul (score 0), (player 5)

so would round 2 pairings then be: Mike vs Marc, Daz vs Ric, and Bryn vs Paul? I take it as the rounds progress the score is the total score of a players tournament points and not just the score of the last match played?

My confusion still stands though over the tie breaker points for the end of the tournament.

If the rules are a little ambiguous, as TO, you can make your own rules. Just be sure all the players understand them.

I TO/Officiate alot of Warmachine/Hordes tournaments, so I'll draw from that experience to make some suggestions.

There's two levels of tiebreakers, one at the round level in order to pair the next round's set of matches, and one at the event level to determine final rankings. That said, you can use the same system for both. However, I highly recommend that you make sure when determining pairings, do not let anyone repeat an opponent - e.g., if players 3 & 4 in the seeding scheme already played each other, then simply pair 3 & 5 and 4 & 6.

I'd suggest using 3 tiebreakers in this order: SoS, Enemy Points Destroyed (high to low), Own Points Lost (low to high, meaning the player who lost the least ranks higher than players who lost more). The latter two being cumulative across the event. It's doubtful you'll ever need the third tiebreaker, but its there if you do.

As for number of rounds, there's a couple ways to go. Given only one player is leaving with a Lamda Shuttle, you could play until there is only one undefeated player. Problem here is that could be after the 2nd game since that game will feature two undefeated players (1v2) and a third undefeated player (#3) "playing down" vs a defeated player (#4). If 1 & 3 loose, then #2 is the sole undefeated player with only two games played. The exact opposite would be a round robin format of 5 games where everyone plays everyone else once. A benefit of that is you don't have to worry about swiss pairing. You could set the 5 rounds' pairings before the event starts. So its just a matter of calculating tiebreakers at the end if 2+ people have the same Tourney Score at the end. 5 games might be a bit much though. The third option is in between, simply state up front there will be X rounds and winners will be determined by the tiebreaker system if 2+ folks end with the same Tourney Score.

Hope this helps. I'd be more than happy to provide more details either here or via an email/PM discussion. Like I said, I have a good bit of experience in this (just not with x wing per se).