[tournament-org] WhereIsTheBar

[Matt Marsh]

As I understand it, the general aim of the bar is to provide an equal
starting point for those players who have a realistic chance of winning
the tournament.
In this particular case, there is no realistic chance of anyone other
than the 5d winning. Therefore there is probably no way that the bar can
'do its job' unless you were to set it at 5d - but that seems somewhat
pointless.
 However, there is still some value in the next group of players (1d -
 2k) being on an even playing field to fight it out for the 2nd/3rd/4th
 positions etc. Given that everyone knows who is going to win, there is
 likely some interest shifted to who comes 2nd and so on.
So, I wonder if it would be worth:
 * Setting the bar at 2k
 * Pre-setting the McMahon score of the 5d player to some higher value -
   maybe 3 (given that 1d players will start with -2 and you want the
   difference between that and the 5d to be sensible)
 * Allowing handicaps above the bar so that the games with the 5d player
   are at least sensible
So, if a 1d gets paired against the 5d in the first round, then assuming
that handicaps are set to 'McMahon difference - 1', they would have a 3
stone handicap game. It does have an obvious side-effect that there is
literally no way that anyone other than the 5d can win.
I know that Geoff has opinions about using handicaps above the bar
(though I'm not sure that he would do it in quite the way I've
suggested) - so I don't claim that the above is entirely my own thought
process... it may also be controversial :-) I'm not 100% sure I agree
with it either - but for thought...
Matt


On Mon, 1 Oct 2018, at 11:45, Geoff Kaniuk via tournament-org wrote:
> You have just registered your last player who happens to be 1d and
> people are waiting impatiently,  wanting to get on with your 3 round
> McMahon tournament.
> 
> You are now faced with with the problem of where to set the the bar.
> Suppose in this tournament the top players are:
> 
> 5d 1d 1d 1k 1k 2k 2k 3k 3k 4k 4k 5k .....
> 
> Assuming all players enter at a realistic grade, where would
> you set the> bar?
> 
> It would be interesting to see your instinctive answer, rather than
> consulting the Tournament Organiser's Handbook.
> 
> --
> Geoff
> 
> 33 Ashbury Close, Cambridge CB1 3RW 01223 710582
> 
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-- 
*Matt Marsh*
matt at crazedbytes.net
+44 (0)7795 297779[1]


Links:

  1. tel:+44-7795-297779
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