Millennium Series : Prizes for Novice teams please

[manike]

Originally posted by TJ Lambini
And everyone seems to be pro playing within their own bracket only?

I think everyone playing within their own division.

The way you then get to move up (and down) is by playing different events with different people in each division obviously allow the mixing up and opportunities to move. If you are at the top of div 2 that's what gets you the chance to be in div 1 at the next event. Not guaranteed obviously but the chance. That's what it's all about.

That's perfect because it doesn't make it too easy to move up (or down) which is just how it should be. Gives you more chance of staying in a division once you get your feet in the door so to speak.

manike

 

[manike]

The only glitch to teams moving up and down is if we have the exact same teams and exact same number of teams always, but the chances of that are squat It just doesn't happen and so shouldn't really be a concern.

manike

 

[goose]

There is one other glitch...

... and it will occur when a team shows up from the states - thinking they made the trip over to Toulouse to compete for the title, but then due to the number of teams entered they are seeded in Division 2.

I know it's far fetched, but let's look at it this way - let's say GZ had never played a MS event, where would they be seeded there first time around? What about a team such as Diablo Image at CC 2001?

It is with these type of teams - first timers or all-star teams - that we run into trouble.

goose

 

[TJ Lambini]

I gotta bow out

I'm doing a 24-hour MTB solo race this weekend and I'm heading out tonight, so I expect all this to be finalized by the time I log on on Tuesday...

 

[manike]

There is one other glitch...

Originally posted by goose
... and it will occur when a team shows up from the states - thinking they made the trip over to Toulouse to compete for the title, but then due to the number of teams entered they are seeded in Division 2.

I know it's far fetched, but let's look at it this way - let's say GZ had never played a MS event, where would they be seeded there first time around? What about a team such as Diablo Image at CC 2001?

It is with these type of teams - first timers or all-star teams - that we run into trouble.

goose

That's when we have a board of Millennium assesors to determine wether they should make it into Div 1 or not. Obviously if they have form or merit dependent on the players and their usual standard in other series then they could be placed in the Div 1 to play.

Obviously the team in question would need to be aware of this situation before hand. And it could be written into the rules that the bottom 2 (maybe more depending on total number of teams entering) slots in each division are reserved for first event playing teams but maybe filled by the next seaded team if there are no new guesting teams at an event worthy of those slots. The 'guest' slots would be taken on a first come first served basis.

But also, how many serious events will allow a scratch team to come in and play at the highest level? Maybe we shouldn't allow such teams to come in and expect to play Div 1. Maybe they should cut their teeth in Div 2 and then if they win Div2 get to play Div 1 next event? (just an idea not sure I agree with it)

Obviously there will be some difficult situations and decisions needed.

manike

 

[manike]

I gotta bow out

Originally posted by TJ Lambini
I'm doing a 24-hour MTB solo race this weekend and I'm heading out tonight, so I expect all this to be finalized by the time I log on on Tuesday...

Wow that sounds Tough. Good luck.

at some point I will be in the states to buy a MTB maybe I could get some advice then

manike

 

[markh]

unseeded teams

If teams have played other tournaments, results from these could be used to seed unknown teams. Of course this ads extra admin to the organisers, and would require tournaments to be graded to determine what value is put on winning one etc. etc.

We need to look at other sports, with similar open events and see how they seed people. Manike has mentioned Sailing, are there any others we can steal their system from ?

 

[Baca Loco]

Re: The key to this if it is to happen is

Originally posted by manike

TJ I think in reality the system will actually be very simple to implement and understand, it seems complicated here because we are hashing out finer points over a typing forum

I think the 'seading' (sounds better than promotion/relegation) has ot happen for every event and that's one of the core factors here.
manike

1--numeric divisions, yes.
2--promotion and relegation, yes.
2A--year-to-year
P&R is better than constant re-seeding in my opinion because it is stabler over a season and makes a necessary (to me, anyway) and clear distinction between divisions. Constant re-seeding will likely have teams at uppermost and lowest ranks of each division potentially swapping divisions around during the course of the season and I don't think that's a good idea.

P&R doesn't go into effect until end of first complete season with new structure.
Forget percentages during the season. End of season take the top 20% of all results and that is the base Division One pool. Next 20% is base Division 2 pool and so on.
For next season that is the division they play in. The total raw numbers are irrelevant and flexible--an American team comes over and gets assigned by committee using whatever criteria. Not a problem. More teams at one event than another? Also not a problem if you retain a measure of verticality in play but only one division down. Result is: say 8 Division One teams show up for a particular event. This isn't a large enough pool to get in min. prelim games without repetition so you enlarge pool to include Division Two in calculating prelims. This will give lower division benefit of a game or two against superior but close competition and retain principle of vertical play. And if it doesn't apply at another event it doesn't apply.
For single division pools that are large enough they can be divided into separate prelim pools but don't really need to be.

This gives teams a sense of their 'place' during the season, gives them an opportunity to perform over the course of a season without sweating each events results so much and gives organizers no huge headaches other than having a non-negotiable entry deadline so schedules can be worked out.

Additionally, consideration should be given to awarding points in Divisions based on percentages of that division participating. That way winning a less well attended event doesn't count as much as winning an event where everybody showed up because the competition wasn't as tough. And if you're using P&R points in one division don't directly correspond with those in another, you're simply moving up X number of teams and moving down X number of teams.

Otherwise, points averaged from best 4 events are used in division to determine P&R. Number of events attended is the tie-breaker.

Prizes--ideally, event winners (or finalists) in each division should receive prizes commensurate with division with the significant prizes being awarded at end of season to overall winners or top three or whatever. This acknowledges event success but also encourages teams to play more events and shoot for big prizes.

 

[Beaker]

Wow - got to say I'm impressed

Goose, First timers (which in practice are likely to be US Pro teams in that line of thinking) will be catered for by looking at the World Series standing (which would include their appropriate NPPL "level".

All Stars are a problem, although in that case I think you could say that they get 1/7th of their teams points to get a standing.

Let's see how this pans out.
At Max we had 85 ish teams so using 15 25 30 30 you get
13 21 25 26
Campaign Cup (150)
23 37 45 45

I think that's a little too "top light"

What about 20, 25, 25, 30 - That gives
Max (85) - 17 21 21 26
CC (150) - 30 37 38 45

Manike - can you further explain the system that you said was used in sailing which allowed for the different attendance rates?

I think that for series points you could do a couple of other things

1) use 1 over your average score - American's like that sort of thing

2) what about using simple total points scored (or best 4)? that way you also eliminate the problem of game throwing (to an extent) as every game counts in the grand scheme of things

I agree on other major points though. I think that this is a LONG overdue move for the sport.

 

[manike]

Baco, I think we may have to agree to disagree because I think the seading has to happen for each event rather than promotion and relegation at the start of eact year. for several reasons.

1) so that teams don't see it as such a bad thing. if it's regular for the teams close between divisions to move up and down it won't be seen as such a negative thing as being demoted at the start of a year for a full year. We want to keep teams happy not give them reason to gripe or get upset.

2) it allows great teams who are obviously out of position to move quicker to a division where they should be.

3) it stops any worries of teams not being in the right division (gets rid off all issues on that front imho).

4) it gives teams a chance to play in the division above without necessarily being stuck there for a whole season. This will give teams a taste of what is required and be a fantastic insentive to them.

Beaker, great to get some numbers going. I still think we need to factor it into 11's though to aid scheduling.

So the Max format would be 11, 22, 22, 30

and Campaign Cup would be 22, 33, 44, 51

makes scheduling so much simpler... obviously the division 4 would need a little bit of round robin happening in it but that shouldn't be an issue.

teams make the finals on the top points in each division. More teams in divisions the bigger the number inthe finals, just like we have now.



The correction factor works like this.

1st team at the whole event gets 0.75 points (0.75 instead of 1 because it's an advantage to teams that place 1st rather than 2nd etc. so if a team gets a 1st and a 3rd they do better than a team that comes second twice, it's a nice touch that makes people strive to be on top of the podium).

This value goes all the way down until you get the last team (no matter how many there are and that's why they start at 1 and lower teams get more points so that you can cater for any number of teams). So 2nd place gets 2 points and last place 69th team get 69points

OK so far? and then this gets 'corrected' against the number of teams at the event. Usually the easiest way is just to correct it to as if there were 100 teams attending. So if there were 50 teams then all points would be double as if it was out of 100, so 1st gets 1.5 points and last gets 100point. It's just a simple percentage alignment with a correction factor of 100/X where x is the number of teams at the event.

If there were 150 teams 1st would get 0.5points (originally 0.75 before correction) and last 100points (originally 150 before correction).

these seading points are then totally fair and take into account how many teams were at an event. Obviously you get lower (and thus better) seeding points if you win a bigger event etc. perfect

Isn't the simplicity of it beautiful? especialy the touch to make teams need to get 1st places.

manike