Today the four official proposals by Hricova are discussed.

http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/proposals2010ec2.pdf


Proposal Hricova 1A

(12 player round-robin, seeding by ratings)

+ The round-robin system has a high pairing quality.
+ 11 rounds create a high confidence for the numbers of wins.
+ Usually the champion and his closest competitors play the same number of games.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ The system fits rather well into the congress schedule.
+ The system is simple (or, in case of optional playoffs, of
intermediate complexity)

o For the final results ordering in case of ties on the number of wins, one has the choice between a) shared title, b) tiebreaker Direct Comparison applied iteratively, c) tiebreaker Direct Comparison not applied iteratively, d) tiebreaker Direct Comparison applied only to exactly two tied players, e) doubtful tiebreakers, f) playoff games with shorter thinking times (this requires finishing the 11 rounds,
e.g., on Thursday so that playoffs can be played on Friday or
Saturday)

- The seeding to the championship has a very low quality. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- Only few players play in the EC.
- Top non-Europeans do not play the top 12 Europeans in the Open-EC.
- If playoffs are used at all and in the rare case of 3+ playoff rounds (5+ players), a slightly shorter playing time is needed for the playoff games.


Proposal Hricova 1B

(12 player round-robin, seeding: 3 players of previous EC + 4 players of previous Open-EC + 2 optional wildcards for players with rating 2500+ + X players by rating)

+ The round-robin system has a high pairing quality.
+ 11 rounds create a high confidence for the numbers of wins.
+ Usually the champion and his closest competitors play the same number of games.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ The system fits rather well into the congress schedule.
+ The system is simple (or, in case of optional playoffs, of
intermediate complexity)

o The seeding of 4 players of the previous Open-EC gives the Open-EC good meaning for the next-to-top Europeans and gives the EC fresh blood every year but qualifies the 4 players due to one year old results.
o For the final results ordering in case of ties on the number of wins, one has the choice between a) shared title, b) tiebreaker Direct Comparison applied iteratively, c) tiebreaker Direct Comparison not applied iteratively, d) tiebreaker Direct Comparison applied only to exactly two tied players, e) doubtful tiebreakers, f) playoff games with shorter thinking times (this requires finishing the 11 rounds,
e.g., on Thursday so that playoffs can be played on Friday or
Saturday)

- Wildcards replace qualification by playing strength by qualification by politics. The rather small size of the EC players field makes this impact particularly severe.
- The seeding of 5+ players to the championship by rating has a very low quality. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- Only few players play in the EC.
- Top non-Europeans do not play the top 12 Europeans in the Open-EC.
- If playoffs are used at all and in the rare case of 3+ playoff rounds (5+ players), a slightly shorter playing time is needed for the playoff games.


Proposal Hricova 2A

(10 rounds Swiss of 16 players, seeding by ratings)

+ The champion and his closest competitors play the same number of games.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ The system fits well into the congress schedule.

- Unless the title is shared, tiebreakers for the final results ordering play a great role for determination of the winner.
- 10 rounds Swiss of 16 players is not a well understood system with respect to a) pairings and b) the effect of pairing difficulties on the tiebreakers for the final results ordering. It might happen rather easily that making good pairings during the last rounds will become difficult to impossible because of the low ratio between players and
rounds.
- The seeding to the championship by rating has a very low quality. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- The number of players is relatively small. The strongest player might be missed.
- Top non-Europeans do not play the top 16 Europeans in the Open-EC.


Proposal Hricova 2B

(10 rounds Swiss of 16 players, seeding: 4 players of previous EC + 4 players of previous Open-EC + 2 optional wildcards for players with rating 2500+ + X players by rating)

+ The champion and his closest competitors play the same number of games.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ The system fits well into the congress schedule.

o The seeding of 4 players of the previous Open-EC gives the Open-EC good meaning for the next-to-top Europeans and gives the EC fresh blood every year but qualifies the 4 players due to one year old results.

- Unless the title is shared, tiebreakers for the final results ordering play a great role for determination of the winner.
- 10 rounds Swiss of 16 players is not a well understood system with respect to a) pairings and b) the effect of pairing difficulties on the tiebreakers for the final results ordering. It might happen rather easily that making good pairings during the last rounds will become difficult to impossible because of the low ratio between players and
rounds.
- Wildcards replace qualification by playing strength by qualification by politics. The intermediate size of the EC players field makes this impact rather severe.
- The seeding of 8+ players to the championship by rating has a very low quality. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- The number of players is relatively small. The strongest player might be missed.
- Top non-Europeans do not play the top 16 Europeans in the Open-EC.

One small improvement for the current system is that if we have a 4 dan as top group bar, then we also could have ca. 32 player middle group below ca. 32 player super-group. If we apply middle group , then it would be easier to decrease the super group size to 16+8 as Breakfast has suggested. Personally I think that 32 is good size for super group.

{addendum: I personally do not think anymore that 32 is good super group size. Instead we should have 24 player super group, ca. 24 player middle group and the rest of 4-dan+ top group players. This setup would also solve the issue with 4-dan top group bar.}

Inhowfar easier? For the better or worse? Why exactly 16? Why exactly 8? Why exactly 8 if there are fewer than 8 strong Asians? What about strong players that are neither European (citizen) nor from Asia?

Sorry for the dalay

Differences between proposel 2 and proposel W1

No their is a big difference between the two proposels. (

Proposel 2 is called a "Modified Swiss system" to me it looks a combination between a swiss system and a "X elimination system" (after X losses you are out, "Players with too few wins will enter the main tournament") Unfortunaedly X is not specified and has a big influence on the rest ( I guess it needs to be 3 to have a clear 3rd place winner)

In the first X rounds in proposel 2 there will be no Strong European - Strong Asian games (they can only happen after some players are eliminated) and also the really strong europeans only become available in the later rounds.
In W1 this is not the case. in all rounds Strong European - Strong Asian games can happen. (but are limited to 3 per European candidate)


Proposel 2 needs to be extended with what is the MM score for players who "fell out" of the Eutropean title tournament. (for both their own and there opponents SOS scores) W1 doesn't have this problem, the tournaments are combined from start to finish.
(In proposel W1 a player and TD can agree that this players falls out of the european title tournament, having more options to play non -europeans, but this is al voluntary)


Proposel 2 only allowes a very limited number of european prize candidates W2 allows a more candidates. (although this is done by accelerated pairing, a field that still needs some investigation)

_________________
Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

Proposal 2:

The number of losses for a player to drop out does not need to be fixed number determined in advance. Rather it is important to keep enough opponents in the EC to determine a) the champion or b) the top T players. Depending on how the top players perform (how many wins they get up to round R), the number of players dropping out must be chosen fittingly.

I have not worked out all the details but the following can serve as a draft guideline:

- In round 9, there must still be enough opponents so that the top points players either player against each other during the remaining round(s) or will have those other opponents available.
- For the rounds 6 to 8, the maximal number of players with the most points in round 9 is predicted. At least as many players plus extra necessary opponents remain in the tournament. This gives opponents with a lower number of wins so far; all players with at least that many wins remain in the tournament.
- After round 3, players with at least 2 losses drop out.
- After round 5, players with at least 3 losses drop out.

After round 5, the number of players is about halved, i.e. ca. 16.

***

The players dropping out enter the Open-EC. Therefore, for the EC places 2+, it remains an option to use an opponent-points-dependent tiebreaker like SOS for sorting the places.

One might leave at least 10 players in the EC until the end to sort them internally up to place 10. An alternative is to start places with the remaining EC players and continue with the top Europeans in the Open-EC.

The MM score of the players dropping out is that as if they had started in the supergroup in the Open-EC's round 1. This allows final result tiebreaker calculation in the Open-EC. It is not a problem at all; one just has to define it like this and manage the EC players also in the Open-EC pairing program.

Proposal 2 does not allow an only small number of European prize candidates but as many as in the current system. I.e., the top 10 European players can be identified to be given prizes.

Proposal 2 assumes that an afternoon Top Players Tournament is created to have games between top Europeans and top non-Europeans.

This oin itself allready prevents strong european- strong asian games in the first three rounds. (and in round 4 they will only play agains europeans who have lost twice.



Proposel W1 does allow more players to compete for the european title than proposel 2 (in principle every european can join in, although in practice less , around a 50 would be possible.




I think not many top players want to agree with that.
W1 is better in this. no afternoon games nescesary

_________________
Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

A purpose of Proposal 2, most official proposals and the AGM decision is to let the EC have Europea-only games.



This has been discussed enough.