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From: "Timothy Rogers" <trogers@srv1.mech.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Mechanical Engineering
To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 11:55:55 +0000
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Subject: Tour Format
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Just to clarify a couple of things I said.

I'm not opposed to the Tour, playing for Soup last season we had some 
cracking games and the general standard within the team improved.  It 
was also a superb preparation for Worlds.  The issue is really one of 
getting teams of the same standard to play other teams of the same 
and slightly better standard.  Being exploited is how one improves.  
Even in the top 8, if you dropped down you lost the opportunity to 
play the top 4 and since 5 to 12 was much of a muchness, improvement 
over the weekend was reduced.  Ok, I accept that some of this is 
unavoidable in order to get teams of the same quality playing each 
other.

A much bigger problem, however, is if a team misses the first tour.  
It then takes half the tour to find the right level.  Last year, with 
Headrush missing a tour, the format was sensibly altered to 
accomadate this.

Just to explain the Swiss, which I only propose playing on the 
Saturday morning:

1) Each time you win a game you get a point. 
2) Each time you play you play someone with the same number of 
points.

So, by the third round in a 32 team tournament, there will only be 
8 teams with 2 wins.  By the end of the third round there will be 4 
teams with 3 wins,  and 12 with two wins.  If we made the games half 
an hour then, each team has only played 1.5 hours.  One can then form 
groups for the rest of the weekend from there (perhaps with a 
crossover of longer length).  Game length can then be adjusted upto a 
full 2 / 1.5 hours.

Top teams only spend 1/2 an hour playing a weak team.  1/2 an hour 
playing a top 16 side.  Its not that much really, and it allows 
flexibility over a tournament as opposed to over a set of 
tournaments.

Tim
Ro-Sham-Bo