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Power Ranking (or whatever it's called...)

Discussion of quizbowl topics not related to specific tournaments
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dividebyzero
Posts: 359
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:00 am
Location: Near East St. Louis

Power Ranking (or whatever it's called...)

Post by dividebyzero »

So, last year was my first year playing at HSNCT, and one of the things that intrigued me was their system for determining which teams play against each other in each round (with the numbered cards which are exchanged after matches. Not sure what it's called, and I'm describing it poorly because I'm in a rush...). Theoretically it seems to logically place teams against each other according to record (though not necessarily by strength of teams), but there I noticed some flaws as well (namely the whole [potential] "Oh I'm lost"/"When's our next break?" scenarios)
I can't say much more right now (at school :roll: ), but does anyone have any input/clarification about the benefits and drawbacks of this system? (Or anything else related really)

Charbroil
Posts: 1039
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:00 am

Re: Power Ranking (or whatever it's called...)

Post by Charbroil »

Another name for this is Swiss pairing--a basic outline can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_pairing

(Except that HSNCT just uses Swiss pairing in preliminaries and has a separate playoff round rather than determining the entire tournament that way)

As for the advantages and disadvantages, you can get an idea of them in this discussion thread: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... r+matching

(The original post is opposed to the method, but I imagine any additional advantages beyond the ability to differentiate a large field are also mentioned within the replies)

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scphilli
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Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Power Ranking (or whatever it's called...)

Post by scphilli »

All I know is that I'm always terrified I'm going to give the wrong card to the wrong team...and then Joel Gluskin will kill me in my sleep.

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