Can we make all bracket matches best of five for majors?

[DoH]

So Kings of Cali was this weekend and there were some obviously great moments. However one of the best things I felt was that all bracket matches were 3/5. This reduces the importance of winning the first game/stages and places the importance on adaptation. Also in a Bo3 you can run out of different stage types and basically be forced to pick between the 3 platform stages; for slower characters like Doc and Peach, this is often not to your benefit. You also get more hype matches; SW vs Fly could have easily been a 2-0, then Fly ran that crazy train back.

It's not really a question of time as Europe has been doing this for ages. For a one day tournament it probably won't work unless the tournament is run hella efficiently.

Thoughts?

 

[SwiftBass]

meh melee is already long enough

I think its more productive to make a trade off.

examples:

- 3 stock pools
- Best of 2's
- Bracket pools

 

[Awstintacious]

I said yes but only in 32 or very well run 64 man brackets, 64 mans would be a TON of extra games.

 

[Bones0]

meh melee is already long enough

I think its more productive to make a trade off.

examples:

- 3 stock pools
- Best of 2's
- Bracket pools

There will be a noticeable drop in people entering if you tried to make those changes. It is already not really worth entering tournaments if you know you aren't able to make it out of pools, but most Melee players just do it to see the community grow and get whatever feeble tourney experience they can. Also, competitive Halo 2 for MLG frequently had 10-15 minute matches (CTF going as far as 30 minutes if you were still tied after the first 15 minutes). There is very little actual time lost by playing bo5s instead of bo3s unless you are playing top 8 one match at a time on stream, in which case it is going to be bo5 regardless. There's no reason to sacrifice the tournament's integrity and enjoyment of the players when we could easily run more games with a little more streamlining (and in some cases, you don't even need to change anything). If TOs focus more on downtime between matches, we can easily keep RR pools and bo5 sets.

What's dumb is that bo3s are a trend even at locals (at least in my region). Even with 16-man brackets that will finish with tons of time, for some reason TOs seem afraid to run bo5 instead of bo3 thinking it will take a ton more time.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Most time in tournaments is not lost by playing the matches. Tournaments are not held up because someone is not playing quickly enough. They are held up by people turning up late, not handing in results, playing friendlies after matches etc.
Making it Bo5 would add 2 more matches (roughly 10 more minutes) per round (assuming matches get played simultaneously, which they don't, but I'm just talking about adding game time) at most.
Making games Bo5 would tremendously increase the tournament expierence of the lower bracket players, because getting 0-2'd out of bracket twice feels terrible, you played 4 matches and that's it. Playing 6 matches at least could be some consolation, with a tiny chance of winning some more.
It also remedies the urge to play friendlies after a match, because that feeling occurs because people think the set was too short and want a bit more expierence against their opponent, and wait with providing results to play 1-2 more matches (we've all done this, yes). Might as well make it Bo5.

Edit: And ESPECIALLY at what Bones said, with small locals of 16-32 man brackets in a day, you can easily do Bo5. Not doing that is slapping your entrants in the face.

 

[SwiftBass]

Most time in tournaments is not lost by playing the matches. Tournaments are not held up because someone is not playing quickly enough. They are held up by people turning up late, not handing in results, playing friendlies after matches etc..

Yea I agree with that, but it’s not all that practical in practice. For example I cannot DQ New York City if they are late due to a traffic jam and accident on their way to my tourney. Sometimes in metro areas you just CANNOT predict things. What will I do DQ New York City while they are on the highway? That will surely encourage them to make a 2hr drive and show up again.

Or perhaps I should DQ the people who play a casual after a set. Every TO wants people to be on time and tries to start early and be perfectly timely, but it’s a not realistic.

Making it Bo5 would add 2 more matches (roughly 10 more minutes) per round (assuming matches get played simultaneously, which they don't, but I'm just talking about adding game time) at most.
.

Yea so that’s not how tourneys work. I don’t want to say that you appear inexperienced in TO’ing but what you are saying suggests so. You need to consider the time between counter-picking, stage selection, and the differing matchup dynamics. Regardless if the B05 with the fox dittos finishes in 8min the samus/peach fight will hold up the process. Esp. with something like pools, your tourney is only as fast as its slowest games.
Yeah and “simultaneously” does not exist even at locals. You have to consider time to find your setup, find the players if you don’t know them, bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, eating, rule discussion. In short there are many variables that contribute to time that you cannot CONSISTENTLY control. Even if you police it you can’t control everything.

There have been a few majors that run great but they have their ups and downs as well. People might say that APEX last year went well on time (wasn’t bad) but like they had to make bracket pools and switch things last minute. That’s the nature of the beast. Local scene and regionals are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Strong Badam]

meh melee is already long enough

I think its more productive to make a trade off.

examples:

- 3 stock pools
- Best of 2's
- Bracket pools

3-stock bracket pools is fine imo.

 

[SwiftBass]

There's no reason to sacrifice the tournament's integrity and enjoyment of the players when we could easily run more games with a little more streamlining (and in some cases, you don't even need to change anything). If TOs focus more on downtime between matches, we can easily keep RR pools and bo5 sets.

I'd like to here an example of something between matches.

What's dumb is that bo3s are a trend even at locals (at least in my region). Even with 16-man brackets that will finish with tons of time, for some reason TOs seem afraid to run bo5 instead of bo3 thinking it will take a ton more time.

Bracket is NOT the problem its pools. Extending bracket just seems counter productive. Its not like I dislike Bo5 but extending tourneys in any sense(since they are already pretty long by comparison) is counterproductive. I do not think about modifications will deter people from showing up and entering. I have changed a tourney from RR pools to large Bracket(55 entrants instead of the regular 35 with a shortage of setups) and everyone stayed after I offered money back. The modifications I proposed do not really take away from the fairness they just decrease time for the most part.

I think that this community will slowly have to get over the fact that everything will not be RR anymore. You will notice that tourneys are going to turn to the bracket pools format due to time issues and efficiency. Perhaps its a sign of the times or perhaps todays TO's are lazy w.e but its more time effective which can lead time for other things like crews and low tiers which never happen anymore

Of course I will appear that I don't care about my players but consistently having 30-40 people show up to a local for 3 years, receiving positivefeedback from other regions, and being a featured tourney in the New England Circuit tells otherwise.

 

[SwiftBass]

3-stock bracket pools is fine imo.

TY

People act like its a crime. it shaves off a good amount of time and is still fair. People just don't like change. They want TO's to run themselves into the ground with old convention and themes.

 

[l will find peace]

you cant really say people dont like change when they literally ask for changes (just not the same one that you want).

 

[SwiftBass]

you cant really say people dont like change when they literally ask for changes (just not the same one that you want).

touche. that was a bit of a loose statement on my part

I mean that the populous of the players, the competitors and non TOs do not like change in the format of pools as it is convenient. Look at the uproar about bracket pools now for example.

 

[Strong Badam]

TY

People act like its a crime. it shaves off a good amount of time and is still fair. People just don't like change. They want TO's to run themselves into the ground with old convention and themes.

Over the past year our community has been breaking new grounds in terms of status and that comes with its tradeoffs. TOs can't keep prioritizing "giving bad players a better experience" over actually finishing the tournament on time and preventing the best players from playing finals at 2 AM. It's really a much bigger problem than it sounds like. Give regular RR pools a shot if you can, but if your tournament isn't finishing on time, you need to cut somewhere.

 

[SwiftBass]

yes exactly. There are more ways to care about the majority of players than giving more gamesand larger pools. pool cutoffs are a way to reward players. Keeping pools at a fair cut off ratio for the size of the tourney is important to me. I think the majority care more about making it to bracket and having a shot at a matchup they may not have had in pools then playing lots of pool matches and realizing they are out of the tourney halfway through the pool.

If people want to play alot of games, go play casuals or go money match people.

 

[Bones0]

I'd like to here an example of something between matches.


Bracket is NOT the problem its pools. Extending bracket just seems counter productive. Its not like I dislike Bo5 but extending tourneys in any sense(since they are already pretty long by comparison) is counterproductive. I do not think about modifications will deter people from showing up and entering. I have changed a tourney from RR pools to large Bracket(55 entrants instead of the regular 35 with a shortage of setups) and everyone stayed after I offered money back. The modifications I proposed do not really take away from the fairness they just decrease time for the most part.

I think that this community will slowly have to get over the fact that everything will not be RR anymore. You will notice that tourneys are going to turn to the bracket pools format due to time issues and efficiency. Perhaps its a sign of the times or perhaps todays TO's are lazy w.e but its more time effective which can lead time for other things like crews and low tiers which never happen anymore

Of course I will appear that I don't care about my players but consistently having 30-40 people show up to a local for 3 years, receiving positivefeedback from other regions, and being a featured tourney in the New England Circuit tells otherwise.

Idk what your first sentence means.

I never said bracket was the problem, and if you don't think it's the problem either, then idk why you're arguing against bo5 sets for all of bracket... It is counterproductive? How is playing LESS tournament Melee productive for a Melee tournament? Tournaments are long by comparison? What are comparing it to? I already gave an example of Halo which has much longer sets on top of the difficulty in organizing entire teams as opposed to individuals. All of Europe as well as individual Melee TOs such as at KoC and TBH have demonstrated quite clearly that tournaments can be run more quickly than most currently are.

Just because you changed one tourney from RR pools to bracket without losing any entrants doesn't mean that will hold up over time. If you switched to single elim or bo1s you can be sure that tons of people will stop entering, so obviously you are going to lose some people when you reduce the set length and replace RR pools with bracket. People have already voiced their concerns and hesitated about registering for Apex because they are doing bracket pools again.

Reducing the set from bo5 to bo3 certainly makes the tournament less fair because the less games you play, the higher variance is. You may think the extra games aren't necessary, but what about the set DoH mentioned in the first post? Clearly the set length mattered in that situation, and while we can't extend sets for bo99s, we should at least try to extend them as long as logistically possible, and bo5s are well within that bound.

Why would we have to get used to no more RR? This makes no sense because the community has been using RR pools for as long as I can remember, and probably much longer. The whole reason DoH and others are trying to incorporate more games through bo5 sets is because our community has become much more professional so we should be much more efficient with our tournaments.

 

[SwiftBass]

Damn I wanna respond but mobile keyboard sucks. I shall this afternoon.

 

[SwiftBass]

Idk what your first sentence means.

You referred to TO's focusing more in between matches. I wanted to know which things. I have a feeling that most TO's do them already.

I never said bracket was the problem, and if you don't think it's the problem either, then idk why you're arguing against bo5 sets for all of bracket... It is counterproductive? How is playing LESS tournament Melee productive for a Melee tournament? Tournaments are long by comparison? What are comparing it to? I already gave an example of Halo which has much longer sets on top of the difficulty in organizing entire teams as opposed to individuals. All of Europe as well as individual Melee TOs such as at KoC and TBH have demonstrated quite clearly that tournaments can be run more quickly than most currently are.

I like Halo, but how you gonna draw a comparison to it. Halo isnt even on any major circuits and has not been in the passed couple years. (ex MLG has had 4 seasons without it and the 2014 season will not have it. I think there should be a more comparable game than a FPS. I think that's a bad example.

We are longer than AE, Injustice and Marvel.

What was the start and end time of KOC3 and TBH?

What I am saying is that the entire tourney process from start to finish is too long(my opinion). In regards to a goal of cutting it down making more time efficient events making Bo5 for bracket would be counterproductive.(hence making statement about trade-off) Regardless if a little more time is added or more time is added.

we should at least try to extend them as long as logistically possible, and bo5s are well within that bound.

I suppose that we are at ends when we think about tourney length. We are fast compared to brawl but in terms of SF and the other fighters our matches are far longer. The nature of our game is just longer in general. I mean we can talk about fox dittos and then we can talk about peach dittos, other games do not have THAT much variance in game length that effect a tourney as much.

Let me define what I think of as "too long":
When the vast majority leave an event before the end of singles. This happens at every event I have ever been in. By the end a good chunk of people leave. sometimes I have done that as well. This happens whether the event is good or bad. it just happens.(tired, long drive, etc etc)

I seek to eliminate that part of tourneys as it takes away from crews and other events as well.

People have already voiced their concerns and hesitated about registering for Apex because they are doing bracket pools again..

I am not defending the preference at all but I will make a point. Evo and Apex are the big events right now. They are the most prolific and sooner or later if the trend continues, you will start to see bracket pools more often. It already started happening at ROM6. Am I pushing for it and right behind them? no...but that part of my previous post is just foreshadowing whats to come to the majors regardless of what I do or the next local TO in Idaho does.

I'm not saying I prefer them or that it will last, but I don't think that we can avoid a period where there will be some. People will either get used to it or leave. There's ways to make them fair(i.e NOT taking a 100+ turnout and making top 16 with one round of bracket pools)

Reducing the set from bo5 to bo3 certainly makes the tournament less fair because the less games you play, the higher variance is. You may think the extra games aren't necessary, but what about the set DoH mentioned in the first post? Clearly the set length mattered in that situation, and while we can't extend sets for bo99s, we should at least try to extend them as long as logistically possible, and bo5s are well within that bound.

I think this is where we fundamentally butt heads. Fair =/= less variance

Fair;
: in a manner that is honest or impartial or that conforms to rules : in a fair manner <play fair>


The difference between best of 5 and best of 3 is only variance. It fundamentally still places individuals on an even playing field from the start. You mentioned Bo99 in theory. Are you saying that the more games, the more fair a tourney is? In theory it is great practice but you will never have a definitive answer as to who is better based on a set. Thats unrealistic so why even make the point in that direction. I understand that the community wants more games. Thats fine. But you are suggesting that more games creates more fairness which is a fallacy.

I think I understand what you mean about 5 games to see who is really better......that pretty subjective though. If you match up mango and armada for a Bo99 would you really be satisfied saying who is better that day? Would it even matter? From a mathematical point of view you will never know who is better.

Let me provide an example:

*I roll a D6 1000 times a day*
*I do it for 300 days*
*I count the number of times I get a six out of the1000*

lets look a the scenario. Now we all know that each side has a %16.667 chance of occurring due to math ONLY. If I roll that many times per day for 300 days I could say that the PROBABILITY of getting six is ~ %16.667. But I cannot truly say that the PROBABILITY of getting a six on my roll is exactly %16.667. Some days I will get more sixes and some days I wont.

Now lets modify it:

*I roll the D6 100,000 a day*
*I do it for 300 days*
*I count the number of times I get a six*

I will likely get results that are closer to six appearing %16.667 of the time but even then I could possibly roll more sixes on some days than others.

The D6 is unchanged(nature of the "best of" series). The dice roll is still fair as it was on the first roll.

Fundamentally set length has very little emphasis on what makes a set fair. Character match-ups are a whole different story, but that's beyond the scope of this point.

 

[SwiftBass]

...oops...

 

[DoH]

I was talking mostly for nationals where you have multiple days of tournaments y'all.

 

[SwiftBass]

Sorry DOH.

 

[Ryobeat]

DOH is right. Just do it for Top 32 or 64 AT ABSOLUTE MOST.

 

[Nicholas1024]

I love seeing hype Bo5 matches, but I also want the tournament to run on a reasonable schedule. Seeing two extra games between players such as Silentwolf and KirbyKaze is awesome, but I'd rather miss those games than have Grand Finals take place at 4:00 AM.

So yeah, I support it as long as it leads to a reasonable schedule, but I think the huge tournaments such as Apex should stick to Bo3's up until top 8 or so.

 

[shadrach kabango]

How does Bo5 prioritize adaptation more so than Bo3? I'm not seeing it. Bo3 is actually prioritizing quicker adaptation.

The counterargument to this is that a greater sample size between two opponents will always lead to a more accurate result. I wouldn't disagree.

IMO all Bo5 really does is increase the peak and increase the valley. Matchups I am uninterested in or that are predictably one-sided only prolong the pain.

Stopped reading Swift v Bones once they started putting up huge walls of text, but I fully agree with bracket pools. Strongly feel that the recent "changes" to tournament Melee are putting experienced players on the backburner in favor of newer players. (But that may be a bit of a digression...)

 

[DoH]

Bo5 allows more time to adapt to gimmicks, such as low tiers and counterpick characters. It allows more depth to be explored between players. It also minimizes the impact of suicides. How would M2K vs Armada at Evo turn out if it was a Bo5? Also there are more stage options as there are no bans, so you're not forced to take Marth to like Battlefield or FoD.

No one is forcing you to watch matches you are uninterested in. If you're watching on stream, go do some yoga or something.

Europe has been running Bo5 for years, with WF/LF/GFs being Bo7. I think our tournaments could be run a bit more efficiently and could do the same.

 

[Zhea]

As long as we agree Bo7 GF's is too much, okay.

 

[shadrach kabango]

Bo5 allows more time to adapt to gimmicks, such as low tiers and counterpick characters.

No it doesn't. Both players have the same amount of time to adapt to anything, in either Bo3 or Bo5. The conditions are the same for both players. Who benefits from the conditions laid down is a matter of skill.

It allows more depth to be explored between players. It also minimizes the impact of suicides. Also there are more stage options as there are no bans

Let's assume, for purposes of discussion, these things are true. Why are these things TOs should want to reward? You may feel it is self-evident, but humor me and show your work.

 

[Mew2King]

Yes definitely. Bigger sample size = less luck = better player is more likely to win

 

[Gardex]

As long as we agree Bo7 GF's is too much, okay.

Armada vs Hbox best of 7 GFs lets go

 

[Zhea]

RESET THE BRACKET.

 

[Engo]

Why do people assume that tournaments ending late is RR's fault and not the fault of poor TOing? ROM6 had a little over 100 entrants with 2 days and apparantely "had" to run bracket pools but Big House who had 170+ entrants did 2 rounds of RR pools and 1 round of RR pools in PM which had like 90 entrants. RR isn't a problem if you have a good amount of TVs and MOST IMPORTANTLY good and STRICT TOing which is lacking in many tournaments these days, the most relevant example being the Apex series in the past few years.

 

[DoH]

No it doesn't. Both players have the same amount of time to adapt to anything, in either Bo3 or Bo5. The conditions are the same for both players. Who benefits from the conditions laid down is a matter of skill.



Let's assume, for purposes of discussion, these things are true. Why are these things TOs should want to reward? You may feel it is self-evident, but humor me and show your work.

I can't tell if you're dense or just being contrarian, but if there are more matches to be played in a set, that gives you more time to adapt to something. If you don't find that obvious then I think we're at an impasse. Even if both players have the same amount of games to learn, that doesn't take away from the fact that in a Bo5 there is more time to adapt than a Bo3, even if it's only one more game.

The point of a tournament is to have the most skilled player advance each round; we have set conditions on how that is achieved, such as stocks or percentage/time win, etc. As M2K said, Bo5 provides a larger sample size so that reduces the effects of misfortune or luck, be it from an SD or a stitchface. It also decreases the importance of the first game. Because there are so many variances in character playstyles, it can be hard to predict what is a good strike based on character alone. Take Peach vs Fox. Normally as a Peach player I would like to go to Dreamland, and strike Yoshi's, to extend my stocks. However, what if the Fox is going to camp the top platform on Dreamland and run away for 8 minutes? If I don't know the player, I may accidentally force myself into a bad first match up. In a Bo5, there is more time to adapt and more forgiveness for this sort of thing, as winning the first game is not as powerful.

 

[shadrach kabango]

I can't tell if you're dense or just being contrarian, but if there are more matches to be played in a set, that gives you more time to adapt to something. If you don't find that obvious then I think we're at an impasse.

Neither. Maybe you're just not bright enough to get it? I'll spell it out for you:

In either a Bo3 or Bo5 both players are subject to the same conditions (the set being a Bo3 or a Bo5).

Therefore both players have the same amount of time to adapt.

You are creating an arbitrary choice that Bo5 is "better" than Bo3. But in either case, both players again have the same amount of time to adapt.

Even if both players have the same amount of games to learn, that doesn't take away from the fact that in a Bo5 there is more time to adapt than a Bo3, even if it's only one more game.

Time is relative. Ever hear of Einstein? Since both players have the same amount of time, while in "absolute" terms there is "more" time, in relative terms there isn't any more time.

In other words, let's say I say the skill to adapt in a Bo3 (in an absolute "shorter" amount of time) is "more skilled" (completely arbitrary on my part) than the skill to adapt in a Bo3 (in an absolute "longer" amount of time). You say the opposite (which, again, is completely arbitrary on your part).

What you call "gimmicks" is completely arbitrary. Maybe you're just worse at adapting in a Bo3 than you are at adapting in Bo5. Maybe I'm just better at adapting in a Bo3 than I am at adapting in a Bo5. Neither is better or worse than the other. But as far as practical matters go, there are very vital reasons less "absolute" time is > than more "absolute" time.

From my point of view you should provide one, proof that variance in Bo3 even exists (in my experience the 'favorite' wins in Melee the vast majority of the time). Right now you're just begging the question imo.

As M2K said, Bo5 provides a larger sample size so that reduces the effects of misfortune or luck, be it from an SD or a stitchface.

Luck is the residue of design. SDing is skill, or lack thereof, as well as inherent advantage/disadvantage within character selection. Traversing a stitch face is mental/psychological skill, or lack thereof.

Frankly, tournaments are already long enough as is. I don't know about you, but I have a life away from Smash. M2K's life is Smash, so I understand why he doesn't mind sacrificing time for sample size.

While I would agree with the implicit point that endurance is a significant part of skill, I feel that endurance is already too emphasized in the scene. At what point are we just measuring endurance significantly more so than peak "skill?"

In snapshots of the game there will always be luck/variance. But I am confident that in the long run, there are more than enough tiny exchanges ("sample size") in Bo3 sets already that we don't need to prolong sets. The cream already rises to the top. The system is already incredibly efficient.

I understand that you seem to just want more of a good thing. Well, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Frankly, I think the scene is already far too ensconced in an unconscious addiction to this game, to tournaments in general. (And, if you want to lobby personal shots, I find it not the least bit surprising that an overweight glutton such as yourself would want more.)

I think Bo5 is too much. You don't. Doubt we'll agree, so let's agree to disagree.

 

[DoH]

My point has never been that both players have the same time to adapt, but that if you are the player faced with something unknown or gimmicky that you have more time to adapt. Even if it isn't something gimmicky, but something as universal as player playstyles, why would we not want to increase the sample size to have the best results possible? I've provided warrants and concrete examples (Fly vs SW) as to why Bo5 is better, but you just call them arbitrary. I'm specifically talking about nationals, as I specified earlier in the thread, so your time/pragmatism argument isn't really an issue. It wouldn't make sense at a 1 day local, and I am always voicing concerns about tournaments running on time at that scale. Ideally a Saturday tournament wouldn't run past 7. But at a 3 day national, when pools have been done on day 1/2? There's no reason to not take advantage of the time left and offer more sets, increase the quality of games, and the amount of resources available to new players, who are hungry for all the matches they can get to see.

You've already conceded that an increased sample size provides a more accurate result, so I don't know why you kept arguing past that point.

And dude, grow up. I don't know why you continually stalk my youtube videos to tell me how fat I am or how terrible I am at this game, but your shtick is old and tired at this point. I don't know what I ever did to you to make you think that was an appropriate course of action, but it's incredibly tacky and unwarranted. I don't see you body shaming other overweight players, so you obviously have something personal against me, which must be pretty big considering we have only ever interacted once in person almost 5 years ago. I'm not even that fat!

 

[Metà]

actually, I kind of agree with what p is saying. i still prefer bo5 and i would like to see it happen, but he brings up good points about the significance of match length

the example you gave of fly beating silent wolf. people who favour bo3 sets would say that silent wolf should have won. fly ended up beating him in 3 straight games, which seems to prove that he is a 'better' player than silent wolf. this is not necessarily true. fly may have had the advantage in endurance, but not in quick adaptation. what p is trying to say is that SW demonstrated his skill of adapting quickly, while fly showed his skill through determination and endurance (and ultimately, adapted slower than SW). both skills are worthy of being tested, but we need to decide which one.

he also brings up the point that endurance is already tested pretty heavily at tournaments. they take a long time, and even our single rounds take anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes. that's a huge variance. no other fighting game has rounds that take 8 minutes. a single game alone can be a HUGE test of endurance (and i've proved this by timing out numerous players that I consider better than myself). when we make all sets bo5, we're adding even more variance, because a single best of 5 set can take anywhere between 10 minutes (both players spend little time counter-picking, and finish their matches in average time) and *45* minutes (if both players use the time fully, which is not likely to happen, but what about the time between matches? that still adds a lot in a bo5)

ultimately, if we make the choice to stay with bo3, we're emphasizing quick adaptation speed. if we make the choice to do bo5 sets, then we're emphasizing a different skill set, as p stated, which is endurance and slower adaptation. neither people are really wrong, it's just that it's more arbitrary than you make it out to be, DoH

*edit* also, people still bring up wobbles vs hbox. it was a bo3 instead of the usual bo5. when wobbles was down one game, and on his last stock (with sopo) against hbox, this was his last chance. if it were a bo5, he'd still have a chance if he lost, but it was actually the fact that it was a bo3 that made it so hype; wobbles' sopo was on the verge of going to loser's bracket, but he pulled the upset of the century.

 

[shadrach kabango]

My point has never been that both players have the same time to adapt

I s'pose I should just move on, since you're conceding this point, but you're backpedaling in a dishonest way, and I feel I must call you out on it. Quoting you:

I can't tell if you're dense or just being contrarian, but if there are more matches to be played in a set, that gives you more time to adapt to something.

Yeah, you were snarky about it, too. Definitely warrants a call-out.

Now that that's settled...

but that if you are the player faced with something unknown or gimmicky that you have more time to adapt.

As far as I'm concerned that's the inherent benefit of the character. Use a character or a technique not seen very often? That's skill that should be credited, not debited.

Clamoring for Bo5 primarily because it gives you more time for "something unknown or gimmicky" is you wanting a buffer against your own lack of skill.

why would we not want to increase the sample size to have the best results possible?

Because the sample size is large enough.

Yes, I agree that having a slightly larger sample size is better. But what are you giving up? What are the unintended consequences? I feel those consequences heavily outweigh the slightly larger sample size. Lengthening tournaments and (over, in my opinion) prioritizing endurance in exchange for, what, a 2% bump in accuracy? Seriously, why don't you make an attempt to try to quantify how much, if any, more accurate going from Bo3 to Bo5 will be? Like I said earlier, the cream already rises to the top. You're still begging the question.

What is your proof that Bo3 isn't long enough? Is Jeremy v. Otto really your best example? That's pretty easy to dispute. Meta already helped me out there, so I'll just give another, even simpler, angle:

I feel both players are very evenly skilled. Would anyone put more than 55/45 odds on either side winning? Probably not, right? So you're just obsessing over an infinitesimally small sample size: one set. It is perfectly reasonable that it could go from 2-0 to 0-3. That doesn't prove your point about Bo5 being better, though, no matter how much you want it to. One set could never prove who the better player (in absolute terms) between two fairly evenly matched players are.

And having played Fly extensively since he came into the scene (he lives five miles from me; I feel safe in saying I know him as well, or better, than anyone else in the community), I can vouch for Meta's point that he excels in endurance, and would agree that you're measuring endurance more than peak skill at that point.

Maybe you don't know what it is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Anywho, as far as I'm concerned you're clearly outclassed insofar as discussing this with me with any sort of intellectual integrity. If someone more shrewd and clever than you chooses to pick up your points of discussion I will rejoin the fray. I've made numerous cogent points that call into question going from Bo3 to Bo5, and rather than honestly and openly consider them, you're just repeating your initial points. Sounds like you simply have no response and are too proud to say, "You know what? Those are good points. I don't know. Let me get back to you."

 

[Metà]

For the record, despite you making reasonable points for not going with bo5, I still voted fpr the second option on the poll. when there is money on the line, I think most players would prefer best of 5. This is why when people money match for large amounts of money, they almost certainly don't use bo3. In a way, there is a tacit agreement between the player that they are placing greater emphasis on endurancw, even if they're unaware that's what they're doing. If everyone agrees that endurance is what we should be testing, then why don't we? obviously, for reasons you dwscribed, there are inherent problems with using bo5 over bo3, such as time.

however, if we're going to use bo3 for certain matches, i think we need to make a choice whether we want to allow or disallow stage banning. Hax made a thread a while back talking about this, but ultimately I agree with him that there needs to consistency in the rules between different set lengths

 

[SwiftBass]

It started again =)

 

[Strong Badam]

there is definitely a disconnect between the answers of "should we" and "can we"
the OP puts forth the question of "can we," to which the answer is no.

 

[Metà]

^ actually, it is possible to run bo5. For every set, not just brackets. it's a question of time. as DoH stated earlier, Europe has been doing it for years. if you have the time and resources to run an event efficiently enough, Bo5 is feasible. it's sort of a grey area, because we allow Bo5 for some sets, and not others. it varies wildly. some tournaments will have bo5 for all of top 32 (KoC3), only for top 8 (numerous tournaments), semis and onward (apex 2014, right?), some for only WF/LF/GF (most tournaments) and some bo3 for the entire tournament (xanadu weeklies).

it's a matter of how we view the issue and how we allocate our time and resources. it's more nuanced than both sides are making it out to be.