Huge Johnz 4: The Return To Bus City Hammond IN December 12th Featuring Eddie Howells

[AOB]

There's an opposition here between fairness of original conditions and fairness of outcomes. You (Rat) are arguing for the former, I for the latter. There's no doubt that manual bracket adjustment should be minimized, and random seeding into pools is usually the best way to start (that's how I do SMYMs unless we are seeding by circuit points), but many people do think small adjustments are acceptable. Even if the system favors top players somewhat, it's hard to argue that those top players haven't proven themselves regardless.

Scoring and point tallying are definitely more complete and rigorous in sports leagues. That enables them to seed up to 32 or 64 players/teams or what have you. We don't have that in smash, but we do often have a small number of players who are clearly the best, so in many cases it may be acceptable to seed the top 2 people. The top 10, certainly not.

 

[Rat]

... u want to increase the luck factor of trying to get a higher placement, rather then being more skillfull -_-....im not down for that.....if were trying to do that, why dont we jus play with items?

Yes, I am arguing for a system which would benefit me. I haven’t been trying to hide my bias here. I’m sorry if it is so much that I can’t see your (and other peoples) points.

Also I’m not trying to be a whiney ***** about my placement and the bracket at this tournament. I legitimately lost, I totally accept that. Kels rocked my socks and BigD gave me the business. No Johns

But I can see the double standard I’m suggesting. Being that I want a “fair” system but given the current environment my “fair” system stands to benefit me by giving me potentially easier brackets. I’ve been thinking that everyone would benefit, as long as each player is treated the same. If my bias and desire to win is blinding me, again I’m sorry =(.

So let’s see if I got this. The current system good players are rewarded for their skill and that’s totally ok (if not exceptionally good) because well… they are ****ing good. Them having to fight each other early ****s everything up for everyone on that side of the bracket, and creates a lopsided tournament. Thus random seeding/pools would not do justice to their ability, nor the ability of other players. That makes sense to me.

I think some of the things I said are still true. That there are some negatives in the current system. (Also, I have yet to thoroughly read your responses tink and see your POV (I wrote this on the train). I have trouble understanding what you type sometimes =\.)

How about this? Similar to what Sveet Suggested. When pools are created if either:
1) a majority of players objects or
2)if 1 entire pool objects
Then the pools are reassigned? After pools are settled no more adjustment may be made. (talk about a lot of work for the TO.)


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edit:

stuff here

Thanks for pointing out that distinction between fair going in and fair in the result. I didn't see that at all.

 

[Devil Ray]

haha, yeah i feel you, rat. at this point in melee, the Chicago/Illinois TO's might as well skip the entire tournament and put tink and kels in the finals...they're too good. only peepz that can hang with them are matty and tommy R. maybe the deku. (the chun?)

but i still think the tournament experience is worth the losses. tournies are the only way you can get better.

 

[BIG C]

another legit argument is not separating those two players possibly puts them in the loser's bracket early. at a fairly large tournament this could ruin results a lot. someone that would have gotten 3rd could get taken out and get like 13th. and with a large tournament come more big names randomly seeding a tournament bracket completely can result in some seriously ****ed up results. as AOB pointed out marioman2345 could get top 5 just because no one was good on his side of the bracket.

 

[Devil Ray]

as AOB pointed out marioman2345 could get top 5 just because no one was good on his side of the bracket.

that's the only part i kinda disagree with. if you make it past pools, you're prolly going to be halfway decent. especially nowadays. so few nubby players

 

[PEEF!]

Adjustment has to happen, and good adjustment is a big part of determining a good TO. If the TO is capable of knowing who is at his tournament, and how to make a fair bracket, that is a big part of a good TO.

So I would suggest that this adjustment comes with good TOing, and it is the TO's responsibility (among many other responsibilities) to get it to be as good as possible, considering the multitude of variables that goes into bracket adjustment.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I agree with Rat.

A tournament is a 1 day activity. If its the finals of a circuit of events, then yeah go ahead and seed based on the previous events' results. For any regular tournament and ones in a circuit other than the finals, the tournament should be seeded randomly and see how the players do without any bias.

 

[BIG C]

that's the only part i kinda disagree with. if you make it past pools, you're prolly going to be halfway decent. especially nowadays. so few nubby players

okay ray chun we will take this tournament as an example 16 man bracket out of pools. of course this wouldn't happen it's just hypothetical. say ppl really fudged it up in pools and whatnot and one side of the bracket was

Tink
BigD
Biggy
Rat
Vro
Viperboy
Kels
MattR

the other side would look like this

Brian
Jay
Brad
Lemon
KBG
Laipply
Chen
BIG C

now that would result in random *** results and if you randomly seeded and all the ppl in the first part didn't get 1st seed could happen hypothetically sure it is unlikely but still COULD happen. or something to a less extreme could happen. You have all people who placed within the top 8 on one side which would result in them getting 13th instead of at least 7th. this is done completely at random and those aren't the exact match ups that would happen but all those ppl on one side of the bracket would be terrible and then you would have me lemon and chen within the top 7 just because of our side of the bracket.

of course that is all extremely hypothetical but if out of those top placers 2 got 1st seed 2 got 2nd seed 2 got 3rd seed and 2 got 4th seed it would be completely possible for it to happen. of course it doesn't mean it would but completely at random it could.

 

[Devil Ray]

LOL, i got owned by the BIG Caeser. i guess that's a good point. altho i do think you(i dunno about chen) could have gotten top 7. you got 9th, so that's not a stretch.

i still don't even know what happened. the results look ok to me. i figured matt would have gotten 1st or 2nd, but that's about it. i'm only a little surprised big D tore it up after not playing for so long. i knew he'd still have the goods

 

[BIG C]

LOL, i got owned by the BIG Caeser. i guess that's a good point. altho i do think you(i dunno about chen) could have gotten top 7. you got 9th, so that's not a stretch.

i still don't even know what happened. the results look ok to me. i figured matt would have gotten 1st or 2nd, but that's about it. i'm only a little surprised big D tore it up after not playing for so long. i knew he'd still have the goods

Idk I'm just trying to make the point that adjustments need to be made at certain points. and that random is not necessarily the best option all the time. I mean other than the separation of tink and kels the bracket was completely random. but if tink and kels been in the same side of the bracket on either side 3 of the top 4 placers would have all been on the same side of the bracket. I could have made top 7 maybe if I had been practicing the game the whole time. But I got Falcowned by the falcons for some reason.

 

[SuperMatt]

big d rocked me in teams, i was quite confused haha

 

[Zjiin]

Tournaments are fun.

 

[HoChiMinhTrail]

Did Eddie come to this thing?

 

[Zjiin]

Nope, lol .

 

[HoChiMinhTrail]

That *******

So, im planning on going to Pound. Is anyone else planning on such a trip?

 

[Tink]

neither did a scrub named damien -_-....

rat, i still cant believe your argueing to make tournaments more based on luck, so a less skilled player, has a chance to get far when they SHOULDNT....if you cant beat the top 3 ppl ina tournament, you shouldnt get top 3.

 

[Vro]

Round Robin, eliminating one player at a time, until Grand Finals, best of 7.
gg.

 

[HoChiMinhTrail]

Brackets are always nub anywase.

Round Robins are the only true way to determine the best overall player in a tourney.

 

[Big_R]

OHHH NEVER MIND. BigD did the right thing.

If you don't know you got an easy bracket when it hits you in the face and it gives you the confidence to be the best then you just need hypnosis. Paul McKenna is pretty good. He will give you instant confidence then it won't be an issue and you can just beat everyone.

I'm for some moving of the bracket if you have mad good ppl on one side if possible. It's smash it's never gonna be the nba you know who's good and who will perform. And when you don't that's when people decide to step it up. Sometimes you get bracket johned on, sometimes you get an easy one and do much better than you probably should. That's how it goes. Keep practicing, prolly move outta the mw if you want to be ACTUALLY good, and step you game up overall.

 

[Watty]

wouldnt of mattered if i was on the hard or easy side i would of eaten all of you

 

[PEEF!]

wouldnt of mattered if i was on the hard or easy side i would of eaten all of you

^with the same beer stick he sprayed all over the viperpartment.

 

[Lemondude829]

great tournament everyone. Mad props to big C for hosting and just being the large cenardson. That couch was sooo comfy, thanks tinky

shoutouts

Tink - grats on beastin, GL in your near future endeavors.

Big C - another solid smashfest, another bad *** weekend. mission accomplished good sir.

Microwave - nice to finally play ya, pretty solid falcon you got there sir.

pen2 - good **** showin up, good to see all those old faces that were around when i first started this ******** routine that is melee. Your ganon is still pretty solid

Gots - same to you good sir, nice to see all the old Team Shep there (minus the Nate part)

Biggy - good playin man, did alright vs. ya in friendlies but by the time i played you in tourney i was pretty much over it, no johns tho, GG.

Vro - fro'ed me again, good playin sir.

Fools in my Pool - GG's fa sho.

Bracket nubs that i played - GG's. 10 GG's.

if i have forgotten you, no johns. Stand out more!

 

[BigD!!!]

the only adjustment i made was to put tink and kels on opposite sides of the bracket, the rest was all done blind.

nobody at the tournament was able to beat either of them was how it appeared, so that seems like the right thing to do.

rat you are on the gravy train, i just didnt do any adjustments beyond those top 2.

ray this tournament was actually one of my best performances i'm pretty sure, i definitely did better vs matt in singles and teams than i would have before the trip

 

[Gracen]

We played crews after the tournament BigD's crew vs Vro's crew. and all I have to say about that is I am a beast. I took 10 stock 8 of which I only had one stock to survive on. so my 1 stock was equivalent to 4 of 2 ppl's on the other crew. Self-proclaimed MVP.

Can't mention me though, huh? I also took 10 stock..... including your 3 with my one life!
gg though sir. hopefully I can make it up for a get together sometime soon. get one together son!

 

[AOB]

for a get together sometime soon. get one together son!

Yeah Charles, get a get-together together.

 

[Gracen]

Yeah Charles, get a get-together together.

People don't know how it be, but it do.

 

[Rat]

rat, i still cant believe your argueing to make tournaments more based on luck, so a less skilled player, has a chance to get far when they SHOULDNT....if you cant beat the top 3 ppl ina tournament, you shouldnt get top 3.

I'm trying to make tournaments fair by giving everyone the same opportunity to win. If you adjust the brackets to balance player strength, you are essentially showing bias towards strong players, despite how small of an effect it may have or if those strong players have previously proven their worth.

I'm not saying we should maximize luck, or else we should just do item tournaments and/or roll the dice tournaments. But Luck of the draw exists in our current system, and it shouldn't be tampered with. Minimizing luck makes sense, which is why we do pools first. (on that note we should do stage striking.) But manually adjusting the brackets gives an unfair (fair being equal treatment of all players) advantage to some players.

My suggestion of redrawing pools (randomly) if a majority objects, would help minimize randomness without bias.

What i'm really arguing for is that tournaments should be BRUTAL. I would have the same ****ty and easy brackets that everyone else would get. If the current system produces these messed up brackets, maybe we should try other ones. Or maybe different tournaments should have a different structures.

Ridiculous examples

It seems like the only way this could happen is if
1) People **** up
****ing up and not ****ing up is part of skill. Those who ****-up, deserve their poor seating. Why can't we assume they will continue to **** up and lose to higher seeds?

2) Messing around. (ie doing it for the lulz)
If players mess around you still shouldn't adjust the bracket, this is because you are reinforcing their ****ty behavior and making pools mean less. Maybe not adjusting the brackets makes for a worse tournament. But that just means all the other players should get on their case for being an *******.

3) They actually lost and don't deserve a high seed
Get *****. The people who got 1st seed on the easy side deserved to be there, because they beat the better players in pools.

 

[BIG C]

It seems like the only way this could happen is if
1) People **** up
****ing up and not ****ing up is part of skill. Those who ****-up, deserve their poor seating. Why can't we assume they will continue to **** up and lose to higher seeds?

2) Messing around. (ie doing it for the lulz)
If players mess around you still shouldn't adjust the bracket, this is because you are reinforcing their ****ty behavior and making pools mean less. Maybe not adjusting the brackets makes for a worse tournament. But that just means all the other players should get on their case for being an *******.

3) They actually lost and don't deserve a high seed
Get *****. The people who got 1st seed on the easy side deserved to be there, because they beat the better players in pools.

I mean I made that point that it was ridiculous and extremely hypothetical already. It's just if that did happen it would be terribly ridiculous results out of it. I'm not saying that making it random which it was would be a terrible idea all the time. but the extreme of random doings is always there.

 

[Gracen]

I'm trying to make tournaments fair by giving everyone the same opportunity to win. If you adjust the brackets to balance player strength, you are essentially showing bias towards strong players, despite how small of an effect it may have or if those strong players have previously proven their worth.

I'm not saying we should maximize luck, or else we should just do item tournaments and/or roll the dice tournaments. But Luck of the draw exists in our current system, and it shouldn't be tampered with. Minimizing luck makes sense, which is why we do pools first. (on that note we should do stage striking.) But manually adjusting the brackets gives an unfair (fair being equal treatment of all players) advantage to some players.

My suggestion of redrawing pools (randomly) if a majority objects, would help minimize randomness without bias.

What i'm really arguing for is that tournaments should be BRUTAL. I would have the same ****ty and easy brackets that everyone else would get. If the current system produces these messed up brackets, maybe we should try other ones. Or maybe different tournaments should have a different structures.



It seems like the only way this could happen is if
1) People **** up
****ing up and not ****ing up is part of skill. Those who ****-up, deserve their poor seating. Why can't we assume they will continue to **** up and lose to higher seeds?

2) Messing around. (ie doing it for the lulz)
If players mess around you still shouldn't adjust the bracket, this is because you are reinforcing their ****ty behavior and making pools mean less. Maybe not adjusting the brackets makes for a worse tournament. But that just means all the other players should get on their case for being an *******.

3) They actually lost and don't deserve a high seed
Get *****. The people who got 1st seed on the easy side deserved to be there, because they beat the better players in pools.

I've looked at all your posts about this.... I fully agree with you Rat. It makes sense.
What you're saying is the most legit way you can run a tournament.
especially so when, people complain about playing members from their crews. They just have a bigger chance of playing them in the bracket. Although, I do realize that isn't the biggest deal, just saying.hahaha

 

[Tink]

ya, i understand the "concept" of fair -_-, but what happens when you do it your way, and then an un-fair bracket arises with me/kels/mattr/viper/biggy on the same side, and then you and 7 scrubs on the other? how is that fair? yes, everyone got the same treatment with bracket placement. sure that was done with all fairness in mind, but the outcome is trash.....u cant say, well, were gonna hope for the best and hopefully nothing goes wrong, but when it does, jus say "**** it, it was all random"(i mean, u can, but thats jus not how i like to run a tourny -_- ).

its up to the TOs....if they wanna do this wacky idea and believe in it, then go ahead....im sure results willl be a littttle diff no doubt.

 

[Gracen]

ya, i understand the "concept" of fair -_-, but what happens when you do it your way, and then an un-fair bracket arises with me/kels/mattr/viper/biggy on the same side, and then you and 7 scrubs on the other? how is that fair? yes, everyone got the same treatment with bracket placement. sure that was done with all fairness in mind, but the outcome is trash.....u cant say, well, were gonna hope for the best and hopefully nothing goes wrong, but when it does, jus say "**** it, it was all random"(i mean, u can, but thats jus not how i like to run a tourny -_- ).

its up to the TOs....if they wanna do this wacky idea and believe in it, then go ahead....im sure results willl be a littttle diff no doubt.

I agree, but the only thing I can think of is to randomize again. is that possible?

 

[Watty]

im so confused by ur argument. well not really confused just annoyed that u think its a legit argument. You think its fair to do random seeding, and ur reasoning behind it is because you want the possible oppurtunity to be put on a easy side of the bracket so u can coast and make money out of it?

Now the idea of money is always nice but some ppl who play dont play for money they play because they like things that are competitive and the smash community is pretty ****ing awesome. Like I am pretty ****ing awesome and i usually place pretty well but I dont do it for money I want to earn it. U can honestly say u would deserve to place and win money if u play no1 and other ppl had to run a gauntlet to get tehre. than u get rocked than in losers finals rocked again? Doesnt seem right to me.

pools are used to set up a bracket most ppl who run tourneys have a very good idea on players skill lvl especially top players sooo placing them as a 1-2 seed makes sense. I really never knew there was an argument against this

 

[Lemondude829]

i liked it more when after the tournament was over, the thread was used for shoutouts and whatnot.

i dont run tournaments, probably never will, but i definitely see both sides of this argument. in one aspect, it should be fully random. end of story. but on the other hand, it is nice when crews are seperated and two of the toppers arent playing super early in the tournament. i like all the hype for when finals starts rollin around.


be glad it didnt turn out like a tourney i went to once, where they had a "pro's" tournament and an "amateur" tournament instead of one tournament.

clearly you *****'s need to chill the **** out and join us in the garage next time.

 

[viperboy_74]

i liked it more when after the tournament was over, the thread was used for shoutouts and whatnot.

QFT


not gonna lie, i haven't even read most of this thread, except the 2 or 3 shout out posts.



gtfover it, past is past, we had a blast, theres never going to be a perfect bracket

 

[Rat]

edit: sorry about posting this stuff here I'll move it.

im so confused by ur argument. well not really confused just annoyed that u think its a legit argument. You think its fair to do random seeding, and ur reasoning behind it is because you want the possible oppurtunity to be put on a easy side of the bracket so u can coast and make money out of it?

Ok i'll try to clarify my points here.

A fair tournament is one where all participants, from the point of entry (before pools and brackets are draw), have an equal chance to win. A randomly seeded tournament would thus be fair. These results might not be balanced (where players are seeded according to previous tournament performance) and wacked-out relative to previous tournaments.

To me crazy results from a Double Elimination Bracket seems fine. A good player is proven over many tournaments not in a single tournament performance.

Now the idea of money is always nice but some ppl who play dont play for money they play because they like things that are competitive and the smash community is pretty ****ing awesome. Like I am pretty ****ing awesome and i usually place pretty well but I dont do it for money I want to earn it... U can honestly say u would deserve to place and win money if u play no1 and other ppl had to run a gauntlet to get tehre. than u get rocked than in losers finals rocked again? Doesnt seem right to me.

I don't play smash for money, it's to be the best that I can. I enter tournaments to play the best people in an effort to improve. (Which is why I try to money match as many of the top players I can.) If I wanted to play for money I would snipe scrubby brawl tournaments. The best part of smash, is not the game, but hanging out (and the competition!).

But please understand, I do want to win. I will take any advantage I can to do so. (Odd that I play a mid-tier character =/) Me arguing to stop bracket adjustment could put me at an advantage to win (lol yes!) but it would also give everyone else that same advantage/disadvantage.

 

[kirkq]

I definitely see what Rat is saying. The difference in what seed you receive in pools is very critical. Under theoretical conditions, a 1st seed gets a free match and then a seed 2 opponent. A 2 seed gets a 3 seed match and then a 1 seed match. A 3 seed gets a 2 seed match and a 1 seed match. A 4 seed will almost always lose to the 1 seed.

For a player of Rat's skill level, who may be roughly 2 seed level the seed will determine how many difficult opponents he has to overcome to place high. (objectively, only to make an example.) If Rat gets a 2 seed, he will probably beat the 3 seed and try to overcome the one seed. If Rat gets a 3 seed, he will probably have to fight someone equal to or better than him in round one, and then overcome the 1 seed. If Rat gets a 1 seed, he will beat the 4 seed easily, and have to play the 2 seed, someone about equal to him.

While I agree you shouldn't be entirely limited to getting your usual second seed, I think the best people need to be able to get a 1 seed to make the bracket play out correctly. I think you should have to beat people better than you to take the placings they would typically take.

Personally, if I play at a 5th place caliber, I want my best chance possible to get 5th place. I would rather the results be representative of how well I play. I want to beat the 4th place player to take 4th place.

Honestly, Rat, at this tournament you lost to 2nd and 4th place, and received 5th place. If anything, the bracket played out as it should have for you. you should have to beat the players marginally better than you to get 4th place next tournament. I see your concern, but the bracket seems to have played out correctly this time.



One issue I want to call out is the crew separation issue. I think this rule allows people in crews with good people to place higher. A mediocre player in a good crew is able to avoid all of his good teammates, where a player of equal skill level will most often lose out to those good players. I would love to be in a crew with tink and kels and avoid them in bracket as often as possible. I think crew separation improves chances of some mediocre players.

Pools should have maybe 4 varying skill levels assigned. Really good, pretty good, mediocre, and bad. An 8 person pool should have roughly 2 people from each category. If you hand seed the pools entirely you are basically choosing someone's opportunities to advance based on your expectation of them.

I believe the bracket should be generated such that the 2-4 best players are in separate quadrants of the bracket. I don't think people should be hand moved to make the bracket look as expected. The bracket should be regenerated each time there is an obvious flaw.

 

[BigD!!!]

rat, people dont get moved around when they mess around and get low seeds. if they get a low seed out of pools, they get placed with that seed in mind. that didnt happen here and rarely happens at all. the only times it does is when it would hurt players who did try their best and got a deserved second or first seed, and then end up in an unfortunately stacked bracket due to the fact that someone got a lower seed than they were expected to and ended up in a different place. but that hardly ever actually happens.

the other example you gave way earlier, of vro having to beat tink and kels both, doesnt apply really either, because if you look at the results of this tournament not a single person lost to both tink and kels; everyone lost to one or neither of them. so by placing them on opposite sides of the bracket, all i did was ensure that nobody did have to fight both of them early on.

the system we have now benefits good-but-not-great players way more than purely random seeding would.

 

[Rat]

You guys are right.

Basically adjusting brackets makes the most sense with an objective ranking system (ELO or something similar). With that you could get fair brackets based on your rank. We don't have that, but we do have a very involved community. I (usually) respect the TO's judgement, especially in the case of BigD, that guy is legit.

When brackets have been adjusted I can't remember a time when the players involved haven't given their consent or that it was done with malicious intent; which makes the adjustment even more legit. I can explain myself more in person if u want as I feel like I've been coming across like a big bag of douche. Sorry about that =(.

 

[Kels88]

lol glad it's all over with but I do understand what Rat was saying although i'm not really fond of it. I'd been going to so many tournaments where it would be like Eddie vs Tink Grand finals time and time again. I just practiced hard and one day was able to compete with them. lol ask Damien how many losses i suffered at his smashfests before I was even able to just fight on par with him.

again I see your point rat. making a random bracket could potentially give lesser skilled players a shot at a high placing but it's a slap in the face to all the players that really have worked hard to get where they are.

 

[_marth1_]

long story short: dont put me next to matt again in the bracket