I'm only gonna say this once so everybody listen up.
I have no idea how pools work. I've never done pools, seen pools, or read about pools. I can't even swim (blatant lie).
From what I heard, pools are used with smaller groups of people (this is probably wrong). Since we already have 50+ people, I'm all for whatever gets things done smoothly in the shortest time possible.
So, if someone wouldn't mind explaining pools to me, I would be very grateful. I've been trying to figure out for months how pools are done >_<
I'll run pools there, dun worry 'bout it.
Give me a list of who is going by Thursday and I'll try to separate pools beforehand so it runs faster.
Or I could do it on Friday night, either or.
Pools is basically this: (using a group of 32 going into a 16 man bracket)
You take the players and you semi-randomly put them in "pools". A pool is a group of players that are assigned to play each other. They do this round-robin, meaning everyone plays everyone.
The scores are then tabulated either by wins or wins minus losses (that is preference), and the top X amount of people move on.
In this case, I'd make 4 pools of 8, with the top 4 moving on.
So if there was this pool, ordered from top ranking to bottom ranking after the matches were done:
Overswarm
Kel
Y.b.M.
Dr. X
Infern
Bob
Jim
Smash64 (he went sonic and bowser)
The four with the highest scores would move on. Overswarm, Kel, Y.b.M., and Dr. X proceed to the bracket. This takes longer than a straight bracket, but it allows everyone to get more matches in (everyone in this pool got at least 14 matches as opposed to a minimum of 4 in bracket), warm up, and helps seed the bracket.
Since I had the best score, I'd be a "first" seed. The other three pools would also have a "first" seed, and we'd be separated in the bracket to play each other as far away as possible. All the fourth seeds, being the worst seeds, would be assigned to play a first seed that was not in their pool. Second seeds would play third seeds from another pool.
So the bracket would end up looking like this based on seeds:
1
4
2
3
1
4
2
3
1
4
2
3
1
4
2
3
Assuming there were no upsets, this would lead to a 1 seed playing a 4th seed, then a 2 seed, then another 1 seed, and then the two remaining 1 seeds would play in the winner's finals. This gives the bracket a definite crescendo in skill level and helps provide accurate results. Putting people straight into a bracket randomly could result in Overswarm playing Jim and Bob first and second round, followed by playing George and then Kel. That's an easy bracket until the winner's finals, and by then you're guaranteed top 3!
Pools really helps the tournament out.
We generally don't do pools for doubles.
