[BD] Mixed Tour Seedings

Wed May 27 21:46:48 BST 2009

Benji,

A good presentation of the issues, right up to the penultimate paragraph 
where you invoke "common sense", an entirely meaningless concept. If you 
want to say that the Rules Committee should be allowed to exercise their 
judgement then please do so. I would support you in that. By using the 
phrase that you do you imply that anyone else using their own judgement 
would obviously come to the same conclusion and that just fundamentally 
undermines your argument. You also imply that anyone who disagrees is 
displaying less than sense, which belittles your argument. Believe in 
yourself, present your judgement as sound, don't present it as a 
consensus of the "masses".

I am also concerned that we have some very different situations under 
discussion and that you imply that the balance between what you term 
"common sense" and application of the rules should be the same in each 
case. Is dealing a mistake in the rostering rules really an equivalent 
situation to deciding to re-seed a team that did not perform in a 
previous tournament? In one case you are using judgement to determine an 
appropriate punishment for a breach of a rule, in another you are using 
judgement to replace the rules.

Finally you do not touch at all on how the decisions being made impact 
on the nature of the competition structure that is supposed to be in 
place. My understanding is that the Tour is a series of linked events 
where your performance in each is supposed to directly affect your 
opportunities in the following event. If teams are to be re-seeded based 
on their perceived strength at the start of each tournament why are we 
even bothering with a Tour structure*? Hasn't a team that finishes in 
the top 16 at Tour 1 earned the right to lose all their games at Tour 2? 
Won't this probably leave them better off than losing all their games 
from a reseeded 18th (say) and therefore give added meaning to their 
efforts at the first event?

*I mean this as a serious question and not a dig. Maybe the answer is we 
shouldn't be? Maybe the answer is that I don't understand squat about 
how the Tour is supposed to work, I'll admit that's possible.

Regards,
Paul Holden	mailto: paul at oubliette.me.uk

UKU Director of Competitions wrote:
> Dan,
> 
> Thanks for your thoughtful email. We did chat for a while about what to 
> do with Kent, and probably I would have been against bumping a team from 
> the top 16 for them. Because some top-16 teams dropped out, we felt we 
> had a bit more leeway to play around with things, and their finishing 
> position does justify our thinking to an extent since they could not 
> have got that high from outside the top 16.
> 
> The wider issue is of course whether we should be messing with seedings 
> at all; or perhaps there is an even wider issue of how far we are 
> prepared to bend our principles to a given situation. We have similar 
> problems all the time with regard to rostering and whether players are 
> ineligible, amongst other things.
> 
> Everyone agrees that rules are rules, and that by bending them 
> occasionally we create problems. But nearly everyone also fights tooth 
> and nail to be let off when the rules are against them. We play the game 
> for fun, and is it really right that we should force a good team to play 
> meaningless games all weekend (and their opponents to get thrashed), or 
> should force a player not to play at all because of a rostering mistake? 
> When the issues become personal, either to you or to your team, it's 
> very hard not to demand that we should exercise a little judgement.
> 
> It seems to me that I receive about the same number of 'Why are you so 
> inflexible?' emails as I do 'Why did you let them get away with that?' 
> emails. So maybe we're getting the balance about right.
> 
> But I'll be delighted to stick rigidly to every rule in future if that's 
> what people want - it would make my job a million times easier if the 
> competitions committee felt under no pressure to apply common sense. We 
> could just take a quick look at the rules and say yes or no. If the 
> general feeling on BD is that that's the way to go, then I'll happily 
> oblige. But have a good think about the consequences if you do somehow 
> fall foul of the rules.
> 
> If people want to post their opinions on this issue I'll hopefully get a 
> sense of which way people want us to go.
> 
> Benji
> 
> Daniel Berry wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I read this thread with interest when it got sent out at the start of the
>> month. My initial reaction was to side totally with Dave but Benji's
>> response showed me that seeding is a very diffficult issue for the UKU 
>> and
>> one they stand to lose on whatever decision is taken. I guess it's 
>> taken the
>> matter to affect my own team to wade in but I hope you'll forgive me for
>> raising a few more points about seedings and so on. Before I open the 
>> stable
>> door and get out my high horse, I would like to throw in a disclaimer 
>> that I
>> have a lot of respect for the work the UKU do and this is no way a dig at
>> people like Si, Benji or Felix etc etc. I just think this warrants
>> discussion and hope it comes across as reasonable debate rather than a 
>> rant.
>>
>> Flaming Galahs 1 had a bit of a slip up at tour 2 and dropped to 18th. I
>> knew GB and Strange Blue weren't attending Nationals so I had assumed we
>> would sneak back into the top 16 via the back door for tour 3. It's not
>> pretty but hey, you take what you can get. The seedings came out and 
>> we were
>> 17th. Kent, who had finished two places below us at both previous 
>> tours had
>> been seeded 14th pushing us down one very important position. Another
>> disclaimer here, this is not a dig at Kent. They are a great mixed 
>> team who
>> work hard on developing the sport. I just think that teams, in general,
>> should not be moved around in this way.
>>
>> Kent had to forfeit some games at mixed tour 2 due to some unfortunate
>> injuries to their women. As a result, it was decided they did not finish
>> where they should have and so got the benefit of the doubt on the 
>> seedings
>> for tour 3/nationals. From a rather biased position as Galahs captain 
>> I did
>> feel aggrieved by this. Of course I felt sorry for Kent having to forfeit
>> but should another club be bumped down as a result? It was a real pity 
>> for
>> Kent but we've all seen our weekends stitched up by injuries to important
>> players before and during the tour weekends. But the order you finished
>> still stands I guess.
>>
>> As a result of this we had to battle our way out of the 17-24 bracked 
>> on a
>> three way tie and then win a cross over against 14th to get back into the
>> top 16. Had we started in 16th we could have lost all our games and still
>> had a cross over against 17th place to stay top 16. Plus we also 
>> missed the
>> chance to have a pop at the top 12 again. I know it's probably not a huge
>> deal in the big scheme of things, but I'm just not convinced that bumping
>> teams up is a good thing in what is our national tournament.
>>
>> I'd like to point out that in the end it all kind of worked out. Kent 
>> came
>> 12th (well done Kent!!!) and we battled our way into the plate final 
>> (which
>> is possibly where we would have ended up anyway) and finished 14th. 
>> However
>> it was a tough weekend with less room for error on our part. We could 
>> easily
>> have lost the three way tie and ended up much lower. This would have 
>> been a
>> pretty disappointing end to our season and then no one would have 
>> given my
>> argument any credence at all saying "oh well look where you finished
>> anyway!" I guess the point is where you start really affects where you
>> finish!
>>
>> I chatted to Si on Friday about this. There were reasons for the decision
>> and I understand that being flexible is vital to allowing the UKU to 
>> do what
>> they think is right in these situations. On top of this Felix puts 
>> more work
>> in than most of us realise to get schedule out and as a club we are 
>> hugely
>> grateful for all this effort. I just think that moving seeds on the 
>> basis of
>> bad luck/injuries/conjecture and so on is something I would argue 
>> against in
>> the future. I'm pretty sure Kent have been stitched up by it in the 
>> past as
>> well so sure they have had seen both ends of the argument. Just think 
>> most
>> of us would like this sort of thing not to happen, in general.
>>
>> Mid table mixed might not seem like the be all and end all, but for a 
>> club
>> like ours, who train through the winter and spring for tour, the 
>> chance to
>> play top 16 and have a go at the bigger teams is why we do it. With only
>> three tours this year it felt even tougher to miss out on that chance. We
>> just felt a little aggrieved by it all and so I'm sending this to 
>> raise the
>> point politely and continue the points made by Dave. Hope it came 
>> across in
>> the right way.
>>
>> Thanks to Hannah, Wigsy, Felix, Si, Benji and all the rest who put on 
>> such a
>> good weekend. We had a great time and appreciate the work put in to 
>> make it
>> happen. Well done on the sun. It was my first visit to Mansfield so I'll
>> assume the weather is always that good.
>>
>> Cheers.
>>
>> Dan.
>>
>> Berry7
>> Flaming Galahs.
>>
>> 2009/5/7 UKU Director of Competitions <doc at ukultimate.com>
>>
>>  
>>> This is a difficult issue, and one that the competitions committee 
>>> struggle
>>> with. There are no right answers - only two extreme viewpoints. One says
>>> that teams should have only and exactly the seeding they earn - this is
>>> 'fair', but results in some crappy tournaments, not just for the team 
>>> that
>>> are bumped down, but also for the teams they play against. There is 
>>> perhaps
>>> an issue, as you say, with the top 8 crossover being harder, but this is
>>> nothing compared to the harshness of somebody's top 16 crossover being a
>>> complete walkover, through no fault of their own. The more we punish 
>>> a team
>>> by giving a lower seeding, the more seriously (an)other team(s) get(s)
>>> punished also.
>>>
>>> The alternative view is that we seed everybody exactly where we feel 
>>> they
>>> should be. This creates tournaments in which the games are balanced 
>>> and fun
>>> (which is what we all play the game for, right?) but basically gives no
>>> reward for making the effort to turn up. Most people's sense of 
>>> fairness is
>>> offended by allowing teams to just waltz in, and furthermore, if we 
>>> allow it
>>> to become standard practice that you always get the seeding you deserve
>>> rather than the seeding you earn, then the difficulties facing the
>>> committees who decide seedings are just about insurmountable. Every team
>>> will need to be seeded at our discretion. Better, perhaps, a method 
>>> which is
>>> objective but unfair than one which tries to be fair but is 
>>> subjective. We
>>> all feel worse when someone decides we're seeded low than when an 
>>> objective
>>> rule, written to punish no particular team, seeds us low.
>>>
>>> The general consensus on the competitions committee is that we should 
>>> allow
>>> a small punishment of only 2-4 places for teams that miss an event 
>>> (though
>>> there are some people who would go with each of the extreme viewpoints
>>> above). In practice, we try not to insert more than one team into a 
>>> bracket,
>>> meaning that if you win your last game you'll hold bracket next time. 
>>> It's
>>> harsh if you're knocked down, but at least you played the team above 
>>> you -
>>> it's not just arbitrary that they stayed up and you didn't.
>>>
>>> If you've got a better suggestion, I'd be delighted to hear it.
>>>
>>> Regarding open tour, we specifically stated that you wouldn't be 
>>> seeded in
>>> the top 32 without either attending tour 0 or getting in touch with a 
>>> damned
>>> good reason why not. Due to a clash of T0 with Irish Mixed Nationals, 
>>> we're
>>> allowing the Irish to be seeded near the top of the B-tour for T1, 
>>> which is
>>> not all that different to the above situation with the mixed tour. No 
>>> other
>>> exceptions are planned, but even in the open tour we have to have a 
>>> little
>>> flexibility.
>>>
>>> Benji
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> David Povey wrote:
>>>
>>>    
>>>> BD,
>>>>  whilst i appreciate that at Mixed Tour 1 it did say in the captains 
>>>> pack
>>>> that finishing positions at the tournament didn't guarantee the same
>>>> position at Mixed Tour 2 i think it's harsh on those that did send a 
>>>> team to
>>>> seed a team that didn't play at that event in the top 16 at Mixed 
>>>> Tour 2.
>>>> This is in no way a dig at Leeds Loco but more highlighting the 
>>>> unfairness
>>>> of the situation.  For teams that compete in the middle rankings 
>>>> there is a
>>>> huge difference between starting at 16th and 17th place for the 
>>>> weekend.
>>>> Having worked hard and played well to get into the top 16 at Mixed 
>>>> Tour 1 it
>>>> seems harsh to be bumped back to 17th and instead of playing against 
>>>> teams
>>>> in the 9 - 16 bracket playing against teams in the 17 - 24 bracket. 
>>>> We all
>>>> play to improve and be challenged against the best and the reward of
>>>> breaking into the top 16 is just this. To be pushed down a bracket 
>>>> for a
>>>> team that didn't play at Mixed Tour 1 seems very unfair. Also to 
>>>> consider is
>>>> the team that was seeded 9th but is now 10th, their potential 
>>>> crossover up
>>>> to the top 8 is now against seed 7 rather than seed 8, a seemingly 
>>>> harder
>>>> game than they earnt from Mixed Tour 1.
>>>>  This is also something that would never happen in the Open Tour. 
>>>> Can you
>>>> imagine a team not playing Tour 0 or Tour 1 and then being seeded 
>>>> 9th for
>>>> the next event and pushing someone down into the B Tour? Surely a 
>>>> fairer
>>>> positioning would have been to come in at 17th? Why reward a team that
>>>> didn't attend Mixed Tour 1 with a position that teams played for and 
>>>> earnt
>>>> over a whole weekend? If they are good enough to be in the top 16 then
>>>> surely this will show over the course of Mixed Tour 2, something 
>>>> that the
>>>> teams at Mixed Tour 1 have already shown
>>>>  The Mixed division deserves the same level of respect that other
>>>> divisions have, currently the highest accolade the sport in this 
>>>> country has
>>>> is the GB World Games Squad - a mixed team. Surely to improve the 
>>>> division
>>>> it should be treated with the same rules as Open and Womens would be?
>>>>  As standard my views and not those of my team
>>>>  Dave Povey
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       
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