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02-20-19 11:17PM
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Harvey Hacksmasher

 

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A modest proposal for the Scotties/Brier championship pool

Apologies if this has already been suggested elsewhere...

Under the current Scotties and Brier formats, teams that qualify for the championship pool carry forward their full records from initial pool play. Their wins and losses in the championship pool are then added to their initial records to arrive at the final records that are compared to determine who makes the playoffs. Since the teams were originally split into two independent pools, the teams' final records do not reflect play against a slate of common opponents. Half of the teams in the championship pool played four games against teams that the other half did not play, and vice versa. Yet each teams' 11-game record is compared straight-up against the others for purposes of playoff qualification. This strikes me as potentially unfair, giving teams from a pool with a weaker bottom-four an advantage over teams from a pool with a stronger bottom-four.

I propose that the teams that qualify for the championship pool should only carry forward their records against the other three teams that qualified from their pool. This would serve to mitigate any imbalance between the quality of the teams in the two original pools. It would also create a 'pure' round robin where the only records being compared for the playoffs are the records against the other 7 teams in the championship pool - unskewed by results against teams that not everybody played. This would yield a more apples-to-apples comparison and put a greater emphasis on results against the top teams at the event.

Thoughts?

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02-21-19 08:39AM
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The issue with your proposal is that it is well thought out, makes a ton of sense and would be the most judicious way to do it.

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02-21-19 01:12PM
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Couldn’t be adopted, too much common sense.

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02-21-19 06:22PM
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Great suggestion. Unfortunately Kathleen Henderson CEO of Curl Canada will never read it, doesn't understand the problem and relies on her "staff" who know less than she does about curling and the B of D? Forget them. Their main concern is making sure that they look good in their red jackets.

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02-21-19 07:26PM
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FollowingAlong
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You can't look at this with simply the cross-over games in mind and the teams who make the championship pool. If a team makes it to championship pool with losses to a team or teams who don't make it to the championship pool, all other teams from that same pool who beat those non qualifying teams are, to an extent, penalized for those wins.

A win is a win; a loss is a loss. You still have to perform well in the championship pool regardless and sub .500 in either pool play or championship round play will likely keep you out of the playoffs no matter what.

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02-21-19 10:27PM
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quote:
Originally posted by FollowingAlong
You can't look at this with simply the cross-over games in mind and the teams who make the championship pool. If a team makes it to championship pool with losses to a team or teams who don't make it to the championship pool, all other teams from that same pool who beat those non qualifying teams are, to an extent, penalized for those wins.

A win is a win; a loss is a loss. You still have to perform well in the championship pool regardless and sub .500 in either pool play or championship round play will likely keep you out of the playoffs no matter what.



This is bang on. You can't eliminate victories in a round robin format.

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02-22-19 01:32AM
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Harvey Hacksmasher

 

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quote:
Originally posted by prairie guy


This is bang on. You can't eliminate victories in a round robin format.



But it isn't a true round robin because all 16 teams don't play each other. You could just as easily say "in a round robin format, you can't ADD victories against teams that aren't in that round robin". The championship pool is essentially the completion of a round robin amongst the top 8 teams, but then we mess it up by including the results against teams that aren't a part of that round robin. Inasmuch as the 8 remaining teams have not all played the same opponents, the cumulative records are not directly comparable, and "strength of schedule" plays a role that it would not otherwise play in a true round robin. My proposal eliminates the strength of schedule component and puts the final emphasis on rewarding victories over the best teams rather than penalizing losses to "lesser" teams that may vary in quality from pool to pool. The teams still had better beat most if not all of those lesser teams if they want to advance out of their original pools.

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02-22-19 08:42AM
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quote:
Originally posted by NOLA_Curler


But it isn't a true round robin because all 16 teams don't play each other. You could just as easily say "in a round robin format, you can't ADD victories against teams that aren't in that round robin". The championship pool is essentially the completion of a round robin amongst the top 8 teams, but then we mess it up by including the results against teams that aren't a part of that round robin. Inasmuch as the 8 remaining teams have not all played the same opponents, the cumulative records are not directly comparable, and "strength of schedule" plays a role that it would not otherwise play in a true round robin. My proposal eliminates the strength of schedule component and puts the final emphasis on rewarding victories over the best teams rather than penalizing losses to "lesser" teams that may vary in quality from pool to pool. The teams still had better beat most if not all of those lesser teams if they want to advance out of their original pools.



You know if you keep posting these thoughtful and spot on comments you may get banned.

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02-22-19 06:02PM
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This proposal would create truly meaningless games near the end of the initial pool play round robin, where a qualifying team plays a non qualifier the teams could shake after throwing one rock and hit the patch because the result has no meaning. Not a good look for a national championship I’d say.

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02-23-19 08:08AM
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I think the proposal slightly improves the current format.

I do think it is funny to focus on the recordkeeping format being slightly unfair when the local qualification process for these teams is by far the greater source of unfairness. And this is how we end up with a tournament where 4-6 teams have a 0.0000% chance of winning it.

The best Canadian tournaments are always the Olympic trials. Every 12-2 game is a painful reminder of that.

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02-24-19 06:17PM
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Re: A modest proposal for the Scotties/Brier championship pool

quote:
Originally posted by NOLA_Curler
Apologies if this has already been suggested elsewhere...

Under the current Scotties and Brier formats, teams that qualify for the championship pool carry forward their full records from initial pool play. Their wins and losses in the championship pool are then added to their initial records to arrive at the final records that are compared to determine who makes the playoffs. Since the teams were originally split into two independent pools, the teams' final records do not reflect play against a slate of common opponents. Half of the teams in the championship pool played four games against teams that the other half did not play, and vice versa. Yet each teams' 11-game record is compared straight-up against the others for purposes of playoff qualification. This strikes me as potentially unfair, giving teams from a pool with a weaker bottom-four an advantage over teams from a pool with a stronger bottom-four.

I propose that the teams that qualify for the championship pool should only carry forward their records against the other three teams that qualified from their pool. This would serve to mitigate any imbalance between the quality of the teams in the two original pools. It would also create a 'pure' round robin where the only records being compared for the playoffs are the records against the other 7 teams in the championship pool - unskewed by results against teams that not everybody played. This would yield a more apples-to-apples comparison and put a greater emphasis on results against the top teams at the event.

Thoughts?



Here are the standings under the current format:

AB - 9-2
SK - 8-3
ON - 8-3
NO - 8-3
WC - 7-4
CA - 6-5
PE - 6-5
BC - 5-6

Here are the standings under your proposal:

AB - 5-2
SK - 5-2
ON - 5-2
NO - 4-3
WC - 3-4
CA - 3-4
PE - 2-5
BC - 1-6

For the 2018 Scotties the results are:

WC - 9-2 (5-2)
MB - 9-2 (5-2)
NS - 9-2 (5-2)
NO - 8-3 (5-2)
AB - 7-4 (4-3)
CA - 6-5 (2-5)
BC - 4-7 (1-6)
ON - 4-7 (1-6)

I'm not sure you've solved anything. The standings would be the exact same under both scenarios in 2018 and 2019.

Since the pools are split based on seeding, and are distributed based on a snake format, there shouldn't be a distinct disadvantage for either pool.

BC (Wark) got into the championship pool with a 4-3 record. All four of their wins came against teams that didn't make the playoffs. All three losses were against teams that advanced. So if you take away her wins, Wark is at 0-3 going into the championship pool. AB went 7-0 in the pool play, and if you take away her non playoff team victories, she is 3-0. If BC goes 4-0 they are now 4-3 and if AB goes 2-2, they are 5-2. In the current format, and those results AB is 9-2 and BC is 8-3. You're in the same situation. I really don't think your proposal does anything.

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02-24-19 09:05PM
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Thanks for the analysis Squiggsy. I was thinking of doing something similar myself just because I was curious. But I did not have the energy that you did. It did confirm what I was thinking.

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02-27-19 09:39PM
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Re: A modest proposal for the Scotties/Brier championship pool

quote:
Originally posted by NOLA_Curler
Apologies if this has already been suggested elsewhere...

Under the current Scotties and Brier formats, teams that qualify for the championship pool carry forward their full records from initial pool play. Their wins and losses in the championship pool are then added to their initial records to arrive at the final records that are compared to determine who makes the playoffs. Since the teams were originally split into two independent pools, the teams' final records do not reflect play against a slate of common opponents. Half of the teams in the championship pool played four games against teams that the other half did not play, and vice versa. Yet each teams' 11-game record is compared straight-up against the others for purposes of playoff qualification. This strikes me as potentially unfair, giving teams from a pool with a weaker bottom-four an advantage over teams from a pool with a stronger bottom-four.

I propose that the teams that qualify for the championship pool should only carry forward their records against the other three teams that qualified from their pool. This would serve to mitigate any imbalance between the quality of the teams in the two original pools. It would also create a 'pure' round robin where the only records being compared for the playoffs are the records against the other 7 teams in the championship pool - unskewed by results against teams that not everybody played. This would yield a more apples-to-apples comparison and put a greater emphasis on results against the top teams at the event.

Thoughts?



Your modest proposal would appear to make sense until you understand that a one-sided, unbalanced pool distribution can never be negated and only partially mitigated.

Squiggsy's analysis presumes that "since the pools are split based on seeding and distributed based on a snake format, there shouldn't be a distinct disadvantage to either pool."

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth or reality especially considering what has taken place since last September. The advantages and disadvantages can be humongous.

I have not retained my notes from events in October and November. But I do remember that in the Autumn Gold event, for example, that there were three pools, headed up by Homan, Einarson and Jones. In order to reach the QF's Homan and Einarson each had to defeat teams who had an OOM total of about 180 points whereas Jones only had to defeat teams whose OOM's totalled nearly 400. Talk about skewed, one-sided, unbalanced and unfair!

So before attempting to determine what teams should qualify for the QF's or Championship round and what W/L record or points should be carried forward, it would be worthwhile to first ensure that the pools are actually balanced; otherwise the whole exercise becomes meaningless.

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03-02-19 06:37PM
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Re: Re: A modest proposal for the Scotties/Brier championship pool

quote:
Originally posted by Deliverer


Squiggsy's analysis presumes that "since the pools are split based on seeding and distributed based on a snake format, there shouldn't be a distinct disadvantage to either pool."

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth or reality especially considering what has taken place since last September. The advantages and disadvantages can be humongous.



Nothing could be further from the truth? Besides the hyperbole, you're incorrect. In a three pool event, there are way more opportunities to have mismatched draws. In a 2 pool snake event, it becomes highly unlikely. Let's look at the most recent Scottie's.

Both pools had a team without 0 OOM points (points from now on). Both pools had a team with just under 4 points. Both pools had a team near 60 points, 70 points, and 95 points.

Pool A had 248 more points than Pool B. This is almost wholly from Homan having 513 points and Jones being #2 with 335 points, 178 behind.

You're not going to see ON, CA, AB, WC, and MB in the same pool (or whoever the top 5 teams are), where only 4 of these can get out. There were 6 teams in the top 13. They were evenly split between pools. There were two teams in the 40s and they were evenly split. There were 4 teams ranked 53-68, and guess what, they were also evenly split. Do you see a pattern here? There were two teams ranked 212 and 223 that were evenly split, and two teams that were unranked, once again, evenly split.

A snake draw negates having one pool significantly stronger than the other, and they can always fix it if need be. Just because something happened in the Autumn Gold, that has a different format, different amount of teams, different type of teams, and different purpose, doesn't mean it equates to the Scottie's or Brier.

The WC team was slotted in as the 3 seed, but actually had the 5th most OOM points. In a true snake format WC and AB should have switched pools. It doesn't matter for this discussion, but I thought I'd point it out.

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03-03-19 11:16AM
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I agree with your detailed analysis and conclusion regarding the 2019 Scotties. I had no problem with the pool distribution when it was first published and I don't have any now.

What I was referring to in my blurb dated 02/27/19 ,however, had nothing whatsoever to do with the 2019 Scotties. Specifically it referred to numerous events which took place in September and November, 2018, one of which was the Autumn Gold Classic. This event, like several others, clearly indicated - to me at least - that if the pool split/distribution was incorrect huge team advantages/disadvantages are inevitable and even guaranteed.

While it is obvious that it will be somewhat more difficult to administer a 32 team, 3 pool event -V- a 10 team, two pool event, that should never never result in what you call "mismanaged draws." Should that occur, it can only be attributable to administrative incompetence and ineptness.

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M: USA Curling Junior National Championships
Eau Claire, WI
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Draw: M6 -- Thu, Mar 28 -- 12:00pm CT
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Rose (9) Watch Live Curling!
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