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From: Robert Jasiek <jas...@snafu.de>
Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Subject: World Mind Sport Games 2012 Reverse Engineered Tournament System
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012 12:17:19 +0200
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http://wmsg2012.org/results/men

Let me try to reverse engineer part of the used tournament system of
the Men's Individual from its final result table:

- Players are required to play all rounds of the first stage. Seeded
players are required to play all rounds.
- The first stage is a 5 rounds McMahon bands system. The second stage
is a KO for four players with a game for place 3.
- The bands are 7d-5d (initial MMS 3, 41 players), 4d-3d (MMS 2, 17
players), 2d (MMS 1, 11 players), 1d-16k (MMS 0, 9 players). (Total 78
players. Note: 41 players in the top group is a possible number for 5
rounds to distinguish between places 4 and 5 by means of tiebreakers.)
- The final placement criteria are MMS - Wins - SOS - SOSOS. (Notes:
As the tied places indicate, there is no apparent further tiebreaker
after SOSOS; but how would a tie on place 4 have been broken?! This
system gives initial MMS 2 players, i.e. 3d or 4d, the chance to
qualify to the KO by winning all 5 games against on expected average
tournament-weaker opponents than the qualifying initial MMS 3 players.
Very interesting idea. However, unfortunately, initial MMS 0 or 1
players have no principle chance to qualify. The randomiser SOS -
SOSOS determined places 4 and 5 indeed.)

It is very unfortunate that the tournament system has to be reverse
engineered and has not been published for everybody before the
tournament start.