DefinitionSeeding:
- To arrange (the drawing for positions in a tournament) so that the more skilled contestants meet in the later rounds.
- To rank (a contestant) in this way.
SourceWhy?This algorithm is a simple method to seed teams for a tournament.
For smaller scale tournaments, you can just randomly match teams against each other to ensure fairness, as it is commonly used until now. However, we see that for large-scale tournaments, random allocation is not favourable because you might end up with very strong matchups before the finals. Example: Eriror vs bonkura in the 4th round of the WPS07. Of course, that is not a team-spinning tournament so the following seeding strategy cannot apply.
The StrategyVery simple.
Before the tournament rounds begins, we have a preliminary "round 0" which we will call the
Seeding Round. This is the round that will determine how the teams are matched against each other.
If each team has less spinners than the number of teams - 1, then all spinners must participate in round 0. Otherwise, we take only (number of teams - 1) spinners for each team.
Examples:
- 5 teams, 7 spinners each. We take 4 spinners for each team.
- 8 teams, 9 spinners each. We take 7 spinners for each team.
- 16 teams, 8 spinners each. We take 8 spinners for each team.
Round 0 must be a fast round, because it's only to decide seeding. Therefore, everybody is going to submit their videos at the same time with a short deadline (say, 2 weeks).
At beginning of the round, you ask the manager of each team to dress the lineup of their team. They must insert a spinner into each slot as determined above.
You then assemble the pool of spinners at each slot of each team. You will have a pool of spinners in the A slot by every team, then pool B, etc...
The spinners in each pool will compete against each other. They all submit one video.
The judges then select the top 3 spinners for every pool. The judging system to decide that would probably be a lot less rigorous to speed up the process, since it's "only" the seeding.
4 points is awarded for the first place, 2 points for the second place, 1 point for the 3rd place, 0 otherwise.
We then compute the sum of the points awarded to each team from all spinners of all pools, and dress rankings of the top teams. This ranking becomes the seed of each team.
If two teams have the same number of points, the tie breaker is to look at number of 1st place finishes, then 2nd place finishes, then 3rd place finishes. If the tie still persists, we look at where those points are awarded. Priority is given to points awarded in low-numbered pools. Thus, a 1rst place in pool "A" is worth more than a 1rst place in pool "D".
Furthermore, we divide the team ranking into two halfs. The top half will be considered seeded, and the bottom half is considered "unseeded".
When we make the matchups for the tournament, we always try to match seeded teams with unseeded teams. The higher the team is seeded, the more priority does it have to get a favourable matchup. In each round, we evaluate the teams remaining and compute the seeded matchups. This is similar to what you might see in the NBA or the NHL. If there are multiple unseeded to choose from, choose arbitrarily.
Alternative: Starting from the top, seeded teams can SELECT their opponent.