Banded Tournaments Tweak

Tournament bands are now calculated from a distribution of the actual player tournament entry ratings. This should result in all players having an equal chance of entering a tournament, and tournaments in the same series starting at similar times.

This could be a negative change for players who are in the tails of the ratings distribution, as these bands will necessarily get larger the further out on the tails. Likewise, in the middle of the ratings distribution, we will get multiple tournaments created that cover band ranges that really have no practical difference in terms of actual skill level. As mentioned in the site FAQ, a cool thing about the ratings as calculated is that a numerical difference in rating has the same meaning in terms of win probability at any rating level. So, having wider tournament bands at the ends of the spectrum forces games between players with significantly larger differences in skill level, which defeats the purposing of banding to some extent.

Assuming this new banding is here to say, could you please consider rounding the ratings of these averaged bands to nice numbers, like 0/25/50/75 or, if not that, at least 10's? Seeing "Mini Duel II 1683-1752" as a current tournament option seems a little weird to me. I'd almost hate to win a tournament with such a name and have it permanently recorded on my profile page! (Maybe that is just me?) 🙂

I'd have to differ on just about every point.
I'm in an end group (the bottom-feeders) that never had a choice of available tournaments/opponents before now. I've just been able to sign up to one of two available tourneys which already have different names in them.
The varying band numbers give me a chance to get new opponents, not the same old bunch over and over and over.
As far as the names go, club tournaments get far weirder names and nobody seems to care. Incidentally, the tournament names on your current profile are about as meaningless as they come. 🙂

I'm 100% in favour of this tweak. Thanks Russ.

Originally posted by Russ
Tournament bands are now calculated from a distribution of the actual player tournament entry ratings. This should result in all players having an equal chance of entering a tournament, and tournaments in the same series starting at similar times.

Good to see the admins acting on requests and forum posts whether it works or otherwise.
There's only the clan system to sort out now Russ
Best of luck!!

Originally posted by venda
Good to see the admins acting on requests and forum posts whether it works or otherwise.
There's only the clan system to sort out now Russ
Best of luck!!

Well said.
The banded tournaments needed tweaking, and the admins have been good enough to tweak it.
I think it's an improvement.
If it should prove to be otherwise, just tweak it some more!

Originally posted by gedwin
[bAssuming this new banding is here to say, could you please consider rounding the ratings of these averaged bands to nice numbers[/b]

Yes, rounded up to nearest five now. It was a little ugly previously.

I don't see the point of the tournaments that have 2999 as a top rating limit?! I would like to see something more reasonable like 2000. You could always set up other tournaments for 2200+ ratings but I imagine most players don't wish to enter tournaments they only have a snowball's chance in hell of winning!

I don't wish to beat a dead horse nor to seem ungrateful to site admins attempting to be responsive. But, I wanted to follow-up my first post above with a specific example of a tournament I just started in, which browsing through the tournament listings seems to be reasonably representative:
Tournament 24742

This particular tournament is listed as 1565-1740. But the actual entrants are 4 players in the 1400s or lower, 10 in the 1500s, 3 in the 1600s and 1 in 1700s. The median entry level is 1580, just a few points above the "minimum" entry, and the overall range is 474 points. I realize some of this may have to do with our tournament entry calculations, which are a necessary evil to combat sand bagging (but I would also argue that the newly expanded band ranges amplify the effect of the Tournament Entry rating penalty on the overall tournament pool).

The point I made above and am trying to illustrate practically here is that the new band calculations must necessarily skew the band size for tournaments at different rating levels. Tournaments nearer the middle of our site player population will be narrower band limits, and tournaments at the lower and higher ratings levels will have to be more broad rating limits. In my opinion, a band spread of 200+ points is too large to achieve the aims of a banded tournament, which is to group together players of comparable level. (200 points represents a win expectancy of ~75% for the higher rated player, as per the site FAQ.)

In this particular tournament, I stand to benefit being the upper rated player, but my point is the same wherever a player may fall. I would not wish to be at the lower end entering a banded tournament full of 1800's and 1900's either, just like I wouldn't want an "easy" path. When I want a general tournament, then I can enter one (which I do time-to-time) and enjoy the variability in randomly assigned appointments of all skill levels. However, in my opinion, the purpose of a BANDED tournament is to group similar players so that most games are balanced and entrants have a realistic shot of winning overall, and I think the new system does not do that as well as the old system.

I'll acknowledge that no system will meet all needs, and I can understand (and relate to) complaints about some tournaments filling up slowly (or never). So, there are trade-offs to be made and likely there is no "perfect" solution available.

Originally posted by gedwin
I don't wish to beat a dead horse nor to seem ungrateful to site admins attempting to be responsive. But, I wanted to follow-up my first post above with a specific example of a tournament I just started in, which browsing through the tournament listings seems to be reasonably representative:
Tournament 24742

This particular tournament is listed as 1565-1 ...[text shortened]... ever). So, there are trade-offs to be made and likely there is no "perfect" solution available.

I have one question regarding this "tweak".

Will this make it more likely or less likely for people who manipulate their rating to enter two bands of the very same tournament? This has been happening for some time now and it is very discouraging.