James,
In short - it varies. There is a tendency to more open schedules at the
start of the year, so that any of 16 or even 32 can win, heading towards
perhaps only-top-8-seeds-can-win at the last event. It's not set in
stone though.
Really, there are very few hard and fast rules. We just look at the
number of teams, the number of pitches, and the kind of tournament we
want to run, and then adjust accordingly.
For example - the preference for this weekend (MT2) would be to have a
top 16, a middle 16, and a bottom everyone-else, but with 43 teams a
bottom 11 is unpleasant. It can't be pools of 6&5 (too many games) and
it can't be pools of 3,3,3,2 (too few games, at least for the 'pool' of
2). Odd numbers of pools (e.g. 4,4,3) make it very tricky to go into
brackets of 8 after pools or to cross over with the section above (which
would be 4 pools of 4) - from some pools only one team would get a
crossover, while from another pool 2 teams would, which is obviously
unfair.
So it looks like being a top 8, a middle 16, and a bottom 19 (as
5,5,5,4). We'd have a top 16 if we had 42 or 44 teams, but at 43 it just
doesn't work, so only the top 8 can win. That should give a clue how few
rules we can give you to help with writing schedules - it's just
naturally complicated.
A few rules we do have though:
Nobody plays 3 in a row.
We encourage 2-in-a-row in many circumstances, so that teams don't have
to warm up and down so much - most particularly if they're playing a
number of shorter games.
We spend some time making sure that back-to-back games happen on the
same pitch or the one next door.
All teams should have a roughly similar number of games.
A rested team shouldn't play an unrested team unless absolutely
unavoidable - usually because there aren't as many pitches as we'd like.
The game orders in pools are set so that the most important game happens
after a break (i.e. not second in a 2-in-a-row) and as late as possible
(so last pool game, or second to last if they're back-to-back)
There is a UPA format manual you can find online which can give you some
tips, but they tend not to focus on what happens to teams after they've
been knocked out (some teams play far fewer games than others), and they
don't worry about avoiding 3-in-a-row too much either, so quite
different from UK schedules.
The standard schedule, if we have a nice number of teams, is either:
pools of 4 -> crossover -> brackets of 8 (7 games for some teams)
or pools of 4 -> /off-set/ brackets of 8
(i.e 5-12, rather than 1-8 brackets)
which is 6 games (5 for the semi-finalists).
But like I said, adjusting these for different numbers of teams isn't
trivial.
Hope that helps. Get in touch if there's anything specific I can help with.
Ta,
Benji
On 13/04/2011 14:07, James M wrote:
Hi Brit Disc,
I was hoping someone could help out with a decent explanation of how the UK
tournament schedule works. I recently looked over one of the MT 2010
schedules to use as a guide for setting up a tournament system in my
country, but I would like clarity on the pattern/system involved so that I
can adjust for smaller number of teams (eg. 10-13) and much smaller field
space (eg. 3-4 pitches).
Clearly the systems works since I have attended a few Tours while in the UK,
and avoids having teams play more than 3 games per day but still with a
clear result in the standings at the end of it. Am I correct in assuming
that any team outside of the top 8 going into the tournament don't have a
shot at the Finals?
Look forward to getting some input or advice.
James
__________________________________________________
BritDisc mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc
Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
--
Ben Heywood
Director of Ultimate, University of St Andrews
Director of Competitions, UK Ultimate
www.ukultimate.com
__________________________________________________
BritDisc mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc
Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
