Thanks Benji and others with direct responses. The UPA manual is helpful in some ways, but I have been intrigued by the system used in the UK. I can't claim that I have it completely sorted in my head but its certainly clearer than before. The collective of responses has been really good, so thank you to everyone who replied.
James On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 6:51 PM, UKU Director of Competitions < [email protected]> wrote: > 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 > __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
