Seeding brackets by World Rankings

[Rick Stanziale]

I'm looking for opinions on doing away with qualifying and going straight to bracket racing based on the competitors World Ranking (http://www.slalomranking.com).

I think used in combination with a "ladder bracket" that allows winners to move up to the next bracket, that it just might work.

[Wesley Tucker]

My opinion is that it's not applicable.

If you use World Ranking seedings, then the race can ONLY be an invitational. If the race allows anyone to compete who can pay the registration fee, then qualifying is a must.

Not to dredge up old stuff, but the "seeding by rankings" stuff was used in 2002. Of course, the guys who lived out west and got to to to lots of FCR races had the best seeding position. If you were an East Coaster or European who got to make one trip to California out of the whole year of racing, you had to qualify on Friday.

Again, I'm not saying you must have qualifying and you can't have pre-determined seedings. You can't, though, have seedings and then encourage people to attend who have no world ranking points.

It's got to be one way or the other: Open registration for qualifying or Invitation only for seeding by points.

[Rick Stanziale]

In theory, I agree with Wes - in practice, I think it will work.

I'm going to use last years Red Clay Cup as an example, but I don't have time to do it right now.

Any other suggestions on speeding up qualifying are welcome.

[Hans Koraeus]

As long as finals are not ordinary head to head it can work. But it would not be good if you went to a competition to race one guy head to head and then you were out.

In the European championships in Stockholm we will use the World Ranking for GS and Qualifications. Lowest ranking starts first and then better and better racers will come until the last runs. This will not help with saving time but it will make things a lot more exciting for racers and audience. If doing qualifications in parallell courses it will hopefully make also the qualification runs more interesting.

[Rick Stanziale]

How about this:

One run in each lane to qualify and then we divide the racers according to their times in groups of 8 A/B/C/D

Instantly A will always be A group, B will always be B group, etc. etc.

D group then proceeds to each get another run in each lane to determine final standings (based on the final two runs, the "qualifying" times are separate & distinct)

the two fastest racers from D group then proceed to take another two runs with C group

the two fastest from that group move up to B

top two B move up to A

Comments?

It eliminates the need for bracketing software.

[Hans Koraeus]

So you are running parallel courses with individual timing. No real head to head then.

That system could work with a single course as well but of course you save some time running two people at the same time.

Everybody gets 4 runs (2 qual + 2 in bracket) except those managing to win bracket B, C and D who will get 6 runs.

[Pat Chewning]

I wanted to compare the total # of runs for each bracket system.

I used Rick's proposal of splitting into A,B,C,D groups after qualifying, then the best 2 people move up after each group is run. I call this the ABCD bracket.

I also used the traditional 32-man binary elimination bracket (after qualifying).

I also used a 3-run true ladder bracket (like we use in Cascade Slalom Grass Roots races).

Entering these into Excel, and then looking at the results gives this:

For "N" number of racers, you will need the following number of "runs" down the slalom course. These include all qualifying runs and all final runs:

N=16 ABCD=38 32-Bracket= 48 TrueLadder=64
N=24 ABCD=54 32-Bracket=72 TrueLadder=96
N=32 ABCD=70 32-Bracket=96 TrueLadder=128
N=48 ABCD=102 32-Bracket=112 TrueLadder=192
N=56 ABCD=118 32-Bracket=120 TrueLadder=224
N=64 ABCD=134 32-Bracket=128 TrueLadder=256

The general equation for ABCD bracket is 2N+6 Runs (1 Qual, 1 Bracket, 6 people move up)
The general equation for TrueLadder bracket is 4N Runs (1 Qual, 3 Ladders)
The general equation for 32-bracket is 3N for up to 32 racers, then 64+N for more than 32 racers.

Qualifying in all of the above cases accounts for "N" of the runs. So you could recalculate the number of runs if you wanted to eliminate the qualifying rounds like this:
ABCD = N+6
32-Bracket = 2N (Max up to 32 racers can qualify)
TrueLadder = 3N


So if you want to run a very time-limited race, pre-qualifying can cut the race time to 1/2 (for the ABCD system), to 2/3 (for the 32 Bracket system), or to 3/4 (for the TrueLadder system).

-- Pat

[Hans Koraeus]

The ability level is a problem when doing competitions. I know it beacuse when I started to enter some slalom competitions with Jani in the 90's I had to compete with him and all these other extreamly good riders as there where not enough beginners to have us separated. That was really depressing. And that is certainly not a good way to try and encourage new slalom skaters.

Since I have been in this situation I have thought a lot about how to make competitions just as fun for all levels of skaters entering it. Unless you need a different cours for newbies I have this idea...

1. Qualifiction (best of 2 runs)
Or with a functioning world ranking you could save a lot of time and skip the qualification all together and use the current ranking standing as is.

2. With the order decided you start the "Corky bracket system". What I don't like with the current bracket system is the 1 rank against 32 rank type races. This is no fun. Not for either of the skaters nor the audience.

Instead I imagine a bracket system where you divide the skaters into groups of 8. 1-8, 9-16, 17-24 a.s.o. This way you can have as many skaters as you like and will not be so attached to the 16, 32, 64 limit thinking. Then first out is the last 8 against the next last 8. The 8 winners take on the next group of 8. This until you come down to the last group 1-8 where the normal bracket system takes over and reduces them as normal.

This way everyone will have some fun/challenging racing since you will meet persons with simular ability.

This way there is also no need for an A and B (or C) groups.

What about that for a change!

Look what I found. I found the above when I was looking for the Hang man below...

THE HANG MAN

The main idea: Get a fun and challenging race for every skater entering whatever ability or skill they may have.

The main rule: If your are in the last group 2 times in a row you're out.

Here's how it goes...
1.
Everybody runs one! first run to get the "Race order". A disqualify run puts you last in that order.

2.
The last x skaters are taken out from the "Race order". They will now have a second chance to get back into the "Race order" again. This is done by beating the last result/time in the "Race order". Those who fail are out. Those who manage will get into the "Race order" again according to the new time they got.

3.
Point 2 is redone until you have only 4 racers left. "x" above can vary depending on how many racers there are in the race.

There are two interesting aspects of this that I want to point out explicitly:
A.
Imagine having 50 racers and one of the better ones makes a terrible start and finish 45 after the first run. When the last 8 racers (43-50) tries to get back into the game again our very good skater gets on a super run, the 5:th best of today. He is suddenly on fifth place and will not have to skate for little while. Good for him.
B: Imagine having 50 racers. All last 8 racers (43-50) manages to beat the 42:nd time and they all stay in the race. Now the last 8 skaters (43-50) in the new "Race order" skate again. They may again all beat the 42:nd time and they all stay in the race. This can go on for a while but sooner or later racers will drop off. We all have our limit. But the fight is there and you fight yourself and people with simular ability.

4.
The Semifinal. When only 4 racers are left in the "Race order" we do the semifinal. All 4 have 2 runs. The best 2 times in the "Race order" goes to the final.

5.
The final. The 2 finalists get 2 more runs. The best result in the "Race order" after that is the winner.


The fun thing with this is...
- There's no "safe runs" here. It's always in your own interest to give your max.
- It's just as fun if you are 8 or 100 people. For 100 you start with "last groups" of 8 or 10. For 8 you may want the "last groups" to be only 2.
- There's always a good fight against your "skill mates" but even more interesting, a fight against yourself to try and push your own limit.

[John Gilmour]

Hans,

I really like the idea of similarly paced racers racing together.

At one of my July 4th races I attempted to do something just like that.

A unexpected thing happened. In many of the events we found we were ending up with similar pairings. So for instance if I was paired with Terrence Kirby in the GS often we would see TK and I paired in the GS and so forth.

Slalom often works in pairs because people slalom together and what pushes one to become faster is having someone coming closer to beating you. So wee see great pairings Like Hester/Skoldberg, Piercy/Ryan, Sidler/Ridoli, Evans/Ransom etc.

So the odd thing is that you could travel a great distance and yet find yourself racing only your training partner. lol.....

Well it seemed to happen at my July 4th race...

and it is possible that it was just a fluke. So I think we should give this system another shot....after all,a few more years has gone by -and the racers are bunching up a lot closer in times.

So hopefully we would see many different combinations of racers racing close races. Which of course is what we were hoping for in the first place.



give give that an