posted on Jan, 30 2009 @ 06:44 PM
Attention
MemoryShock and I have been discussing the high level of interest in this tournament and how to handle this many people, and several options are
before us. We'd like to get some input from all of you who intend to participate.
The initial plan was a 24 person tournament- a 16 person "wild card round" and 8 more with first round byes. Meaning there would be 8 matches in the
first round, 8 matches in the second, then 4 matches, 2 matches, and finally one match for the championship.
But if we do it that way, the bracket is already full and then some- we will almost certainly end up with only ranked fighters in the tournament in
that case.
The other option is to have a championship tournament and a lesser tournament.
In case, we would hold a 16 bracket tournament for members with rankings of 4 or higher, and another 16 bracket tournament for members with rankings
of under 4, including new fighters.
If we take that second option, we can include more people, and lower ranked fighters will be afforded a chance to gain more experience and rack up
significant boosts to their ranking (tournaments are seeded, so if we only have one tournament, the lowest ranked fighters will face the highest
ranked ones in the first two rounds), which I think makes for a generally more competitive Debate Forum. We also wouldn't have to award first round
byes if we did it that way.
The drawback to that option is that the members in the lower ranked tournament would not have any chance of winning the championship because they
wouldn't be in the championship tournament. So if you are ranked less than 4 and you want to be in the championship tournament, that would mean that
you'd have to challenge somebody and beat them out of their spot.
If we do two tournaments, we will probably have different ranking values for each tournament.
The championship tournament would be worth 2 points a round, while the lower tournament would be worth 3 points a round.
Thus the winner of the championship tournament will gain 10 points and the winner of the lower tournament will gain 15. This means that if an underdog
won the championship, the winner of the lower tournament might be able to get a title shot almost right away. It would also create several other
reasonably well ranked newcomers who could stir some more competition at the lower end of the ladder.
So, which way should we go?