Tournament Structure
For those of you who haven’t attended an EMA tournament it’s based on total score. There aren’t knockouts as in the World Series of Mahjong. But is it the best way?
I actually don’t pay attention to tournament structure much. I approach it like I did my exams, understand the criteria to succeed and then adjust my playing as best I can. I don’t really assess the rights and wrongs of the system.
Reading 0x23mahjong’s (drob) blog post (and the post that prompted his by TACOS – you can find the link on 0x23mahjong’s page) really opened my eyes.
Link here – http://0x23mahjong.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/ema-tournaments/
Read it yourself and you’ll find some very interesting commentary and I guess I’ve noticed the same thing myself subconsciously when I quickly hurry to check to see if I’ve been drawn against Sjef, my ultimate nemesis (and friend!).
To summarize the argument – if a good player gets “easier” tables to play, then the good player will win larger amounts of points compared to an excellent player who draws “harder” tables, receives fewer points and ultimately loses in the end rankings to the good player. 0x23mahjong argues that this isn’t fair.
I believe the crux of the issue is that there is still a large skill variation in the players that attend EMA tournaments, which means that this situation arises. If the players were organized into a league with levels, the extremes within each league would be minimal and “easy” tables would not be so much easier than “hard” tables so the results would not be affected so much.
However, we don’t have enough European players for a league yet. So what is to be done?
0x23mahjong seems to be quite a connoisseur of boardgames and tournament systems! He suggest that instead of keeping the points you won at the table, you should be awarded table points:
First place gets 10 points
Second place gets 7 points
Third place gets 4 points
Fourth place gets 1 point
The problem this system would pose is that some players would inevitably score the same points, especially in the limited number of tables played during an EMA tournament. 0x23mahjong suggests the Buchholz system. This system sums up the scores of the player’s opponents and favors those who have confronted better opponents.
It’s starting to sound horribly like an A-level maths problem to me right now. This suggestion does have some very sound logic to it though.
Is a change possible now though? On an individual level, a system change like this would effect how player’s approach tournaments. On the level of the EMA, would they have to discard the EMA ranking system scores that have been collected up until now to start this new system?
In the end, I think there will never be a perfect tournament system and each one will have its critics. I don’t think one system that works in one country will necessarily work in another. But I guess the question should be which system is the best fit for European mahjong.
I’m not sure of the answers to these questions. But please feel free to discuss in the forums. And big thanks to 0x23mahjong for his informative blog entry!
