Loved the idea of awarding prizes based on swiss standings, I knew there was a reason for Scott being a Level 5 :lol:

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Award product prizes based on final Swiss standings. Then, ask each of the top finishers (starting with #1) if they want to play for the byes / invite / other non-splittable prize. Drop anyone that says “No”, and once you have 8 who said “Yes”, you've got your Top 8. No more prize sharing or splitting discussions can occur, as there's nothing left to split.

Are you suggesting we allow people not in the top 8 after swiss to play in the Top 8 if they are one of the top 8 finishers who want the byes (or whatever non-split-able prize?

Intriguing idea of basing prizes only on swiss.

Also, are byes given at GPTs considered a “prize?”
I can see why they are, but the TO isn't giving them out, so I could also understand them not being a “prize.”

Thanks

Yes; yes/no/kinda. (heh)

Yes, you drop people who have no interest in playing for the non-splittable awards - byes, PT invite, etc.

Yes, byes are a prize, but they aren't something that can be split, nor can any value be associated with them for the purpose of dividing, splitting, etc.

So if I resume this quickly, the best would be to let the Top 8 split their booster/store credit prizes evenly between them then find the first eight players in all the tournaments that want to battle for the byes, going from first to last position of the final score?

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Award product prizes based on final Swiss standings. Then, ask each of the top finishers (starting with #1) if they want to play for the byes / invite / other non-splittable prize. Drop anyone that says “No”, and once you have 8 who said “Yes”, you've got your Top 8. No more prize sharing or splitting discussions can occur, as there's nothing left to split.

I have run events for some TOs who didn't like to award prizes and then cut to the Top8 players interested in the byes/invite. “Top8” doesn't mean anything when 25th place gets to play it out against 28th place in the finals … of a 30 player event. Those TOs would cut to the Top8 players and then award prizes. Anyone not interested in byes could drop once they received their prizes (and would do so most of the time).

More or less, yes. If you give out prizes after the Swiss before the cut, then there need not even be any split. After all, the prizes are already given out. Now, anyone who is dropping can drop and not play anymore. So, a split may not even be in the question anymore. Then, after all leave who wish to leave, you can cut.

Sometimes this will mean you do not even have eight left. That is okay.

Originally posted by Julien de Graat:

I have run events for some TOs who didn't like to award prizes and then cut to the Top8 players interested in the byes/invite. “Top8” doesn't mean anything when 25th place gets to play it out against 28th place in the finals … of a 30 player event. Those TOs would cut to the Top8 players and then award prizes. Anyone not interested in byes could drop once they received their prizes (and would do so most of the time).

I would try very hard to have a good discussion with these TO's. Remind them that players should be allowed to drop at any time and that a player who wishes to play for Byes is as legitimate as one who wishes to play just for prizes. Also, if a cut creates the type of situation which started this thread, the legitimacy of the Top 8 is even less than what the TO wishes because of the farce of the matches that would or would not result. Indeed a player who plays to win in a Top 8 because he or she wishes to get to the Byes is far more meaningful than one who is there just to make sure the other prizes are won and cares little to nothing about the result.

Originally posted by Samuel Tremblay:

the best would be to let the Top 8 split their booster/store credit prizes evenly

No.

I would reward 1st place - esp. if they finish X-0 - with more prize support than 2nd, etc. I just divide number of packs by number of match points earned by the Top N players (N being the number that earn prize, usually X-2 or better); that gives you a ratio of packs per point. Multiply that by each players' points, round as necessary to make the math work, and you've accomplished a fair distribution.

Julien de Graat
“Top8” doesn't mean anything when 25th place gets to play it out against 28th place in the finals

The lowest places I ever saw in Top 8 was 9th or 10th. That 25th vs. 28th is a crazy extrapolation of worst-case, unfounded fears, and - of course - something that happened, once, somewhere in the world. It just doesn't work out that way, Julien - players are drawn by the ultimate prize, more often than not, and it's more common to have all of the Top 8 choose to play, than to have one drop out.

Seriously, folks - it's not just an interesting theory - it's a Best Practice that a lot of organizers have used, to their own benefit as well as that of the players and judges.

I can second Scott's assertion. I have not yet seen a player drop out of
the Top 8 rather than play it, AFTER being guaranteed prize based on Swiss
standing.

The one addendum I would make is to make sure to announce to the players
that this is the prize distribution you are using. I have generally tried
to make this announcement several times over the course of the tournament,
most especially going into the last round, as it may affect players'
decisions to draw/play it out. I have never heard any complaints about
this system from players, and I don't recall seeing any concessions in the
Top 8.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

I just divide number of packs by number of match points earned by the Top N players (N being the number that earn prize, usually X-2 or better); that gives you a ratio of packs per point. Multiply that by each players' points, round as necessary to make the math work, and you've accomplished a fair distribution.

This is what I've been trying to get at with my pack distribution algorithms but I couldn't figure it out! Thanks for sharing that so I can shave a few months off figuring it out ;)

@Uncle Scott: Interesting ideas. Some rebuttal:

1) If we give prizes according to final standings rather than Top 8 placement, is it not a reasonable statement to say that we are not sufficiently rewarding the best-performing players? Like, in that case, it's possible that the guy who loses in the quarterfinals gets a better prize than the guy who plaes 2nd. Not sure if this is an intended side effect of your suggestion, but it's not something that players are used to, and I can see complaints coming from this. It also makes Top 8 prizes a lot harder to justify if, say, 9th-10th lose out on breakers rather than record or something.

2) We are not allowed to assign value to the byes? This is news to me. Basically you have this thing that you give to someone based on a tournament result, which obviously has value (no specified monetary value, but the players are paying entry fees into a tournament for the purpose of attaining them so obviously the players think it has value, not to mention the fact that a player with byes is much more likely to do well at a GP than a player without byes), is not considered a “prize” and is not allowed to be any part of prize split? I don't think I've ever heard of anything that was given as an award for tournament performance which was not considered a “prize”. In fact, courtesy of dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prize?s=t&path=/)

prize1 noun

1. a reward for victory or superiority, as in a contest or competition.
…
3. anything striven for, worth striving for, or much valued.
…

I'm pretty sure GP byes fall into both of these categories. Not calling GP byes prizes is highly counterintuitive to all except those intimately familiar with the minutiae of the MTR/IPG.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

2) We are not allowed to assign value to the byes?

Read Scott's full sentence again.

Scott Marshall
Yes, byes are a prize, but they aren't something that can be split, nor can any value be associated with them for the purpose of dividing, splitting, etc.

He's saying that you cannot “assign a value” like “two byes are worth the same as 10 boosters” and then work out a split where one player gets the byes and 5 boosters, and the other players get 15 boosters.

Lyle, your rebuttal is directed at things I never said… :)

Note that I said I usually gave prize to X-2 or better - that is normally well beyond Top 8, and generally works out to around 15% of the players - which is a pretty good rule of thumb. Finish in the top 15-20% of an event, get some prize for doing so? Yep, seems very fair.

Also, you are rewarding the top-performing players. The person who goes X-0, finishing the Swiss in 1st place, can easily lose to a randomly bad matchup, or mana issues, in the Top 8; does that mean the 8th seed that wins that first match in such fashion outperformed the player who won every round in the Swiss? Sure, it's cause for debate, but I think you'll see my point.

And the philosophy about not assigning value to byes, invites, travel awards, is one of those long-standing “rules” that hasn't been added to the official documents - thus, “news to {you}”. I'm sure I'm not the only one who often forgets that not everyone has been reading every Judge-L and forum post for ~15 years… :)