Situation: auto poly tournaments match players in the first round purely based on current ranking. Top rank plays bottom ranked, 2nd top plays 2nd bottom etc.
After that, it is seeded by score in previous round.
Problem: This gives high ranked players an astronomical advantage over mid and low ranked players, as they will always play the lowest ranked players in early rounds... which in turn means their score is usually high and they are much more likely to play lower ranked players in the later rounds.
The other side is that when a lower ranked players enter a tournament, they will always be up against one of the best players on the site in round 1, and will generally lose 5-0, or at best snag one win and go down 4-1. This just isn't good for morale of the tournaments. It is better for lower players to have a fair shot at drawing a mid level player, and possibly sneaking through with a 3-2 upset.
This problem increases with setups such as "poly slam" which gives points based on cumulative score, not round by round. The top ranked player may have had to play someone with a ranking of 800 in round 1, then 1500 in round 2, and will often have a record of 9 or 10 wins out of 10. A player with a ranking of say 2200 will have played another 2200 ranking in round 1, then a 2500 in round 2, and will have fought a hard battle to sit with a record of 6 or 7 out of 10. The top ranked player may well have walked out of those games with onky 7 wins too... but they got easy games instead! And now the mid ranked player is playing catch up for the rest of the tournament, and if they get to the final, with 9 games, they may start off with a score deficit of 4-5, and will have to beat the top ranked player 7-2 in the final to win. This is often NOT down to skill, but down to match ups.
This is still a problem in tournaments where the score resets, as the top ranked players get far too easy a ride, but it is less so.
Note: I'm generally one of the top ranked players. Normally 1st to 3rd. I will almost always be at 9 or 10 wins after round 2, and I'm normally level with the other top ranks who are also at 9 or 10, so this is very much speaking from experience! I gain no advantage out of this, in fact it makes this harder for me, but it would make for a much better game and a more level playing field which can only be a good thing.
Solution:
Change the seeding system. There are a number of ways this can be done, some better, some worse. Some would take more time for the webmaster to implement.
Ideal scenario: Keep seeding, but only for the top 4 players.
A tournament is split up in to 4 quarters which remain seperate until the semi finals, with one of the top 4 seeds going in to each quarter. All drawing within those quarters is completely random.
Using this method, it is impossible for the top seeds to meet each other until the semi finals, but they will have a much tougher time getting there, and it will allow for many more upsets, and the potential for many more mid and low ranked players to make it.
It also throws up interesting draws, where a 3000 player may battle a 2700 in round 1! And just as importantly, a 1000 player may battle a 1200 player in round 1, and each of them has a fantastic time trying to make it through.
An advance on the above: Seed every player, so that all the quarters are roughly equal in skill level, and then make all drawing random after that.
It would looik like this:
Q1: 1st, 8th, 9th,
Q2: 2nd, 7th, 10th,
Q3: 3rd, 6th, ....
Q4: 4th, 5th, ..... etc etc
2nd best solution - easier to code
Remove all seeding and make all tournaments random.
Additional solution / problem
Remove "cumulative points" style tournaments. It's a ridiculous idea anyway given that everyone has played different skills levels of players. To enter a final with 9 games knowing you have to win 7-2 to take the tournament is just utter nonsense. I have never seen such a thing outside of CC!
