Anyone have any idea what the algorithm for the draw for each round of the tournament is? How the logged-out players always end up at the top of the draw, that sort of thing? Nick? Spinner?

an algorithm is a definite list of well-defined instructions for completing a task; that given an initial state, will proceed through a well-defined series of successive states, eventually terminating in an end-state ( for anyone else who thought wtf lmao

Spinner knows the answer to that 1 i think

Hi,

I believe the way the tournaments work, first of all, the server checks each player to see whether they are online or offline, if they are offline it lists the user(s) at the top of the tournament page.

After this has been done, the server works out who many players are left in the competition and then tries to get an even number for a tournament (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 players), to get to one of these numbers, there will be however many games are needed, played, and the rest of the players are byes.
This is how often people end up as byes. People say it spoils the competition, but really, it doesn't. It makes it quicker in the long run as you end up with an even amount of games being played.

This is how I think the tournaments are run, summarised.

Edited at 12:46 Sun 27/01/08 (GMT)

Aye sir, this would be exactly how the tournament is run. My question though is this: how exactly does "the computer" conduct the draw?

it counts the number of people e.g. 72 and goes to the nearest number (64)and the difference between is 8 so double 8 is 16 and thats how many people play so there will be 8 winners and the 56 on a bye in the next round.

(56+8=64)

That's common knowledge ritcho.

Think the question is how is does it randomly assign positions to the players (i.e. who play who and who gets bye)

I think you just answered your own question there, mate.

(being that it does so... by, well... random lol)

If the question was as to how a computer emulates randomness, that's a pretty technical field to get into, but basically it uses a seed (a basic input value typically based off something unpredictable and variable, like temperature or similar), then feeds it through a ridiculous formula to produce a list (long) of numbers. The order in which numbers appear in that list is for all practical, human purposes as random as it gets.

Edited at 18:20 Tue 29/01/08 (GMT)

Random is random, that's cool. The question is more like this I guess: how does it put the logged out players at the top and then the online players and finally gived byes to the remainder?

There's one more pecularity I've seen in the draws, I'll tell y'all after a little bit. Doesn't happen in every draw, only certains ones when the numbers are right.

Right, here's what I was getting at. Look at a tournament whose number of entrants is just more than a power of 2, but that has enough logged out players that everyone gets a bye, so that Round 2 starts immediately. Notice that there's usually a couple more of them DQ for being logged out in Round 2 as well, no big deal. So, say if 65 people take part and 5 of them are logged out, the draw for Round 1 will reduce 65 to 64 by DQ'ing one logged out person, and the other 4 will be DQ'ed in Round 2 and placed (as usual) at the top of the draw. In fact, here's an example of that:

8 Ball UK Tournament 16:00 Mon 4 Feb 08
http://www.funkypool.com/viewTournament.do?tournamentid=19337

However, look at the 4 players DQ'ed at the top of Round 2 for being logged out. Now... look where they are in the draw for Round 1. Buried at the very bottom. Coincidence? Couldn't be; what are the chances those very four players are drawn into those very four positions?

(more...)

(...con't)
So, I figure the draw is conducted like this.

First of all, work out how many lines of the draw (as such) there will be by taking the highest power of 2 less than or equal to the number of participants. So, for example, 63 partcipants will involve 31 ties of player vs player, and 1 more player gets a bye at the bottom for a total of 32. 64 will be the same, and it will consist of participants matched up exactly as 32 vs 32. 65 will become 64 entries; one player vs player at the top of the draw and 63 byes.

Secondly, here's what I reckon happens. The draw isn't done line by line (like an FA Cup draw for example), but instead it does all the first-named players first. And as many lines of the draw (as explained in the previous paragraph) there are, it draws that many on-line players. Once it hits this number, it starts again with picking out the names of the second part of each fixture, but this time it begins with any off-line players, and then...
(more...)

(...cont'd)
...once it finishes with these it continues with online players, and when it runs out of these it finishes by giving the remaining players byes.

Who'd like an example? Course you would!!! Say 7 players enter a tournament, a, b, c, d, e, f and g (all lower case naturally), b is offline, and the draw looks like this right after it's made:

a  BYE-DQ b FT
c       0-0    d   L
e       0-0    f    L
g      BYE       FT

The draw didn't pull them out a, b, c, d, e, f and g; it did it like this:
online: a, c, e, g
stop after 4
offline: b
everyone else: d, f

Say h and i were late entries (for a total of 9; 6 online and 3 offline) but couldn't get the game window open in time and also got DQ'ed. Then it might look like this:

(isn't this exciting!!!)

(continued)
Round 1
c  BYE-DQ h FT
d      BYE      FT
e      BYE      FT
a      BYE      FT
g      BYE      FT
f       BYE      FT
b      BYE      FT
i       BYE      FT

Round 2
a  BYE-DQ i FT
d  BYE-DQ b FT
c        0-0    e  L
g        0-0    f  L

So in Round 1 it drew as many online players as possible, ran out of them before it got to 8 and then chose offline players (in this case b and i), stuck h at the top again and DQ'ed him/her, then in Round 2 it again drew online players until 4 were drawn, then began drawing offline players (i and b) and drew the remaining players.

To summarise shortly and sweetly:

1. It draws online players into the first half of each fixture starting at the top.
2. When these are all filled it starts drawing offline players into the second half of each fixture starting at the top.
3. When these run out it resumes drawing online players.
4. It gives the rest byes.

Is this how it works??? Nick? Spinner?

after such a brilliant analysis i think clooneman deserves spinner or nick to tell him if hes right...

I think he needs a job!!!! wow cloone impressed!!! not with the suggestion, but how much time you spent on that, deserves a reply i think

Something like this:

1. Look up all logged out players and remove them (DQs)
2. Remaining number of players R = Total signed players - logged out players.
3. Number of byes B = 2^X, where X is as high as possible and lower or equal to R
4. Randomly assign byes to B number of players (or B+1 if R-B is an odd number)
5. Randomly draw the remaining matches ((R-B)/2)

Rince, repeat.

May have overlooked details or particular cases, but should be something very close to that.

As for whether the DQs and/or BYEs are listed at the top or bottom, especially when spilling over from one draw to the next, should be fairly irrelevant and may be a simple artifact of how it's actually displayed on the web page. Technically, it is utterly irrelevant as far as I can see.

Edited at 22:56 Tue 5/02/08 (GMT)

I suspect you are thinking a bit too much in terms of how the draws are displayed on the web page rather than how they are produced on a technical level. Making the draw and representing it on the tourny page are prolly two quite separate processes and therefore the listed order on the web page may not reflect the actual algorithm making the draw half as much as you think ;)

Again an assumption on my part tho, it may very well be wrong too ;)

Hopefully we'll get to know...

Spiiiiinnneer? Niiiiiick? :D

There was this one time, at band camp, that the server was going through one of its turbulent times, and was all over the place. Unpaired players getting byes, followed by online players playing online players, a few DQ-DQ's... but that was a long time ago. And only a handful of people could log in!!!

Oh do tell!!!

After reading it all and coming to the conclusion clooney aint got a life (joking pal) I think we need an honest answer! Spinner? Nick? ANYONE?