[JLOGIC]

jallerton, on 2011-October-20, 16:20, said:

The winners do not always take advantage of this opportunity to maximise carry-over. In 2007, Italy won the round robin and picked the team in 8th place (South Africa) against whom they had a negative carry-over. South Africa won that quarter-final match (by more than the carry-over amount).

Regarding the semi-final, presumbly the requirement for the two USA teams to meet (if both still in the competition at that stage) takes precedence over the preferred bracket of the round robin winners.

They still take advantage of winning the RR because the negative carryover is 1/3rd, and the positive carryover would be 1/2 as they finished higher in the RR.

Yes, the USA 1/USA 2 thing supercedes all else

[JLOGIC]

BTW I refuse to talk about the butler ever, and have purposely made it a point not to look at the butler. It is anti-team, and ego-driven only. Obv the spectators will like it and that's fine but I personally am here to win a team event not a pairs event.

Even if it was not anti-team, I think it has a much weaker correlation with how you're playing than most people do. It does not tell nearly the whole story. That's all I will say.

[Fluffy]

nice, I Wanted to ask you if you though that way too, no need now .

[xxhong]

I agree. The Butler thing isn't a good measurement of performance. The anchor pair who always plays against tough opps would actually play in a much tougher field than the pairs who usually play against weak opps. This difference can be really huge sometimes.

JLOGIC, on 2011-October-20, 19:16, said:

BTW I refuse to talk about the butler ever, and have purposely made it a point not to look at the butler. It is anti-team, and ego-driven only. Obv the spectators will like it and that's fine but I personally am here to win a team event not a pairs event.

Even if it was not anti-team, I think it has a much weaker correlation with how you're playing than most people do. It does not tell nearly the whole story. That's all I will say.

[Gerben42]

Italy has the psychological advantage in the RR as many teams will come at their table and think "gee let's hope we can stay in double digits" whereas against Justin's team at least some of the contenders will think "let's go get'em".

I mean I think there is no way that Brazil could have lost 0 - 25 against any team other than Italy. Anyway, being in the top 3 in the RR is a great success and should buy you an opponent against whom you are favorite (and of course give you the choice to at least avoid a USA2 - USA1 QF)

I'm really impressed with the USA2 performance so far, keep up the good play! Perhaps one of these pairs will in 25 years just be as successful as Hamman/Soloway for example over the last 25 years

[Trinidad]

chasetb, on 2011-October-20, 17:10, said:

Could/would anyone please explain to me how you calculate Butler Rankings? I would appreciate it.

The calculuation of a Butler works as follows:
On a given board, all the table results (22 tables) are averaged (e.g 3x +980, 11x+480, 7x+450, 1x-50 results in (3x980+11x480+7x450-50)/22 = 514.55). This average is rounded to the nearest multiple of 10 (+510). This is called the datum score or datum.

Now, all results are IMPed against the datum:
The NS pairs at the tables with a result of +980 get 980-510 = 470 which converts to +10 IMPs. EW get the complement: -10 IMPs.
At the tables with a result of +480, NS get 480-510 = -30 or -1 IMP.
At the tables with a score of +450, NS score 450-510 = -60 or -2 IMP.
At the table with a score of -50, NS score -50 - 510 + -560 or -11 IMP.

In this way, every pair gets an IMP score on every board. The scores that are reported in the ranking are the IMPs per board, i.e. the number of scored IMPs divided by the number of boards one has played.

Sometimes. the extreme scores are thrown out of the calculation of the datum score.

In addition to the arguments that some have given (it's a team game, rather than a pair game) there are other reasons why I don't like Butler scoring. In my opinion, it is a fundamentally unsound method to calculate an IMP pairs score. The Cross IMP method is much better. (In this method your score is IMPed against the scores at all other tables. Then the resulting IMPs are averaged to obtain an IMP score, which therefore can be a fraction.)

I hope this explained, in short, how Butler works.

Rik

[bd71]

JLOGIC, on 2011-October-20, 13:21, said:

Unfortunately team Italy seems to rule They have a 16 VP lead on us and an easier schedule for the last 6 matches, they're definitely gonna be hard to catch.

"Easier schedule" is an understatement.

Tomorrow, Italy plays 3 of the bottom 6 teams. They need to average 19 VP to mathematically clinch first place. Against the lowest-ranked six teams Italy has already played, they blitzed 4 of them and averaged 23 VP.

The race for 1st is over....good luck to Justin/USA2 to beat out Netherlands for 2nd.

[BunnyGo]

What's the tie break for 2nd in the case that USA2 and Netherlands manage to tie?

[arvie]

BunnyGo, on 2011-October-21, 16:04, said:

What's the tie break for 2nd in the case that USA2 and Netherlands manage to tie?

19.1 Two Teams
If two teams are tied with the same number of Victory Points at the end of the round-robin, the tie shall be broken as follows (in the sequence shown):
a) IMP quotient (total IMPs won divided by total IMPs lost) in all matches played by the tied teams in that particular event. If the tie remains, then:
b) IMPs earned by the tied teams in the match they played against each other. If the tie remains, then:
c) Total points earned by the tied teams in the match they played against each other. If the tie remains then:
d) Total point quotient in all matches played by the tied team in that particular event. If the tie remains then:
e) One board (“sudden death”) matches will determine the winner

[JLOGIC]

arvie, on 2011-October-21, 17:02, said:

19.1 Two Teams
If two teams are tied with the same number of Victory Points at the end of the round-robin, the tie shall be broken as follows (in the sequence shown):
a) IMP quotient (total IMPs won divided by total IMPs lost) in all matches played by the tied teams in that particular event. If the tie remains, then:
b) IMPs earned by the tied teams in the match they played against each other. If the tie remains, then:
c) Total points earned by the tied teams in the match they played against each other. If the tie remains then:
d) Total point quotient in all matches played by the tied team in that particular event. If the tie remains then:
e) One board (“sudden death”) matches will determine the winner

Good to know since we lost head to head!

[JLOGIC]

Just looked, we are almost surely losing imp quotient, as they beat 2 teams 25-2 and 25-1, and I don't think we ever crushed anyone.

Edit: Just added it up, they are in fact winning imp quotient.

[Fluffy]

I think imp quotes are won by the teams who "lose" less imps, not to those who earn more I think. if you keep winning 27-6 or so all matches against their 54-24 you are way ahead in quotient

[JLOGIC]

Really ugly match vs sweden, yuck. We had our worst set of the tourney, luckily only lost 13-17.

[JLOGIC]

Fluffy, on 2011-October-22, 03:44, said:

I think imp quotes are won by the teams who "lose" less imps, not to those who earn more I think. if you keep winning 27-6 or so all matches against their 54-24 you are way ahead in quotient

You underestimate how many more imps they won than us. Getting 25-1 and 25-2 is a LOT of imps. If you are far more net plus than a team, you will win the quotient regardless of anything else.

[paulg]

After round 19:

USA 2: 693-453 imps, quotient 1.5298

Netherlands: 788-471 imps, quotient 1.673

[JLOGIC]

Well we are 6 VPs behind the dutch now so we'll cross that bridge if we can get to it!

[JLOGIC]

Not looking great for 2nd We might play iceland in the QF so our last match is still important. If we kill them they also might get knocked out of the event.

[JLOGIC]

3rd, I assume that we will get a choice of USA 1 or Sweden, in which case we will pick Sweden obv.

[neilkaz]

JLOGIC, on 2011-October-20, 19:16, said:

BTW I refuse to talk about the butler ever, and have purposely made it a point not to look at the butler. It is anti-team, and ego-driven only. Obv the spectators will like it and that's fine but I personally am here to win a team event not a pairs event.

Even if it was not anti-team, I think it has a much weaker correlation with how you're playing than most people do. It does not tell nearly the whole story. That's all I will say.

Love your attitude...win it ALL now !!

[USViking]

The Netherlands had the best record in head-to-head competition between the eight semifinalist teams;

W-L-T

6-0-1 Netherlands
4-1-2 USA 2
3-2-2 Italy
3-3-1 Israel
3-3-1 Iceland
3-4-0 USA 1
1-5-1 Sweden
0-5-2 China



The Netherlands also led in semifinalist internal VP ratio, a number which correlates well with the WLT standings:


VP/opponents VP

1.692 Netherlands
1.261 USA 2
1.019 Italy
1.019 Israel
1.000 Iceland
0.927 USA 1
0.720 China
0.680 Sweden