[MickyB]

 aguahombre, on 2012-August-01, 10:15, said:

So, a country with a bottom seed...knowing they will be pitted in a K.O. against the top seed should spend thousands and travel thousands of miles, then get a return ticket for the next day.

There are plenty of possible formats that don't encourage dumping but guarantee everyone plays more than one match - eg double elimination or repechage.

[ArtK78]

 MickyB, on 2012-August-02, 12:44, said:

There are plenty of possible formats that don't encourage dumping but guarantee everyone plays more than one match - eg double elimination or repechage.

In the New York Times today there was a story about a British pair in some Olympic sport many years ago who won the gold medal after losing a preliminary round match in that sport deliberately. It seems that the format included a repechage, and one of the pair determined that they would have an easier route to the gold medal by losing a match deliberately and reentering the main draw via the repechage, which is exactly what they did. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the NY Times in front of me at this moment, so I can't quote the names of the participants and the sport that they competed in.

The only format that truly guarantees that one cannot gain by losing is single elimination.

[gwnn]

 cherdano, on 2012-August-02, 10:26, said:

I am also sure that anyone will find this more repulsive than throwing a round-robin match.

More repulsive according to what standard? It seems to me to be two quite different scenarios and I find it very hard to compare them. The outrage from spectators will definitely be bigger in the case of the badminton match. The judo case is rather sad because it involves a lot of politics and that's expressly against the IOC rules. But the judo contestants were likely coerced by their government while the badminton players made a conscious decision. But racism under any shape or form is zero tolerance.. But look at those serves right in the net.. I don't know.

[jeffford76]

 ArtK78, on 2012-August-02, 14:15, said:

The only format that truly guarantees that one cannot gain by losing is single elimination.

What would be a situation where it would be advantageous to lose in a double elimination tournament? (There may well be one, but I can't think of one.)

[VMars]

 cherdano, on 2012-August-02, 10:26, said:

Btw, to give a comparison: There was a Judo team that refused to practice on the same mat as the Judo team from one specific nation. I am fairly sure there is some code of conduct rule that can be read to prohibit such behavior. I am also sure that anyone will find this more repulsive than throwing a round-robin match. But instead of ejecting the team, the official put up a screen so the two nations could practice on the two sides.

Since the Olympics are all about how we all get along in the name of sports, when anyone won't cooperate with that we just pretend it didn't happen, because then it won't interfere with the narrative of how we all get along.

[wyman]

 jeffford76, on 2012-August-02, 14:35, said:

What would be a situation where it would be advantageous to lose in a double elimination tournament? (There may well be one, but I can't think of one.)

Suppose A is 100% vs B, and C (unless they tank) and 50% vs D. And suppose that B is 100% vs D (and whatever vs C) And D is 100% vs C.

In a 4-man tournament starting with AvB / CvD, if A wins the first match, D will win the winners' bracket, A will win the losers' bracket, and A will have to beat D twice to win the tourney (25%)

If A tanks the first match, then B wins the winners' bracket, and A plays D in the losers' bracket finals with a 50% chance to win the tournament.

[dwar0123]

 wyman, on 2012-August-02, 14:53, said:

Suppose A is 100% vs B, and C (unless they tank) and 50% vs D. And suppose that B is 100% vs D (and whatever vs C) And D is 100% vs C.

In a 4-man tournament starting with AvB / CvD, if A wins the first match, D will win the winners' bracket, A will win the losers' bracket, and A will have to beat D twice to win the tourney (25%)

If A tanks the first match, then B wins the winners' bracket, and A plays D in the losers' bracket finals with a 50% chance to win the tournament.

I think I followed what you are saying and I think I see a flaw in your reasoning.

If A is 50% vs D, then D is 50% vs A. So how exactly is D winning 75% of the time if they are playing twice?

I could go on in explaining the math behind where you messed up, but that should be enough.

Suffice it to say, it is 50% whether or not they meet twice in the winners final and then again in the champions match or just once in the losers final.

[jeffford76]

 wyman, on 2012-August-02, 14:53, said:

Suppose A is 100% vs B, and C (unless they tank) and 50% vs D. And suppose that B is 100% vs D (and whatever vs C) And D is 100% vs C.

In a 4-man tournament starting with AvB / CvD, if A wins the first match, D will win the winners' bracket, A will win the losers' bracket, and A will have to beat D twice to win the tourney (25%)

If A tanks the first match, then B wins the winners' bracket, and A plays D in the losers' bracket finals with a 50% chance to win the tournament.

I think you've left out the case where A doesn't tank, and also wins the winner's final.


They are 50% to win the winner's bracket, and then from there it depends on whether B or C wins the loser's match to advance against D. In the pathological case where C is 100% against B, then A will play D twice more, having to win one, a 75% proposition, for a total winning chance of 37.5%. If they lose their match to D in the winners final (50%), then they have to beat D twice (25%), for an additional 12.5%, bringing their chance of winning to 50% regardless of whether they tank.

[wyman]

Yeah sorry I changed my %s mid example and screwed up -- will think about it and fix if possible.

Edit: does making A < 50% v D do it?

[dwar0123]

 wyman, on 2012-August-02, 16:01, said:

Yeah sorry I changed my %s mid example and screwed up -- will think about it and fix if possible.

Edit: does making A < 50% v D do it?

If it is just a flat percentage, no.

But that isn't how the real world works, the better team tends to win more often the more games are played.

To use a bridge example.

If team A has a 33% chance of winning a 16 board final vs team D and a 33% chance of winning a 164 board final vs team D. Then it makes no difference if they intentionally lose vs team B.

But in the real world, the better team would tend to improve their odds the more boards are played and hence there there may be an argument to be made to say that if you have to play team D and they are the better team, you want to play as few boards as possible to improve the chances of a random upset.

Of course, you would be trading a 33% of gold and 66% of silver for a slightly > chance of gold and zero chance of silver.

And this is with really contrived examples, I think the system is very solid for all practical purposes.

[jeffford76]

 wyman, on 2012-August-02, 16:01, said:

Edit: does making A < 50% v D do it?

Yes. Basically the question is whether you'd rather play a team once or best of three. If you're 50% to beat them it doesn't matter. If you're above 50% you'd prefer best of three, and if you're below 50% you'd prefer once.

[Vampyr]

 cherdano, on 2012-August-02, 10:26, said:

Btw, to give a comparison: There was a Judo team that refused to practice on the same mat as the Judo team from one specific nation. I am fairly sure there is some code of conduct rule that can be read to prohibit such behavior. I am also sure that anyone will find this more repulsive than throwing a round-robin match. But instead of ejecting the team, the official put up a screen so the two nations could practice on the two sides.

The solution to this is so obvious -- the team that rejects the mat has no opportunity to practise. I wonder what the political situation was that made it an imperative that both teams be allowed to practise.

I also wonder whether anyone involved with the badminton teams mentioned the flawed CoC with the organisers before the notorious match.

[barmar]

 Vampyr, on 2012-August-02, 16:34, said:

I also wonder whether anyone involved with the badminton teams mentioned the flawed CoC with the organisers before the notorious match.

Isn't this "flawed" CoC extremely common across many sports? It's the reason that every 3-4 months there's another article about dumping in TBW (since similar methods are used in many bridge tournaments when moving from the RR to KO stage).

If this is the way the sport has been played for years, why would they pick now to suddenly complain?

Plus, why would the team mention it to the organizers, if they were planning on using it to their advantage?

[sfi]

 barmar, on 2012-August-02, 17:27, said:

Isn't this "flawed" CoC extremely common across many sports? It's the reason that every 3-4 months there's another article about dumping in TBW (since similar methods are used in many bridge tournaments when moving from the RR to KO stage).

If this is the way the sport has been played for years, why would they pick now to suddenly complain?

Plus, why would the team mention it to the organizers, if they were planning on using it to their advantage?

It's not the way badminton has been played before, according to the reports. In all previous olympics the draw has been a straight knockout. And there were concerns raised about exactly this situation which the federation (somewhat naively) dismissed out of hand.

[barmar]

 Phil, on 2012-August-01, 15:16, said:

Perhaps, but this does not invalidate the premise, it supports it. Put it this way, over the course of a match, there are hundreds of opportunities to lose tricks.

But bridge already has a perfectly good analogy. A match in bridge corresponds to a match in badminton. Tricks are more like individual points in a game like badminton.

However, you can't treat them the same, because bridge values some tricks differently: the ones that contribute to making your contract are different from overtricks. Games like badminton have no such distinction, all that matters is making more points than the opponents (or getting to N points first).

In a bridge hand, there are usually some tricks that you are guaranteed to lose -- it's not like if you play better you can avoid losing to the opponent's trump ace -- so planning a bridge hand is often a matter of timing things properly. Thus, ducking a trick early is not considered dumping, it's a normal part of the game. There's nothing analogous to this in badminton.

There are other sports where it may be normal to reduce your effort in some stages of the game. In distance running, I imagine some runners may go at a slower pace early, to conserve their strength so they can run all out towards the end. Balancing this properly is what makes a good athlete in these sports.

[cherdano]

Meanwhile, the US hoops team showed quite a few weaknesses on defense when they allowed 73 points against Nigeria. They also shot just 64% from the free throw line. Very unsatisfactory performance.

[TimG]

 ArtK78, on 2012-August-02, 14:15, said:

In the New York Times today there was a story about a British pair in some Olympic sport many years ago who won the gold medal after losing a preliminary round match in that sport deliberately. It seems that the format included a repechage, and one of the pair determined that they would have an easier route to the gold medal by losing a match deliberately and reentering the main draw via the repechage, which is exactly what they did. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the NY Times in front of me at this moment, so I can't quote the names of the participants and the sport that they competed in.

I believe it was the last time the Olympics were in London and that it was a British rower that threw a preliminary match. The article that I read that mentioned this (not in the NYT) said that Londoners supported the athlete's efforts.

[barmar]

 gwnn, on 2012-August-02, 14:28, said:

But the judo contestants were likely coerced by their government while the badminton players made a conscious decision.

"Marketplace" on NPR had a story about Chinese Olympic athletes, and they suggested that the government may be indirectly responsible for the badminton incident.

Apparently, Olympic success is a major propaganda issue for the Chinese government, and only gold medals are acceptable. Athletes who only bring home a silver or bronze are scorned: they mentioned one athlete who came home to find his windows broken, and another who was in tears during an interview after the event, apologizing for his failure when he only earned a silver.

This extreme pressure may have prompted the Chinese team to try dumping, since their homeland really doesn't care how well they play in general, if they don't bring home the gold.

[wyman]

 jeffford76, on 2012-August-02, 16:28, said:

Yes. Basically the question is whether you'd rather play a team once or best of three. If you're 50% to beat them it doesn't matter. If you're above 50% you'd prefer best of three, and if you're below 50% you'd prefer once.

Right.

And @dwar, of course it's contrived, but it's a proof of concept.

[Phil]

 cherdano, on 2012-August-02, 18:07, said:

Meanwhile, the US hoops team showed quite a few weaknesses on defense when they allowed 73 points against Nigeria. They also shot just 64% from the free throw line. Very unsatisfactory performance.

Agree. Coach K should make them run suicides.