Threading The Needle

Threading The Needle - a Tournament of Getting the Right Score!
This tournament requires eight players to participate across seven rounds of play.

To begin, each player will pick a button from among a set of buttons determined by the tournament director. The players will be playing the selected button throughout the entire tournament.

For each round each player will be playing a single game against a different opponent from the group, playing games of one round only. The matchups in each round will be known at the beginning of the tournament (see below), but the players may not proceed to the next round until everyone has completed the current round.

Each player starts the tournament with a score of 0. To score a GOAL, the player must end a round with a score between 90 and 99.99.

After each round, the tournament director will calculate the new scores. If a player loses their game, their score is unchanged. If a player wins their game, their score goes up (modulo 100) by the difference in the final points in that game. For instance, after oliver's score would go up by 21 and Darrin's score would be unchanged. If oliver started the round with a score of 82, oliver's new score will be ((82+21) modulo 100) = 3.

If any player ends a round with a score between 90 and 99.99 points (inclusive) they get a GOAL and their score goes back to 0 for the next round. Multiple people may score a GOAL at the end of a round.

The winner of the tournament is the player who has the most number of GOALs. If the case of a tie, the tournament director adds up the scores which were used for GOALS; the player with the highest sum wins. (I.e., getting a score of 98 is better than getting a score of 91 for a tie.) If there's still a tie, all tied players will be considered winners.

Penalties

The intention is to play out each game fully and not surrender. If a player surrenders, that player's score goes to 0, the opponent's score stays the same, and the opponent is awarded a penalty GOAL.

Selecting a Button

The tournament director will be devious (dvs -at- pobox.com). To begin, send an email with your top four choices of buttons. The director will use the Mad Robin rules of least-squares to assign buttons. The tournament director must select their top four choices before receiving any choices from other players.

 Matchups 

The players will be assigned a player number randomly (1-8). Here are the seven rounds of play:

Round 1: 1-3, 2-4, 5-7, 6-8 Round 2: 1-8, 2-5, 3-6, 4-7 Round 3: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 Round 4: 1-6, 2-7, 3-8, 4-5 Round 5: 1-5, 2-6, 3-7, 4-8 Round 6: 1-7, 2-8, 3-5, 4-6 Round 7: 1-4, 2-3, 5-8, 6-7

Tournament # 1 Button Selection

Here are the buttons to choose from for this tournament, all TL with win percentage 44.0%-45.05%:

Adam Spam -- F4 F6 6 12 X Angel -- s4 6 s12 12 X Bun-Bun -- 4/10 4/12 6/12 20 20 The Effster -- s4 8 8 s12 sX Giant -- 20 20 20 20 20 20 (can't go first) Hope -- t1 2 t4 6 Y Karl -- 4 6 6 20 X Kublai -- 4 8 12 20 X Nethershadow -- 6 10 s10 10/20 6/30 Ngozi -- 4 6 8 10 X Paul Erdos -- 3 4 k6 12 U Spencer -- 8 8 12 m20 X

Here are the players & their top four choices.

Player Cycozar sent in a list of anything but "Adam Spam, Giant, or Paul Erdos"

I ran a minimum-square program and came up with this list:

devious: Hope [1st choice] gauen: Ngozi [1st choice] alwayslurking: Karl [2nd choice] Daefaroth: Paul Erdos [3rd choice] blackshadowshade: Bun-Bun [1st choice] Blargh: Nethershadow [1st choice] irilyth: Giant [2nd choice] (Total score: 21=1+1+4+9+1+1+4)

Cycozar can be assigned any of The Effster, Kublai, or Spencer. The random number generated assigned:

Cycozar: The Effster

(For the curious, here were the top scores from the program:

21 H Ng K P B Ne G 24 H Ng K B P Ne G 24 Ng An K H B Ne G 26 K Ng H P B Ne G 27 H Ng K P Ne B G 27 Ng H K P B Ne G 28 H Ng K Ad B Ne G 28 P Ng K H B Ne G )

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Tournament # 1 Games & Results

Here are the player assignments & FINAL scores:

The winner is Daefaroth!

Here are the games with people's starting scores: