Session 2 was great! Weather could not have been better,umping was good,teams were competitive and players were friendly. However,something does not sit well with me. A team was allowed to continue playing in bracket play with 2 losses, thus eliminating 4 teams. I ,nicely,asked the site director how that was possible. He explained that they had not played their guaranteed 5 games yet. I understand that but to allow them to then eliminate 4 teams was wrong. There are other ways to give them their 5th game. Play another team with 2 losses, play the bracket game as an exhibition game but can't eliminate the other team,etc. It's just an unfair advantage to let them eliminate anyone. They are a good team and good guys but it's just not right! I know this same situation has happened in the past. I enjoy going to Vegas every year. It's a great tournament! My hope is that this is corrected so it doesn't happen in the future. Thoughts?
It appears you were given an incorrect answer, coupled with a common misconception that two losses ends your tournament ... It doesn't ... That's true only in a Double Elimination format ...
This tournament format is for two Round Robin games to seed a Three-game-guarantee bracket ... The "3_G_G" means exactly, and only, what its title indicates: You are guaranteed three games in the bracket regardless of the outcome of your first two ... And as long as you're still playing, you can win a championship ... Consolation games are a waste of everyone's time, so I don't schedule them ...
I do build conditional "If" games into the Elimination brackets to prevent a team from getting a "4th game" where they may eliminate another team ... It's a fair format and is used by a lot of associations ... But when your losses occur is very important ... If you've played two games in the bracket, and are either 1-1 or 0-2, THAT is an excellent time to start winning ball games! ...
Would be best if SSUSA would move to 3 seeding games and then a double elimination bracket...this would also help with figuring out all the tie breakers in determining seeding #
jl - there is a thread below discussing the same thing. Most agree that it's fair (as do I). As Dave stated, as long as we are playing, we should be playing for something. I am assuming that you guys were one of the teams they sent home. So, flip the script and you guys lost 4 in a row, do you want to play an exhibition game and be done? This has been the format for as long as I have been playing SSUSA in 5GG events, was even voted on a few years back and majority ruled to keep the format so really no need for it to be corrected IMO. Congrats to all the winners and all the competitors!
P.S. - it was actually 5 teams they sent home, nice run in LB by NW Elite.
Three seeding games into DE brackets requires MORE games to complete the tournament until the bracket get into a range of 90± teams ... As an example, there's a 60-team bracket in the 50-AAA this year that requires 195 games, 60 seeding games and 135 in the Bracket ... "Your way" would need 209 games, 90 seeding games and 119 in the Bracket, or 14 MORE games to get to the same end result ... And in any bracket with an odd number of teams, someone has to play an Exhibition "4th game" so that the last team can get their third ... Almost everyone hates being "that team" ... We'll be staying with the 2-RR into 3-G-G format for the foreseeable future ...
