Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Olympiad changes

At http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/11/4-major-changes-at-this-olympiad.html four major changes are described. The biggest change has to be the scoring system with individual point's not counting and teams only earning 2 points for a win 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss. In my opinion this is not a good idea with a swiss pairing system. A format of pool play like the rugby and soccer world cup's is best suited to this scoring system.
Another change of a shortened number of rounds could produce a mixed result, at least for all the medal contenders.
It will be interesting to see if these changes bring positive or negative results.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

agreed , the new score system is very bad.

Shorter number of rounds is also a step back.

Other interesting change is player must be a the board at beginning of the gmes or the default - no longer the standard hour to make it to the games

Anonymous said...

The object of a team competition is to win as a team, be it by 4-0 or 2.5-1.5. In previous Olympiads, a team could get the luck of the draw and pummel their opponents 4-0 thereby catapulting them up the table. The new system puts the emphasis on how the team performs.
A team who wins 2.5-1.5 in 11 rounds is surely better than a team who wins 6 rounds by 4-0 and loses the other five by the same score. I think it's a good change. Reducing the number of rounds on the other hand is somewhat dubious even if there is some kind of accelerated pairing going on.

Anonymous said...

An interesting comment.

However with respect, I disagree.

A result of 4 - 0 is better than a result of 2.5 - 1.5, and should not be worth the same score as in the new system. A team thats crushes there opponents is worth the same as a team thats only sneaks by, thats crazy. Everybody effort and results should count in the final tally.

A possible improvement to the score system to try, would be each player on the team instead of receiving 1 point for a win, the win would receive points worth the opponents rating, a draw would be worth half the opponents rating. This would also take away any need for tie-breaks, and very much increase players fighting for the win.

On the other hand previous (the classic) scoring system was just fine.

Anonymous said...

If one considers other team sports it doesn't matter what score the winning team wins by. In soccer, a 1-0 win gives 3 points, so does a 5-0 win. Perhaps the rugby system of bonus points could be used? 4 points for a win and 2 for draw; 1 bonus point if a team wins by 3.5 or 4, 1 bonus point to the losing side if score is 1.5 to 2.5. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what the differences between the old and new when the tournament is over.