Blackout Cup III Structure

daveharnett

Here is the proposed structure for season 3 of the blackout cup. The idea is to make the pools stage more competitive for everyone, and particularly to give the weaker teams a better chance winning games and progressing.

Four pools (A-D) of eight teams each. Teams will be placed in pools based on their blackout standings - the strongest 8 in pool A, the weakest 8 in pool D.

At the end of the round robin, teams will qualify to quarter finals of one of four knockouts (we need a name for the extra one).

The top knockout (the boards cup) will consist of the top four teams from pool A, the top two from pool B, and the winners of pools C and D. The full details are in this excel file.

Unless there are strong objections, we will be going ahead with this for season 3, and we'll review again before season 4.

satory

I have to problems with the overall setup but just a quick question, but do teams in the league play each other twice? or just once?

daveharnett

satory wrote: »

I have to problems with the overall setup but just a quick question, but do teams in the league play each other twice? or just once?

Teams play each other once. With the added teams this season, the pool stage will consist of 7 rounds, followed by 1-3 playoff rounds.

In the pool stages, teams will be at home one week, away the next.

jprender

Looks good Dave.

Is it the end of season rankings (after all playoffs in week 16) that determine what group a team is in ?

Eireannach

Dave, thanks again for all the hard work.

Cheers

daveharnett

jprender wrote: »

Looks good Dave.

Is it the end of season rankings (after all playoffs in week 16) that determine what group a team is in ?

I'm not sure when the rankings will be taken. end of week 16 sounds good, if we have enough teams.

suppafly

Sounds good dave, thanks for setting this up

Orizio

We can sort out the rankings once we get 32 teams, using Blackout Rugby's own ranking system seems fair, but for subsequent competitions we can work out our own ranking system based on results.

eoferrall

Orizio wrote: »

We can sort out the rankings once we get 32 teams, using Blackout Rugby's own ranking system seems fair, but for subsequent competitions we can work out our own ranking system based on results.

When you say results, is that results from only the boards cup matches? how would you go about working that out?

JohnButler

Nice job Dave!!

Orizio

eoferrall wrote: »

When you say results, is that results from only the boards cup matches? how would you go about working that out?

I haven't worked it out yet, as it won't be in use for months yet. No need to worry yet, but yes, results in next seasons cup will be the main factor.

mar-z

Structure looks good. Great job Dave and Orizio!

tHE vAGGABOND

thats good - cheers lads

Orizio

mar-z wrote: »

Structure looks good. Great job Dave and Orizio!

Well thank you, I was waiting for someone to thank me (even though I had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it)...;)

daveharnett

As the season end is almost upon us, we are going to proceed with the teams who are presently signed up. 25 teams have signed up, so we're looking at three pools of 8 teams. Teams have been placed in their pools according to their ranking on the 28th.

Tralee Titans are the team to miss out on the basis that their manager has not posted here since originally signing up.

Qualification for the knockouts will still be weighted in favor of the stronger pools, similar to what was described in the first post. The details of this will be announced in the next day or two.

The offsite with the fixture list and whatnot will be up sometime next week.

I'd expect things to kick off in week 2, to allow everybody time to accept their fixtures.
Team | Ranking
Pool A |
Polk High | 58.525
Bogwarriors | 55.2538
Everyone likes a Tryer | 54.5466
Scorched Earth | 54.2622
The Cantankerous Gnomes | 53.8282
Munster Mark II | 53.3145
Grubber RFC | 53.0672
The Rebels | 51.9467
Pool B |
Forza Juve | 51.9387
Killarney RFC | 51.2155
Dead Hard Fcukers | 50.5668
Yermen | 49.9795
Curly Sue Death Squad | 49.5286
Wandering Wanderers | 49.4504
XaviXI | 48.8464
Stab County | 47.0493
Pool C |
A Lovely Bunch Altogether | 46.8668
Templeogue Seniors | 46.7008
Ladyboys | 46.3835
The Parrish | 45.5817
East Coast Tinders | 44.6372
Men Who Stare at Goats | 44.2189
Ali's Academicals | 43.4498
Beltra | 41.9571

eoferrall

Cheers Dave!

Looking forward to the qualification outline.. 4th highest ranking team.. Least i'm higher than Orizio!!

johnnysmack

im number 1, im number 1, flanders is a dope, im number 1!!!!

satory

Im number 24, im number 24 im number 24, watch out...

Orizio

Obviously Dave was on drugs when he compiled those - I demand repeated recounts until I'm on top looking down upon all you proles...

tHE vAGGABOND

good stuff thanks!

daveharnett

Fixtures are up on blackout now. Since we got them posted earlier than expected, we'll start in week 2. Please accept them next time you login.

jprender

daveharnett wrote: »

Fixtures are up on blackout now. Since we got them posted earlier than expected, we'll start in week 2. Please accept them next time you login.

Ok, I accepted them all Dave.

Just want to check, is it right that I only get 2 home games and 5 away ?

That's a bit heavy.

daveharnett

jprender wrote: »

Ok, I accepted them all Dave.

Just want to check, is it right that I only get 2 home games and 5 away ?

That's a bit heavy.

The fixture generators I tried can't seem to come up with a fixture set that doesn't screw somebody with five away games. I suspect it may be mathematically impossible to avoid.

Really should have fiddled it so it was Orizio rather than you though .

Eireannach

Fixtures accepted, thanks for all the hard work

Eire
Killarney RFC

Orizio

Great stuff Dave, Operation 'let's piss off JPrender until he loses his mind and shoots half of Louth' has got off to a most promising beginning... *wink wink*

eoferrall

just realised I had not accepted fixtures - and now i see I also have 2 home and FIVE away games:eek:... ah well its all IGT anyway!

daveharnett

:mad:

eoferrall wrote: »

just realised I had not accepted fixtures - and now i see I also have 2 home and FIVE away games:eek:... ah well its all IGT anyway!

Yep, one in each pool. Definitely not ideal, we'll need to think again for next season.

FewFew

Group B looks like the group of death. I have the fear.

daveharnett

Fewcifur wrote: »

Group B looks like the group of death. I have the fear.

Looks to me like the seedings worked pretty well. I reckon they'll all groups of death:D.

The qualification structure is up on the offsite now. I'd have loved to debate it out, but the reduced size forced our hand a little.

You'll notice that the site is still a work in progress. Here's a spoiler for some of what I have in mind (with stats from last season). Stats will be available for all teams after round 1. If there are other stats you'd like to see, let me know.

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

You'll notice that the site is still a work in progress. Here's a spoiler for some of what I have in mind (with stats from last season). Stats will be available for all teams after round 1. If there are other stats you'd like to see, let me know.

That looks an excellant addition to the offiste for the cup, congratualtions! Can't wait til it is finished!

one thing you could add in is territory and possession maybe? would give a reference to the other stats, like high possession and low average score would indicate crap attack!

johnnysmack

Hats off to you Dave looks great. Only thing id suggest with the stats is you have the average points scored, how about average points conceded also?

do you have to go through all the teams one by one to get their individual stats? I wouldnt know much about setting up websites or programming but if i can help with collecting stats or other stuff like that let me know.

daveharnett

johnnysmack wrote: »

Hats off to you Dave looks great. Only thing id suggest with the stats is you have the average points scored, how about average points conceded also?

That'd make sense. Added to the to-do list.

[QUOTE=johnnysmack;64297602
do you have to go through all the teams one by one to get their individual stats? I wouldnt know much about setting up websites or programming but if i can help with collecting stats or other stuff like that let me know.[/QUOTE]
The process isn't that laborious. I just cut and paste the stat pages from each fixture into a script that does the magic for me. Thanks for offering though.

Would people be interested in some stat-based awards at the end of the season? Stuff like best lineout, best scrum etc? I think they'd be nice, if there were medals to go with them.

Orizio

johnnysmack wrote: »

Hats off to you Dave looks great. Only thing id suggest with the stats is you have the average points scored, how about average points conceded also?

do you have to go through all the teams one by one to get their individual stats? I wouldnt know much about setting up websites or programming but if i can help with collecting stats or other stuff like that let me know.

Can you help with making medals/trophies for the competition?

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

Would people be interested in some stat-based awards at the end of the season? Stuff like best lineout, best scrum etc? I think they'd be nice, if there were medals to go with them.

That would be good, but I doubt BR would sanction medals for that - but recognition on boards would do for most of us. (as long as its not Orizio, don't need to listen to him gloating about winning something!:D)

satory

I'd assume these medals would go up on the boards cup off site...

Probably under a teams stats...

Eireannach

Actually any medals or trophies would go into your BR team trophy room.

eoferrall

Eireannach wrote: »

Actually any medals or trophies would go into your BR team trophy room.

I'd say he was talking about the stats medals, as i can not see BR allowing all these random trophies in your trophy cabinet. might be wrong though!

with the stats would be a good place on offsite if not able on proper BR website.

FewFew

Eireannach wrote: »

Actually any medals or trophies would go into your BR team trophy room.

Yeah... wouldn't mind my Nearly There Trophy, I need something to impress the ladies of Div IV (that'd be just Munster Mark II then.) :pac:

daveharnett

Added a 'top teams' page to the site.
Obviously the text and formatting needs a little tidying, but I'd like any input you have on what else you'd like to see. I think breakdown and discipline would be good too?

The calculations for the current metrics are as follows (these are also open to debate):
Best Attack = Avg points scores*10 + avg meters run
Best Defense = avg points conceded + (% tackled missed -30)
Best Lineout = % own lineouts won + % opponents lineouts stolen
Best Scrum= % own scrums won + % opponents scrums stolen

FewFew

daveharnett wrote: »

Added a 'top teams' page to the site.
Obviously the text and formatting needs a little tidying, but I'd like any input you have on what else you'd like to see. I think breakdown and discipline would be good too?

The calculations for the current metrics are as follows (these are also open to debate):
Best Attack = Avg points scores*10 + avg meters run
Best Defense = avg points conceded + (% tackled missed -30)
Best Lineout = % own lineouts won + % opponents lineouts stolen
Best Scrum= % own scrums won + % opponents scrums stolen

That looks awesome Dave (mostly because I'm near the top of all of them.)

One question though, how did you come to the weighting on the best defense? Well, actually I can see how it works out, but it would mean that someone could have an average of 3 points conceded (let's say a peno each game) but miss tackles could bring their defense ranking down. Well, guess that makes sense really, defense mid-park is still defense.

johnnysmack

you just keep making that site better and better dave!! its class

daveharnett

It's probably time to start thinking about how to seed teams for next season, before the final results for this season are known.

My preferance would be to keep a 'boards cup only' rating for each team, then seed teams based on that rating, rather than the BR ratings we used at the start of this season.

That is, when a new team joins the boards cup, they are seeded based on their normal BR rating. From that point on, the boards cup keeps a seperate rating for each participating team. This rating would only be affected by boards cup matches.

It's the best way I can think of to reward weaker teams who punch above their weight in the boards cup, while still placing new teams into pools where they will be competitive.

What do we think?

crisco10

daveharnett wrote: »

It's probably time to start thinking about how to seed teams for next season, before the final results for this season are known.

My preferance would be to keep a 'boards cup only' rating for each team, then seed teams based on that rating, rather than the BR ratings we used at the start of this season.

That is, when a new team joins the boards cup, they are seeded based on their normal BR rating. From that point on, the boards cup keeps a seperate rating for each participating team. This rating would only be affected by boards cup matches.

It's the best way I can think of to reward weaker teams who punch above their weight in the boards cup, while still placing new teams into pools where they will be competitive.

What do we think?

Yeah, I think thats the best way. It will reflect different peoples attitude to the boards cup.

How would you go about interfacing the BR rating of a new team versus the boards cup rating?

eoferrall

reckon it would be the way to go, then a lesser team you plays normal will end up in a pool with a better team you WNWIM's all matches getting a lot more even games for example.

sound good to me that only boards games count for boards games. Are you taking the base ranking as at the start of this boards cup and then calculating the rating at the end with only boards cup matches played this season? is that easy enough to do?

I can help if its not possible to tell the website to calculate it all!

daveharnett

crisco10 wrote: »

Yeah, I think thats the best way. It will reflect different peoples attitude to the boards cup.

How would you go about interfacing the BR rating of a new team versus the boards cup rating?

I'm thinking that when a new team signs up, their BR ranking on week 14 becomes their starting Boards cup ranking for the new season. I'm open to persuasion about subtracting a few points at the start, in deference to existing members.

eoferrall wrote: »

Are you taking the base ranking as at the start of this boards cup and then calculating the rating at the end with only boards cup matches played this season? is that easy enough to do?

I can help if its not possible to tell the website to calculate it all!

That's the plan. It's easy enough to calculate (well, with a computer it is). All the information is already there, so it's just a case of writing a little script that will chew through all the fixtures a week at a time and spit out rankings.

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

That's the plan. It's easy enough to calculate (well, with a computer it is). All the information is already there, so it's just a case of writing a little script that will chew through all the fixtures a week at a time and spit out rankings.

With a nice fancy graph?

daveharnett

eoferrall wrote: »

With a nice fancy graph?

If I find an easy way to do it, I might treat you

daveharnett

eoferrall wrote: »

With a nice fancy graph?

Happy birthday, courtesy of google visualisation API.

Not 100% that the figures are correct yet, but it should give you an idea.

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

Happy birthday, courtesy of google visualisation API.

Not 100% that the figures are correct yet, but it should give you an idea.

Thats SAVAGE!:D i doff my hat to you good sir!

I like that it shows the comparing teams rankings graphed, nice touch to show trend. I like the a lot, well done on your efforts with all the features - soon will be the standard bearer for all boards comps sites!:p

mar-z

Great addition to the site Dave! Also to the cup as well

DBraithwaite

How Do you join all the various cups in Blackout that you are not enrolled in already?