Pacific Northwest Local Playoff Survey - Change the format?

A few weeks ago, the league coordinators in the Northern Oregon (Portland) and Northwest Washington (Seattle) areas sent out a survey on the playoff format used for local playoffs.

This is a topic because 4 years ago the playoff format was changed from a traditional single elimination draw to having a "first place" draw and "second place" draw where the first place draw final loser got a second chance of advancing to Sectionals by playing the second place draw winner to determine the wildcard.

Note: The teams advancing to local playoffs are the top-2 teams in each sub-flight, thus the first and second place teams noted.

The reason this was done is because both areas send two teams to Sectionals and in the prior traditional single elimination format, both teams that make the final know they are going to Sectionals making the final somewhat meaningless.  In an effort to make the matches all have meaning, the new format was introduced.

Some weren't fond of the format and apparently enough gave feedback to the coordinators that a survey with three options was offered to get feedback.  The survey is now closed, but the results and decision have not been published yet.  Still, I thought it would be useful to look at the options and do some analysis of them.

The survey had a link to a description of the options so take a look at that for all the details.  But a summary of the options is:

• Option A - Current format, first place teams draw, winner goes to sectionals, loser plays winner of second place teams draw for wildcard
• Option B - Alternate multi-draw format where just top-two (in the example) or four teams (presumably if applicable) go into the first place teams draw to avoid having byes to deal with, but otherwise the same as option A.
• Option C - Traditional single elimination draw as it used to be.

I thought it would be useful to do some analysis to see what the real (dis)advantage was for each team.

The issue with option A is that when there aren't two (or four) first place teams, both draws end up having team(s) that get a bye, e.g. in a three sub-flight situation there are three first place teams (and three second place teams) each draw has one team with a bye which is perhaps not equitable as two first place teams have to play a first match while the highest seeded second place team gets a bye.  Here is an example draw.

So, would you rather be the #2 or #3 seeds (2nd or 3rd first place team) having to play a first place team and win to stay in it, or the #4 seed (1st second place team) with a bye and getting to play the winner of two second place teams?

I created a simulation with the draw scenarios, and as a baseline first said all the teams were equal and there was a 50% chance of any team winning head to head.  When this is done, the chances of advancing to Sectionals was:

• #1 seed - 75%
• #2 and #3 seeds - 37.5%
• #4 seed - 25%
• #5 and #6 seeds - 12.5%

So it is better to be the #2 or #3 seeds simply because if you win the first match, you do get the second chance at advancing if you lose the first place final.  But it is somewhat close to the #4 seed getting the bye.  And there is a clear advantage to being the #1 seed.

But if the three sub-flights aren't really equal (they never are) and the #4 seed is actually a very strong team and just happened to be beat by another really strong team in their flight to be in second place, and the #3 seed came from a weak flight where the #3 team isn't that strong, a reasonable scenario plays out as:

• #1 seed - 79.9%
• #2 seed - 46.1%
• #3 seed - 28.5%
• #4 seed - 29.7%
• #5 seed - 7.9%
• #6 seed - 7.9%

Here the #4 seed has a slightly better chance than the #3 seed.

The other perhaps inequitable aspect of this format is that the #1 seed could be #1 simply because they had a weaker flight compared to the #2 seed so has a better standings record, but they get a huge advantage and can even lose their first match and not be eliminated.  Every other team has to win their first match.  This doesn't seem quite fair.

Option B aims to address this last point by putting the #1 and #2 seed on equal footing so just one team doesn't have the huge advantage.  This is how that looks.

This avoids any byes which seems like a good thing, but it is a big disadvantage to be the #3 seed.  This is a first place team and perhaps is the #3 seed simply because they were in the toughest flight.  But they will be required to win three in a row despite being a first place team, while the other two first place teams get a huge advantage of only having to win one match and not being out of it if they lose their first match.

Here is the equal chance of each team winning advance percentages:

• 1st and 2nd seeds - 75%
• 3rd thru 6th seeds - 12.5%

This is a huge difference and advantage to being the top-2 seeds.  To me that seems too extreme, particularly for the #3 seed to be shunted into a draw with no built-in advantage over a bunch of second  place teams, one of which the #3 seed had to play and probably beat in their sub-flight already.

Last, option C is a traditional single elimination draw with byes for the top-2 seeds, but no second chance if they lose.  This is what it looks like:

Here is how the advance percentages play out with an equal chance of each team winning a match.

• 1st and 2nd seeds - 50%
• 3rd thru 6th seeds - 25%

Being a top-2 seed has a built-in advantage, but it is not nearly as big as for option B.  This seems more equitable to me and doesn't penalize the #3 seed nearly as much.

Of course option C has the original issue (if you consider it one) of the final not having any impact on advancing.  It only decides who the local champion is, and ensures the winner won't be in the flight at Sectionals with the other main area winner, i.e. the Sectionals flights always have the Seattle winner in a flight with the 2nd place Portland team, and Portland winner in a flight with the Seattle 2nd place team.

I think there are two ways to address this issue.

First, just accept it doesn't have much meaning and play it anyway, or perhaps don't even play the match which saves having to schedule the finals which reduces the demand for courts (a good thing for facilities).  If it isn't played, flip a coin to determine Sectionals flights.

Second, create more incentive to win the final.  It could be monetary, something like waiving the team fee for local playoffs for the winner, or a more significant trophy for being the winner, or be creative coming up with something else.

What do you think?  What would you, or did you vote for and why?

I voted for option C, and while not asked, would advocate creating more incentive to win to make the final meaningful.