Tournament Bracketology 101
It is easy to form seedings throughout a 64 team, single elimination tourney. In the first round, the seeding numbers added together always equal 65 (1 plays 64, 2 plays 63, 32 plays 33…). In the second round of 32 teams, assuming all of the top seeds win, the total of the two seeds will equal 33, and so on. If there is an upset win, then the winner takes over the spot of the higher seeded team it defeated.
History
Dane Peacock
United States
Stansbury Park
Utah
That tickles
Inspired by Chuckles', The Friday Night Fights: Game vs Game Geeklist, Dane put together a head to head tournament structured like the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament.
2004 included the top 32 games. At the time, expansions were listed in the BGG rankings, so they were included in the tournament. BGG members cast votes by posting comments. Dane had to go through every comment for every game and check for duplicates or incorrect votes and such. It took a massive amount of time. We voted to name the championship award the Aldie Award, in honor of a very, very great man.
2005, we bumped up the tourney to 64 games. The first two years of the tournament, Fawkes ran a Bracketology geeklist coinciding with the Geek Madness Tournament, and users got to fill out prediction brackets. The winners received truckloads of geekgold.
2006, Friendless, with assistance from mkgray, came to Dane's rescue and created a program that tallied the votes and removed duplicates. It saved Dane a ton of time. We also decided to roll all of the expansions into the ranking of the base game, so expansions were eliminated from the tournament.
2007, the new BGG rankings system was in place, omitting expansions. So, Dane was able to simply include the top 64 ranked games as ranked by BGG. If you remember, the thumbs system was still going through changes. At the start of the tourney, thumbs down icons were still available. Dane decided to go with comments again as the official voting method.
2008, the thumbs system was solid. For the first time, the official voting method was to give a thumbs up. Please feel free to leave comments. It was also the first time all 64 games were included in the first round under one geeklist.
brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
2009, the tourney will be run the same way. We just have a new manager and are a bit behind schedule. But hopefully you will enjoy it just as much!
2010, the tourney gets more interaction with the return of the Bracket contest. BGG Members can submit a sheet for 1 GeekGold and predict the winners!
2011, a couple modifications were made. First, all common games were grouped together. Only one Dominion, one Ticket to Ride, etc. were allowed to compete but represented the entire line. Second, only the top 60 were guaranteed with write-in nominees filling the vacancies. A preliminary round was introduced to select games from outside the top 60. Finally, an actual award was designed to pass out to all winner finishing in the Elite 8.
2012, followed the same format except in the seeding. All of the guaranteed games were resorted by their current rank the week the tournament started and all write-in nominations were seeded by current rank in the bottom spaces. With Agricola winning 2 years in a row, the "temp retirement rule" kicks in and it will sit out during next year's tournament.
