Tournaments by player level

[RedWolfe75]

I was wondering if there is a way to create tournaments for a certain player level?

If this is possible (I've never made a tournament before), why can't we filter the tournament list to show this.

I often find that for certain games, tournaments are dominated by the very best players. These players quickly knock out the average players and then it becomes a competition amongst themselves.

[mrdoctor]

You're a premium member, so you can create tournaments. Open the tournament creation settings for literally any game, and you can see a series of tickboxes called 'restrict by level' at the top which will enable you to do as you wish as per this post.

[BananaHarambe]

I was wondering if there is a way to create tournaments for a certain player level?

If this is possible (I've never made a tournament before), why can't we filter the tournament list to show this.

I often find that for certain games, tournaments are dominated by the very best players. These players quickly knock out the average players and then it becomes a competition amongst themselves.

I understand what you mean about tournaments being dominated by stronger players. It depends on the game, but in general strong players in tournaments want to win/compete, but are also looking for skill-based matchmaking that tournaments provide as they progress. Once you get really good at a game you might not want to keep playing random arena opponents with a 90% chance to win, gets tiring.

Yes you can restrict tournaments by rating when you create them. You cannot filter tournaments in search based on Player Level (skill). Tournament Creators should be clear in the text what the Elo range is to avoid confusion.

Here is a link to an ongoing tournament for beginners https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=421106 listed as 0-199 Elo (lowest possible)

In the tournament there is a link to 2 parallel tournaments for 200-299 Elo and 300+ Elo. These 3 tournaments repeat monthly along with many "Open" tournaments, which have no rating restriction.

The beginner tournaments have been popular so I am up to 2 per month now. Players can choose for themselves whether they want to play rating restricted or Open tournaments.

You could also just be joining tournaments of the wrong type. If you are low rated and join a single elimination tournament, yes you are likely to be eliminated early. If you want to stick around for longer, look for Swiss tournaments. You will not be eliminated and will get paired with more appropriate opponents as the tournament progresses and sorts the players.

[Mathew5000]

I often find that for certain games, tournaments are dominated by the very best players. These players quickly knock out the average players and then it becomes a competition amongst themselves.

If you are referring to single-elimination format tournaments, it's not quite correct to say that the best players quickly knock out the average players; what actually happens at the start is the best players knock out the worst players in the tournament, because BGA seeds these tournaments by Elo.

You could also just be joining tournaments of the wrong type. If you are low rated and join a single elimination tournament, yes you are likely to be eliminated early. If you want to stick around for longer, look for Swiss tournaments. You will not be eliminated and will get paired with more appropriate opponents as the tournament progresses and sorts the players.

Yes, I agree! If you are a beginner at a certain game (though you do still need at least 100 Elo), then Swiss format is better than single-elimination.

As for restricting access to players with "Average level" Elo, I've tried that and what seems to happen is, the winner is someone who has played the game quite a bit IRL but not on BGA.

[FSKFSK]

The only way you are going to get "equal opponents" in a tournament is to play a Swiss tournament with a lot of rounds. After the first 2-3 rounds, you should be matched with comparable ability players.

For single-elimination tournaments, the highest elo gets byes and you'll sometimes see two low elo players playing in the first round. This can happen if most of the high elo players got byes. For example, 36 people sign up for a single-elimination tournament. The 8 lowest rated players will be playing each other in the first round.

[RazorOz]

If you are referring to single-elimination format tournaments, it's not quite correct to say that the best players quickly knock out the average players; what actually happens at the start is the best players knock out the worst players in the tournament, because BGA seeds these tournaments by Elo.

They don't seed it properly though right. Maybe someone can clarify how it works at 2 player tournaments, but I know from my experience at say 5 player, in say a 300 player tournament, it will seed #1, #61, #121, #181, #241. So I assume at 2 player in a 64 player tournament the #1 plays the #33 rather than the #64.

I actually think this should be gotten rid of altogether, or at least there should be an option to, but if it is going to exist it should work properly that the #1 plays #64 etc.

[Mathew5000]

They don't seed it properly though right. Maybe someone can clarify how it works at 2 player tournaments, but I know from my experience at say 5 player, in say a 300 player tournament, it will seed #1, #61, #121, #181, #241. So I assume at 2 player in a 64 player tournament the #1 plays the #33 rather than the #64.

In a single-elimination tournament with 64 entrants, in the first round the #1 seed (highest Elo) would play the #64 seed (lowest Elo). The #2 seed would play #63; #3 would play #62, and so forth. The brackets are fixed, so in round 2 the winner of #1 vs #64 would play the winner of #32 vs #33.

I actually think this should be gotten rid of altogether, or at least there should be an option to, but if it is going to exist it should work properly that the #1 plays #64 etc.

I believe that is how it works already. I agree that tournament creators should have the option for random brackets instead of these seeded brackets.

[RazorOz]

In a single-elimination tournament with 64 entrants, in the first round the #1 seed (highest Elo) would play the #64 seed (lowest Elo). The #2 seed would play #63; #3 would play #62, and so forth. The brackets are fixed, so in round 2 the winner of #1 vs #64 would play the winner of #32 vs #33.

I actually think this should be gotten rid of altogether, or at least there should be an option to, but if it is going to exist it should work properly that the #1 plays #64 etc.

I believe that is how it works already. I agree that tournament creators should have the option for random brackets instead of these seeded brackets.

It's weird then, because that's not how single elimination is working in multi-player. See https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=378841 or https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=408631.

It seeds as I said of #1, #61, #121, #181, #241, it actually means the #1 ends up with the toughest table, but I think it ends up less fair on like the #61 etc. It's been a peeve of mine for a while, because in that first tournament, one table will be that, while another table will be #60, #120, #180, #240, #300, it's just not fair seeding.

[Mathew5000]

It's weird then, because that's not how single elimination is working in multi-player.

On BGA, "Single Elimination" and "Multiplayer Elimination" are two distinct tournament types. I was referring to "Single Elimination", which is for 2p games.

In Multiplayer Elimination BGA doesn't use bracketing, right? It does the matchups anew every round. I can't really tell anything from those links, because they are for tournaments that started in July, and everyone's Elo would have changed since then.

One of those links is a tournament of type "Groups Stage". I noted years ago that BGA assigns the groups unfairly based on Elo, using the "typewriter method", but the report has only 9 upvotes: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=73841

So to be clear, you're saying that in tournaments of type Multiplayer Elimination, BGA also uses the typewriter method to seed players based on Elo? Does it do that in each round or just the first one?

[RazorOz]

On BGA, "Single Elimination" and "Multiplayer Elimination" are two distinct tournament types. I was referring to "Single Elimination", which is for 2p games.

In Multiplayer Elimination BGA doesn't use bracketing, right? It does the matchups anew every round. I can't really tell anything from those links, because they are for tournaments that started in July, and everyone's Elo would have changed since then.

One of those links is a tournament of type "Groups Stage". I noted years ago that BGA assigns the groups unfairly based on Elo, using the "typewriter method", but the report has only 9 upvotes: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=73841

So to be clear, you're saying that in tournaments of type Multiplayer Elimination, BGA also uses the typewriter method to seed players based on Elo? Does it do that in each round or just the first one?

Group stage and multiplayer elimination both use the same methodology yes. In that specific example the group stages are just multiplayer elimination both stages so may influence that.

It uses this formula in R1 then in the rounds after it appears to be random, but I can't be 100% sure.

I have upvoted your bug report, though I would imagine it's not actually a bug, I would guess it's by design, it is a very poor way to do things for sure, as you can see in the example I posted that table #1 will be significantly higher ELO than table #60. In group stage this then compounds because group 1 is significantly higher ELO than group 12 for Round 2 (it's a numbers thing why I'm using group stage there to make 300 players work, it's using the system to give what I want of the first 2 rounds 5 player with top 2 to qualify, and the next rounds 6 player with top 3 to qualify, which otherwise would not be possible).