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By definition, Direct Comparison compares the performance of the two players against each other. This does not suggest an advantage, does it? Surely just a tautology.
The pairings are playing a role as those tied were drawn against each other.
direct comparison says A beat B once, so A will always beat B advantage? tautology? disadvantage?
Well, Go is a game of in which all the information is available to both players equally. This is similar to chess; different from poker and backgammon. The player that makes better use of the information available (this position of the stones on the board, the player to move, and the time on the clocks) wins.
Direct Comparison preserves this characteristic of the game. Many of the other tiebreakers do not. Just last summer at the Go congress, the player that won the section I was in, won due to my beating another person. While he play got him into a position to win, I had to win to clinch the deal. Doesn't it seem undesirable that your winning a tournament for a game of perfect information should be determined by the play of someone you never played against? At least in a knockout tournament you have to beat the person that beat the others, so there is a transitive relationship between your winning and beating every other player in the tournament, even if it is by proxy. (You beat the person that beat....)
But SOS, SOSOS, SODOS have the characteristic that the luck of the pairings is important and can be crucial. Its a result of having too few rounds, I'm afraid. Its a disadvantage of both Swiss and McMahon. A disadvantage that we accept due to time constraints, but still a disadvantage.
We should make this clear as well as making it clear that the pairings (beyond the control of the players) play a role in tiebreakers such as SOS.
direct comparison says A beat B once, so A will always beat B advantage? Do you believe this? If so there is no need for tournaments. Ota Yuzo once beat Shusaku, therefore Ota Yuzo will always beat Shusaku. We need only have each player play one game to construct a complete graph of which players are stronger than which, and so both tournaments and tiebreakers are unnecessary.
I assume this is an attempt to elicit an emotional response.
You cannot say that DirectComparison solves the problem of too few rounds which SOS does not. DirectComparison doesn't produce an extra round. Both theorise what the result of the next round might be. SOS uses a sample of games from all rounds. DirectComparison uses only one game (normally). There is no gaurantee that using it will mean you cannot lose a tournament because you didn't get the chance to play somebody. I.E. DirectComparison does not eliminate the draw, it doesn't not eliminate any luck involved in the draw. Your advantage is basically self definition.
In response to your last point. No, it is not, it is a statement of fact. It is a simple tiebreaker, but one that use a minimum of information. Infact with two evenly matched players we would expect wins to alternate, not repeat. So is it logical to use DirectComparison then? Perhaps there is some merit, perhaps not. My opinion is that it unsophisticated. -IanDavis
Ian Davis stated:
I did not say that.
I said that Direct Comparison does not introduce luck to a game that is designed to provide the same information to both players. It does not theorize what will happen in the next game. Its simply says that in this tournament A beat B in a game. Therefore, if A and B are tied, we will award the game to A. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ian Davis stated:
The odds of rolling even or odd on a six-sided die are identical. You expect that even and odd will appear on alternate rolls. I would like to bet you $1,000 that will not be the case over four rolls. I would like to obligate you to repeat this bet as long as I am willing to play. May we begin playing?
I was referring to But SOS, SOSOS, SODOS have the characteristic that the luck of the pairings is important and can be crucial. Its a result of having too few rounds, I'm afraid. DirectComparison is obviously not eliminating luck of the pairings, or am I missing something? I hope I'm not. If so how does it eliminate luck?
Lets roll the first dice. In a tournament where A beats 9 people who scored badly, but beat B, then lost to a right n00b, B beat 10 people who scored well and lost to A. Who should win and why? If you prefer information, why would you want to use DirectComparison. I really don't understand your argument. If you want to list this as an advantage, can you explain clearly why it is an advantage over various other tiebreakers. -IanDavis
Please continue at DirectComparison/Discussion
I thought use of discussion pages is deprecated? As you can see the discussion page is already a mess.
Direct Comparison can either have two motivations.
On the first part it has few flaws, I will not argue against it there. On the second, I would note that it is not very good. It takes 1 single game in a whole tournament and uses that to predict the winner. Need I expand on that point?
Your point can be summarised as The advantage of DirectComparison is that it is DirectComparison. This is not an intelligble advantage to my mind, so I ask please for an explanation or at least a rewording.
Remember SOS can be formed from DirectComparison + IndirectComparison?. All 3 are products of the draw, as is the final MMS / other score. -IanDavis