The WC Silver & Bronze Cup suggestions topic

[Kostas O]

I resent the fact that i had a special invitation to participate in this topic.
I have so little ko practise in the last year that if i competed in a WC now i would definitely be in the top 16!
Nevertheless here's my 2 cents.

Most important for me in a WC is to play against as many different opponents as possible. Having said that some competitiveness is always welcome to spice things up. I think that the current formats are toward these goals (pun intended) so i wouldn't give it too much thought (unless i was organising or something). 3 different cups serves in my opinion the purpose of scaling the competition and does not leave too many hanging in between different classes.
40 or so trophies are always welcome (for people to have something to bring back home to excuse their absence!)

The tourist idea i think deserves some thought. You may have got something here Thor.

It is very good Alkis you push this agenda. The incentive for middle class players to travel should always be number one priority for the KOA.

[Logos]

I resent the fact that i had a special invitation to participate in this topic.
I have so little ko practise in the last year that if i competed in a WC now i would definitely be in the top 16!
Nevertheless here's my 2 cents.

Most important for me in a WC is to play against as many different opponents as possible. Having said that some competitiveness is always welcome to spice things up. I think that the current formats are toward these goals (pun intended) so i wouldn't give it too much thought (unless i was organising or something). 3 different cups serves in my opinion the purpose of scaling the competition and does not leave too many hanging in between different classes.
40 or so trophies are always welcome (for people to have something to bring back home to excuse their absence!)

The tourist idea i think deserves some thought. You may have got something here Thor.

It is very good Alkis you push this agenda. The incentive for middle class players to travel should always be number one priority for the KOA.

I agree with everything you say here. The core of the KOA are the so called middle class players so the incentive for them to play, travel and enjoy the event is most important.

Regarding trophies, I loved what Gianni did in the last WC with the many trophies awarded, I did a similar thing in Bournemouth too. This may seem superfluous to some but to others it is a souvenier to mark a unique moment in time; something tangible to bind those sweet memories.

[Freshmaker]

After following what people say here, I still land at mostly what Rodolfo says. Keep it mostly as it is, but remove quarter-finals in the SC. The semis should be either 1 or 2 legs (I like 2 legs, but they should be played without more than 5 minutes break). SC final should be 2 legs. It's a big screen match ffs!

[Rodolfo]

A little disagreement with my good Jorn here: I would rather keep the one leg final for the SC.

We already had a two legs final in some edition (Cologne, for example, if I remember correctly) and it was a little too much. We must admit that the KO level displayed is not good enough as for keeping all WC participants focused in that for half an hour. Also, from a player point of view, the anxiety is already big enough with one single big screen game.

[Freshmaker]

I can see where you're coming from Rod, and I can agree to that. But, in order for that to make sense, the semis should also be 1 leg.

[Kostas O]

1leg vs 2leg knock-outs is always about wanting more surprising results against wanting the more "sensible" ones.
I'm stating the obvious, i know, but what the organizers want sets the tone of the tournament.

[alkis21]

We have used two groups of 8 in the Silver Cup four times, unlike the World Cup where it's only been used for two competitions. Would you say that the groups are usually of more or less equal strength? Looking at all of them, I'd say that the ones in Dusseldorf were slightly unbalanced but usually there aren't any great differences between players of this level.

As much as I like the suspense the two groups of 8 has brought to our events, the differences in difficulty in both Birmingham and Milan trouble me. Take the example of Oliver. In England, he was third in his group in the first round and yet he played in the harder Day 2 group and got disqualified. Robert, on the other hand, was fourth in his group but was placed in the easier group and was through to the quarter finals. Imagine that it was the first time ever that a fourth player on Day 1 made it to the quarter finals; it was impossibly difficult to do with the four groups of four. Now in 2012, Oliver was 4th in his Round 1 group but this time he got the easier one, and once again a 4th player made it to the QFs. Lorenzo Ceselli was SECOND in his group and got the hardest group ever, with three ex world champions in it for crying out loud... Neither case was fair. I know we've had unbalanced groups with 4x4 too in the past, but they were the exception and often the result of a favorite who underperformed.

Perhaps we should consider having the players carry some points to the second round depending on their performance, so that the first round does not seem so pointless. Both the World Cup and the Silver Cup could benefit from this idea. It's not unheard of, it's being done in basketball tournaments.

How's this for an idea?

Players who finish first in Round 1 start Round 2 with 3 points.
Players who finish second in Round 1 start Round 2 with 2 points.
Players who finish third in Round 1 start Round 2 with 1 point.
Players who finish fourth in Round 1 start Round 2 with 0 points.

Same thing can go for players in positions 5-8 in the Silver Cup. That way, people's Day 1 performance will have a small reflection in the second round, which won't affect things too dramatically but it's still more fair than starting vanilla all over again. Plus, it will give more incentive to most players to try harder in all of their games. Such as, say, Cornelius, who knows that he has little chances of making it to the World Cup but will almost certainly be above the 9th position in his group, which makes most of his Round 1 games rather moot.

[Cornelius]

Plus, it will give more incentive to most players to try harder in all of their games. Such as, say, Cornelius, who knows that he has little chances of making it to the World Cup but will almost certainly be above the 9th position in his group, which makes most of his Round 1 games rather moot.

I'm a player who always gives the best he can in every game, regardless of my opponent and the place I'm competing for.
This is the way I enjoy the game most. The results and my final standings are of second nature, because it's about the fun of the game and the people I'm playing with - although a victory always tastes sweeter than a defaet.
And I can imagine that all this aplly to many players, no matter how good they are.

Nevertheless I find your proposal of taking over 1 - 3 points into day two very interesting.
I'm used to this system from the table soccer tournaments I wrote about. There you have four finalists with just three games to play. The influence of the starting points is smaller for the players finishing second or third, while it can be quite strong for the first or last one.
This way we could get more competition into day one. But on the other side, it might be a little demotivating for a player, who would otherwise be simply happy to have made it into the gold / silver cup.

Considrering the others debates in this thread, I'm very satisfied with the format we had in Milan.

Anyway I will be happy as long as I'm able to play you all (and maybe beat a few).

[alkis21]

I obviously used your name as a random example. I'm sure everyone tries their best in every game, but there's nothing wrong with a little extra incentive. Even if we could ensure two groups of absolutely equal strength, at the moment it makes no difference if a person finishes 2nd or 3rd (or 6th or 7th) in the first round, as they end up in the same group anyway. I would like to see that changed. After all, the second player is often much closer to the third one that the first in points. See Luigi/Panayotis, Lorenzo/Mario, Gianluca/Ektoras this year, or Jorg/Cornelius and Klaus/Helmut. It would be great if there was more at stake than prestige.

[Torchiador]

I don't like much this rule. but I don't dislike it that much to say "I don't want that rule". At least, this bonus is something that gives more sense to day stage.

Being honest, about the format, I would be also in favour to come back to the original knock out phase with 4 groups of 4 then quarter finals.
Both the formats used are nice. and sure it is nice to face more people, but from another point of view, the format 4x4 is more "real world cup feeling". I hope you understand what I mean: the day one group stage is the qualification stage, in fact you quality for the World - Silver or Bronze cup. then, on day two there is the proper tournament phase: the Cup itself.
In the last years we had big leagues in day 2. they are nice to face more players but it spoiled the final phase because 2 players of each class play together in the big league. and again take something to day one group stage because you play in a big league to end in a big league again.
Then, of course I don't forget the "In or out" games we had in Birmingham like the epic Ektoras vs Andy or other games and the amazing tension in 1X in or out games we saw and played. but I don't forget too that such matches where also drove by the fact that Andy and Lorenzeo were underseeded + a very bad luck random draw.
In my opinion 4x4 has still something to say to the big leagues.

[Rodolfo]

[...]
Perhaps we should consider having the players carry some points to the second round depending on their performance, so that the first round does not seem so pointless. Both the World Cup and the Silver Cup could benefit from this idea. It's not unheard of, it's being done in basketball tournaments.

How's this for an idea?

Players who finish first in Round 1 start Round 2 with 3 points.
Players who finish second in Round 1 start Round 2 with 2 points.
Players who finish third in Round 1 start Round 2 with 1 point.
Players who finish fourth in Round 1 start Round 2 with 0 points.

Same thing can go for players in positions 5-8 in the Silver Cup. That way, people's Day 1 performance will have a small reflection in the second round, which won't affect things too dramatically but it's still more fair than starting vanilla all over again. Plus, it will give more incentive to most players to try harder in all of their games. Such as, say, Cornelius, who knows that he has little chances of making it to the World Cup but will almost certainly be above the 9th position in his group, which makes most of his Round 1 games rather moot.

I vote no. My first reaction is that you are trying to accommodate an alien concept as for football competitions. And I still think of KO as football related.

Besides this, I did not answer before because I thought of this idea to be more oriented to balance WC day 2 groups, instead of SC groups.

What is so wrong about 'death groups'? We may have to admit that we can never do the perfect seeding, and also and more important, we can never predict or control other players saturday performances. The great Gianluca, for example, is usually half absent on saturdays, conceeding points against weak players, and therefore he will usually create a sunday death group. Why not just accept it? Why do people want to get far in the competition without beating the really good ones?

[Torchiador]

What is so wrong about 'death groups'?

and there should be said that also in real Fifa world cup often happens to see "dead groups" they are part of the original soccer gameplay!

[durban]

I would just like to agree 100% with Gianni.

Firstly carrying points is wrong (imho)
Death groups happen on day 1 as well as day 2 (my group in milan for example). Its part of the game, i like it!

Day 1 performance is to get you into day2 its not about winning the wc at this stage.

I am now officially on team Gianni!