WL2013 Playoff Match Ups

[5000 Years Old Man]

Hello Vern:

Sorry for the delay in replying, work has been crazy.

To answer your questions:

Yes - League playoffs have historically been single elimination
No - Playoff format has not been written down as a general rule. The format is dependent and changes with the composition of each league and the number of teams.
Yes - All previous playoffs have been half sheets. This is the first playoffs to use a full sheet (since the modern tier format).
Yes - You are right in that your teams playoff record is better than the teams that lost the first round and yet now you have the same footing going forward in the next round. I could not find a way to address this and still give everyone two rounds.

Here is the story on how this league playoff format came about.
Historically with 12 teams, we would have kept teams in the three tiers and done two rounds of half sheets, single elimination with prizes for first and second place. This works nicely as everything is done in one night, prizes are well distributed (50% of teams get money). In previous leagues there has always been a good division of teams equally across tiers. I would not have to depend on the stats to determine who should be placed in each group as it was very obvious who belonged where. There was no objections and everything worked out well.

With this league the lines between tiers (tier 1-2 and tier 2-3) were very blurry. It was not very obvious who belonged where. Conversely, there was a good division if you divided the teams into two groups. Doing so raised the problem that you could not resolve six teams in only two rounds (one night). This would require the need for a third round and a second night. Prizes will still be payed out to 50% of the teams in the form of 1, 2, and 3. As a result of this, 4 of the 6 teams would get to play a minimum of 2 rounds while 2 teams only gets to play one.

By adding a second chance to the teams that were knocked out the first round gives them the same number of minimum matches as everyone else. I thought this would be best solution for everyone - more foos, more competition, more fun.

I'm sorry you missed my post explaining the format a couple of weeks ago. I'll take care to make sure everyone is aware of the format well in advance in the future. Unfortunately, we've missed the chance to modify these playoffs.

Chris

welll...

this paraphrases my reply in matter-of-fact talk, leaving the poetic and sentimental aléatoire right out of it