Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Tim Delles
So i decided to go through each regional just to see how many number one seeds went on to win the regional. well out of the 18 that have been played so far, only 7 #1 seeded teams have won the regional. Now this makes me ask does it pay to be the number 1 seeded team anymore?
|
As expected, there has been quite a bit of discussion about the "serpentine draft" process for selecting alliances. Now we are starting to have some actual data to support those discussions.
Historically, the traditional selection process has had the highest seeded team pick first within each round of selections. That made for a significant number of very, very strong alliances during the finals (some would argue, unbeatable). If the alliances were all of equivalent capability and skill, then you could logically conclude that each of the eight alliances in the finals would have an equal probability of winning the competition. There should be an even distribution of wins vs. seed position at the conclusion of the competition season. A #1 seeded alliance should win 12.5% of the time, as would a #2 alliance, a #3 alliance, etc. But the data showed that was not the case. The #1 alliance typically won more than half the time. Yes, there were occasionally upsets and "underdog stories." But the reality is that if you were the #1 seed team, you knew you had a 1-in-2 probability of winning the event, while the lower seeded alliances (which nominally should expect a 1-in-8 chance), had considerably lower probability of winning. Being the #1 seed should allow an alliance to come into the finals with some advantage. But the concern was that the old alliance selection process gave them TOO MUCH of an advantage and it was killing the competition.
The new selection process was, in part, an attempt to slightly even out the competitive level for the finals. No one believes that we will ever reach the point that each of the final alliances will actually have a real 1-in-8 probability of winning the competitions, and that was not the intent. But the desire was to move a little bit away from the point where the #1 alliance position was almost an assured win every time.
Based on these initial numbers, it appears that that effort may have been only partially successful. Out of 18 events, a truly even distribution would have the #1 alliance winning 2.25 times, or 12.5% of the time. But these data shows that they have won 8 times, giving a 44% probability of winning the competition. Given that the #1 alliance is still out-performing pure probability by a factor of more than three, I think that we can safely conclude that being in the #1 alliance position is still a very good place to be. The teams are obviously able to still build strong alliances, and play the game successfully. While the sample size is still a little small for an accurate small number statistics analysis, it does appear that the #1 alliance position still wins the competition a disproportionately high number of times. Picking first during the draft still provides a strategically important advantage to the #1 alliance position that is only slightly affected by, and absolutely not overshadowed by, the serpentine draft process.
-dave