I am going to describe for you a hypothetical tournament situation, together
that a couple of questions that I'd like for you to consider your answers to.

The tournament in question is a three round tournament without a top board.
There are two solos, by players who I shall unimaginatively call A and B.

Regarding the other games of the soloists, both A and B also have an
elimination. A is the first casualty in his elimination, out in 1904, while B is
the last player eliminated in a three-way draw, out in 1910. In the final round,
both A and B appear on the same board, which ends in a 16-12-5-1 draw. A is the
sixteen centre power, with B on five.

Now for the questions:

1. Who do you think should win the tournament? Is this a strong feeling, or
could a case be made for a different outcome?

2. Now pick a scoring system. Under this system, who does win the tournament?
How does this correlate with your answer to Q1? If there is a conflict, what
conclusions can you draw about either the scoring system or your own attitudes
regarding achievements worthy of recognition?

Regarding a choice of a scoring system, you may like to redo Q2 with a couple of
different systems. Relevant choices that you may want to consider could be
scoring systems that are used at a tournament that you attend (or even run!) in
a geographic area near to you.

For reference for those who are unfamiliar, some scoring systems can be found at
the URL http://eurodip.nuxit.net/php/scoring/scoring.php?lang=Ang In New England
we use Detour98f and the "Win Tier System."

A note about replying to this post. I realise that this sort of topic can
generate a lot of heated, and often degenerate discussion (and often by
non-locals), so if you are going to reply to this post on MADip, please consider
twice before deciding if you have anything constructive to say. Otherwise, feel
free to reply to me off list, and if you want to vent your thoughts publicly,
I'll set up a place for you to do so at
http://bartogian.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/madip-discussion-forum/ to avoid
cluttering people's inboxes.

Peter