Rationale for the scoring system

There are 6pts for each player in a game:  5-player 30pts, 4-player 24pts, 3-player 18pts. This means that there is no overall advantage for playing in a smaller group.

The points distribution (12-8-5-3-2; 11-7-4-2; 10-6-2) is intended to encourage players to go for a win – for example, 1st and 3rd place in two successive 4-player games give 15pts whereas two 2nd places gives 14pts. It has the added benefit of spacing out the scores when all games are completed, which means that it is less likely that a tie-break of the league will be needed.

There are always 2pts for the last place. This is to discourage players from dropping out, even if they don’t like the game or think they have no chance.

Tie breaks

Tied points in the league will be broken firstly by number of wins, then number of 2nd places and so on. However, given that we endeavour to run the league with 4-player games throughout, it is very feasible for players to remain tied after all 4 rounds. Ties will subsequently be broken by points vs. game average.

For each game you play, your score vs. the average of scores for all players in that game will be calculated: if you score above the average, then it will be a positive %age, if below then it will be a negative %age. These percentages are added up over the games played. So the better your score over the 4 games, the better this accumulated measure will be.

This tie-break was considered better than simply using total points scored, as it gives equal weight to all different sorts of games. For example, a typical winning score in Vinhos is 140, whereas in Bus it is 10: the player who scores better in Vinhos should not be favoured over the player who scores better in Bus.

Even different seedings of the same game can lead to different average scores, so we have used performance vs. average for your individual game, rather than for all the games in the same round.

After points vs. game average, we will revert to total points scored. If improbably a tie remains unbroken at this stage, the player who was most recently ahead wins the tie.

In the exceedingly improbable event that none of these tie-breaks resolves the tie, then players are indeed tied.

Missed games

There are 0 pts if a player drops out after a date has been agreed.

Following discussion in 2015 it was agreed that 5pts for a bye was too generous, and 2pts, (the same as a last place) was appropriate, but this must be agreed beforehand, and is intended for when someone just cannot fit in a suitable date over the 2 month period.

The general idea is to make the tournament an option for as many of the club members as possible.