In the light of recent comment and events regarding Ultimate Babe I have felt duty bound to pass comment.
At this point it is important to stress that what appears below are NOT definitive solutions. They are merely my ideas. Those ideas are not without flaw, indeed I myself could pick holes in them. I feel sure someone somewhere could come up with indestructable formats given the time.
Firstly with specific regard to the Sophie-Beth tie.
The proposed solution of a one day play off was one I made privately to winsaw prior to the end of the preliminary round.
Understandably because the comp had already started this solution was deemed to be one that was appropriate for use in future years rather than this one. Winsaw had decided to use the coin toss method as per previous years.
Unfortunately a tie came to pass for qualification. The coin toss was deployed.
Obviously this caused some consternation and I understand that.
In future years this can hopefully be avoided by use of a one day play off for two way ties and a one day poll for ties involving more than two contenders.
This being on the assumption that the nomination round with all nominations set to equal value remains in place.
Secondly I move to the objective of trying to avoid ties in the opening phase of voting.
The way I have tried to do this is to operate a points based system for a top 6 or top 8 or top whatever number. So for example in a top 8 it would be 8 points for 1st down to 1 point for 8th. If tied on points then number of 1st then 2nd then 3rd etc place finishes would decide the outcomes. I do this to enable less possibility of ties with countback mechanisms to resolve them as far as possible.
One key problem with all nominations equal to the same value is that there is no possibility of a countback mechanism at all thereby producing need for an extra play off round as has been required this year in Ultimate Babe.
I do understand the argument as to what happens if people only list a top 1 or 2 or 3 rather than a top 8 to give their favourites the biggest possible advantage over those perceived to be a threat to their favourite winning.
The possible solution to this is proportional points allocation system detailed in the linked post below.
https://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.p...id2170237.
Thirdly I move to what happens once the qualifiers for the knockout phase become known. At this point the next question becomes do you use a fully seeded draw, partially seeded draw or fully random draw?
In my time running comps on here I have used all three methods.
If total, absolute and complete transparency is desired then a fully seeded draw has to be the way forward with the seed number totals adding up to the same amount in each half of the draw.
So for example with 8 qualifiers the draw would look like this.
1 v 8
4 v 5
-------------
3 v 6
2 v 7
1+8+4+5 = 18
3+6+7+2 = 18
Random draws are not independently verifiable which in the eyes of the more suspicious leads to doubt.
In random draws done I have put numbered pool balls into a bowl with each babe given a number relevant to the position qualified in.
Or alternatively drawn names on folded pieces of card out of a bowl.
But obviously nobody could see me doing it
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Now I move to the fourth issue. The knockout phase and specifically how to resolve ties in the knockout phase. If using my points based system then the babe that qualifies with more points wins. If still tied then it goes to number of 1st then 2nd then 3rd place nomination round finishes.
In the unlikely event of an ABSOLUTE TIE then a one day contingency playoff would occur taking different forms according to which knockout round it is.
Below is the summary.
If the tie is in the first knockout round:
Put each babe in a one day playoff against the best non qualifier. Whichever babe performs better against that non qualifier goes through whether it be by result or by margin of victory or defeat.
If the tie is in the semi final:
Find the best performing losing quarter finalist. Put each of the tied babes into a 1 day playoff against that babe. Whichever babe performs better against that losing quarter finalist goes through to the final whether it be by result or by margin of victory or defeat.
If the tie is in the final:
Put each finalist in a 1 day playoff against the opposite semi finalist they played in the semi finals.
Whichever finalist performs better wins whether it be by result or by margin of victory or defeat.
And after all that pile of gobbledygook I'm off for a lie down
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