World Cup 2006 - Seedings

[Robert]

At the moment we have 55 players, excluding Beckite (withdrew) and including Durban (may withdraw).

If Beckite changes his mind and decides to come he'll be added as a Wildcard with the other unseeded players. If Durban, or anyone else, withdraws then they are removed from the seedings and everyone else will be moved up one place.

If anyone fails to arrive, and pay me the £20 registration fee in cash, by midday Saturday, they will be removed from the seedings and will not participate in the tournament.

At the moment I am seriously considering moving the draw itself to Saturday midday as I think it will be badly attended on Friday night.

Seedings are below. Principles used are:

Ranking
Performance in previous World Cups
Recent form and practice level
Where two players must be separated, head-to-head record

We have 4 groups to be drawn, each with 14 players. This will mean we draw from 14 seeding 'layers'. I have used alternate red to make it easier for people to spot whether they are in layer 5,6,7 etc.

The aim of this process is not to favour or punish any individual, but just to come up with four equal groups (as much as is possible). So please don't complain about your seeding. The way to prove the seeding comittee wrong is by winning, not whining.

World Cup 2006 Seedings

1 Gianni T - Italy
2 Alkis P - Greece
3 Martin J - UK
4 Klaus Lo - Norway
5 Nikos A - Greece
6 Spyros P - Greece
7 Dan C - UK
8 Michael O - Germany
9 Ben G - UK
10 Mario F - Italy
11 Robert S - UK
12 Steve C - UK
13 Martin B - UK
14 James B - UK
15 Jon G - UK
16 Marco D - Italy
17 Simon B - UK
18 Stefan V - Germany
19 Nick P - Denmark
20 Thomas K - Germany
21 John H - Sweden
22 Ben C - UK
23 Alex B - Germany
24 Glenn L - Norway
25 Rodolfo M - Spain
26 Oliver St - Germany
27 Marco S - Italy
28 Jacob K - Sweden
29 Jorg P - Germany
30 Maurizio L - Italy
31 Sascha W - Germany
32 Wayne L - Hong Kong
33 Haydn H - Wales
34 Knut L - Norway
35 Michael Mu - Germany
36 Mark B - UK
37 Mark E - UK
38 James Bu - UK
39 Henrik R - Denmark
40 Darren G - UK
41 John R - UK
42 Thomas N - Germany
43 Peter S - Germany
44 Garry C - UK
WC Claus H - Denmark
WC Haakon E - Norway
WC Tarkan D - UK
WC Astrid B - Holland
WC Jesper K - Denmark
WC Oliver V - Holland
WC Saskia B - Holland

How will the draw be done?

Each year, we make some changes to the 'random' element of the draw to ensure that we don't get too many players from one country in the same group. This is the World Cup, and you'll want to play people from everwhere EXCEPT your own country.

So, here's the current plan on how we achieve this.

1st seeds - draw freely
2nd seeds - no to 1st and 2nd of same nationality..redraw if needed
3rd seeds - ensure all groups have at least 1 UK player and no group has more than 1 Italian
4th seeds - all four groups must finish with 2 UK players (8/4) - we must place Marco in the group that already has 2 UK, then draw the others.
5th seeds - avoid group with 3 Italians, redraw Alessandro if needed
6th seeds - avoid group with 4 UK, redraw Ben if necessary
7th seeds - avoid group with 4 UK, redraw Durban if necessary

after this...we go for a free draw and just observe the rule of:

No more than 5 players from the UK (we have 20 and therefore will split them evenly)
No more than 4 players from any other country

The 'redraw' principle works as follows. You pull out the player's name, and if you exceed the quota, place the player in the next league. Then we draw again for the league we were originally making.

Can't wait for the draw now!

[Rodolfo]

Thank you.

[Robert]

Thank you.

No complaints? Must have put you too high

[_glenn]

great work!!! the draw will be thrilling. But i hope you can arrange the draw on friday, saturday will be used for practice, and already saturday is fully packed. The draw on friday is a great tradition.

[alkis21]

When we started this, I thought it was going to be easy as we had enough information for most players. It turned out that there were some groups of 4-6 players that were almost impossible to seperate. I hope you all understand that we did our best to be fair and no decision was made lightly.

[Ely]

I'm shocked how high I am

[Tripod]

Personally I reckon you could seed me a group lower and move durban up, I'd have no problem with that - though then there'd be no chance of playing Rodolfo, which I want to. I hope nobody will complain, everybody should know how difficult this is and with the big groups the seedings shouldn't matter so much anyway.

[Robert]

great work!!! the draw will be thrilling. But i hope you can arrange the draw on friday, saturday will be used for practice, and already saturday is fully packed. The draw on friday is a great tradition.

I agree. We just have too many people arriving late, and also we're under time pressure to get to the restaurant.

Finally, with 56 players, I know that SOMEONE will try to not pay before the start. If we've done the draw, it's harder to remove them. I am very serious about a no pay/no play policy this year. I have to give the lady £1000+ for the barn and food around midday Sat and I need it in my hand.

[Robert]

Personally I reckon you could seed me a group lower and move durban up, I'd have no problem with that - though then there'd be no chance of playing Rodolfo, which I want to. I hope nobody will complain, everybody should know how difficult this is and with the big groups the seedings shouldn't matter so much anyway.

We reckoned that you're on an upward trend and Durban is on a downward one. Sorry Mark!

[alkis21]

I will bring the "chips" for the draw and badges for everyone.
No, not like the badges I brought in Helland 2. I mean name tags.

[Thowra]

I have around 25 Kinder egg yolks ready for the draw

[_glenn]

great work!!! the draw will be thrilling. But i hope you can arrange the draw on friday, saturday will be used for practice, and already saturday is fully packed. The draw on friday is a great tradition.

I agree. We just have too many people arriving late, and also we're under time pressure to get to the restaurant.

Finally, with 56 players, I know that SOMEONE will try to not pay before the start. If we've done the draw, it's harder to remove them. I am very serious about a no pay/no play policy this year. I have to give the lady £1000+ for the barn and food around midday Sat and I need it in my hand.

I understand Robert, just one more thing that is pro draw on friday,this way you know who you're playing on saturday, and therefore you don't schedule friendlies and practice-matches with those, it is always fun to play as many different players as possible.

anyway, looking forward to this wc, seems like you have done an excellent job!

[Robert]

Thanks Glenn, I am going to look at the numbers again and may still go with Friday night... don't want more admin on Saturday but also don't wnt a draw with 10 people there...

It would be good to post the draw online Friday night though.