BWF tournaments and non-random draws?

Discussion in 'Rules / Tournament Regulation / Officiating' started by s_mair, Oct 25, 2019.

  1. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2013
    Messages:
    5,366
    Likes Received:
    4,151
    Location:
    Germany
    Someone isn't very happy with the current BWF drawing process:



    For those who don't have a Facebook account or can't see the post for some other reasons. here's the text from Anders Antonsen's post, dated 25 October 2019:
    --
    ATTENTION PLEASE

    I have something on my mind that has been bothering for a long time and I think it’s time to speak up about it.

    I simply can’t comprehend, that we in the sport of badminton, don’t have a system for making draws that work...

    It is seen countless of times that players are facing the same opponents again and again in the first round, second round and quarterfinal.

    Just to bring up one example: Now we have a situation where Boe/Conrad are facing Han/Zhou in the 1st round for the 4th time in the last 5 tournaments Boe/Conrad have participated in. China Open - Korea Masters - Denmark Open and Hong Kong Open.

    I’m not a math specialist but I know for a fact that the chance for that to happen is almost nonexistent. Actually it is 0.00144%. That means it will happen less than 1 out of 66.000 times. (My cousin who studies math at the university helped me with figuring that out) If this was a single coincidence - fair enough. But it’s not. Similar situations has happened countless times over the years.

    I would suggest that BWF would make manual lotteries for every Super 500, 750 and 1000 tournament. Including World Championships and Olympics of course. It shouldn’t be that demanding.

    They could even stream it live on their Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Weibo. Whatever media they’re using... Get some attention on it. I’m sure people would tune in to see when the All England draw is being made. I would.

    I don’t know if it’s only us players who think about this?

    Feel free to share or comment if you have opinions, ideas or solutions for the issue.

    For a more professional sport!

    AA
    ---
     
    #1 s_mair, Oct 25, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2019
    ebcd and Justin L like this.
  2. minions

    minions Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2018
    Messages:
    2,938
    Likes Received:
    823
    Location:
    Indonesia
    Nice! This post alone deserves a thread. There will be a lot of discussion regarding this.
     
    Justin L likes this.
  3. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2013
    Messages:
    5,366
    Likes Received:
    4,151
    Location:
    Germany
    That definitely has a lot of potential for some heated discussions. @Cheung, feel free to move the posts into a separate thread.
     
  4. minions

    minions Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2018
    Messages:
    2,938
    Likes Received:
    823
    Location:
    Indonesia
    True. I also shared AA's sentiment. Some peoples may share it too.
     
  5. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,818
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    done!

    Definitely a good topic.
     
    Justin L and s_mair like this.
  6. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,818
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    Draws are not totally random because of the seeds.

    32 players in a draw doesn’t give a lot of room for variation.

    A statistician should be able to do an analysis. It definitely would be interesting.
     
    Giga01 likes this.
  7. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2013
    Messages:
    5,366
    Likes Received:
    4,151
    Location:
    Germany
    According to AA's post, he had a friend with a little more maths background doing a calculation. Although I'm not so sure if those calculations really consider the fact that the 8 seeded players have a fixed place the draw and only the rest are actually drawn by random - which would significantly reduce the number of possibilites for draw results.

    Frankly, I neither have enough mathematical background nor do I know in depth how the current drawing process is done in reality by BWF. Maybe anyone can shed some light about the latter at this point? Cause hands down, it shouldn't be that hard to implement a system that would result in a best possible random draw result.
     
  8. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2018
    Messages:
    11,119
    Likes Received:
    3,047
    Location:
    AU
    Statistic asides, as BWF is using a software to do the draws (with just one click and less than a second) couldn't they just add some ifs and cases to the program to avoid some specific situation/condition.

    If A had met B in the last two tournaments consecutively -> nope;
    if A had met B three times in the last four tournaments -> nah ah;
    If A had met B once -> yes please.

    etc etc?
     
  9. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,818
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    A maths person will just calculate like AA described. You need a statistician to apply maths in order to make the correct interpretation.
     
  10. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,818
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    that would depend on the software and whether if anybody knows how to do it. Too many conditions reduces randomness which is what might need to be investigated.

    Also, are there any other sports which do this for a “random” draw?
     
  11. lodoss

    lodoss Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2013
    Messages:
    1,357
    Likes Received:
    711
    Location:
    Singapore
    can't think of any. NBA playoff has clear system for the 8 qualifers. Football UCL has a 'live' draw for group and knock out stage (with some rule, such as no 2 teams from one league in a group). Can't speak for tennis as i dun watch it unless Federer in final.
     
    #11 lodoss, Oct 25, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2019
  12. boby

    boby Regular Member

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2018
    Messages:
    155
    Likes Received:
    53
    Location:
    indonesia
    if the player didnt understand how the worldclass random draw works. then ask family's to do re calculated in math for the possibilities, why didn't ask the association of national first?
     
  13. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2018
    Messages:
    11,119
    Likes Received:
    3,047
    Location:
    AU
    Well they have someone to write the program they are using now "Draw Wizzard", surely they could have that someone or other programmer to add some lines to it if they really intend to. I had seen the video of their draw using the "Draw Wizzard", they could actually check or un-check the "conditions" (avoid same nationality avoid, avoid all same nation semifinal, etc) before clicking the button [RUN].

    In this particular case AA's voicing out is about the case which percentage of a player/pair A meeting B in R1 being higher than 80% in 4 or 5 tournaments in a row.
     
  14. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2011
    Messages:
    51,457
    Likes Received:
    4,190
    Location:
    Citizen of The World
  15. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,818
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    That’s an assumption?
     
  16. minions

    minions Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2018
    Messages:
    2,938
    Likes Received:
    823
    Location:
    Indonesia
  17. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2011
    Messages:
    51,457
    Likes Received:
    4,190
    Location:
    Citizen of The World
  18. llrr

    llrr Regular Member

    Joined:
    Dec 24, 2017
    Messages:
    1,337
    Likes Received:
    565
    Location:
    Somewhere
    I'm not sure how his friend calculated it, but it's pretty simple to calculate really. If you have a 4 player draw with 2 seeds, then each player has 50% chance of meeting one of the unseeded players, since there are two players left in the draw, assuming they're drawn randomly. For a 32 player tournament with 8 seeds, if the rest are drawn randomly, that's 1 in 24 chance of meeting a player, and the chances of meeting the same player in consecutive tournaments is just 1/24 multiplied by itself.

    Based on the above statistics, I would guess that the draw isn't random, and there are certain rules we can't see, such as where qualifiers are placed and maybe something related to the rankings of other players.
     
    Giga01 likes this.
  19. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2018
    Messages:
    11,119
    Likes Received:
    3,047
    Location:
    AU
    There is no program that can't be edited. Not really an assumption. Even the safest software could be hacked.
     
  20. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,818
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    Then this should apply to other draws as well
     

Share This Page