Wednesday, March 24, 2021

[qxzvbgny] numbering a completed bracket

completed single elimination bracket.  champion is labeled 1.  everyone who directly lost to the champion (eliminated by the eventual champion) labeled 2.

everyone who directly lost to a 2 is labeled 3, and so forth.

not sure what this is useful for.

curiously, whatever the largest number is, only one contestant gets that number.  that contestant is cursed.  whoever plays a cursed contestant wins but gets cursed themselves and is doomed to lose in the next round, passing on the curse.

traditional seeding has the strongest contestants (among whom one likely will become the champion) playing against the weakest contestants in early rounds, so the weakest contestants (eliminated by the strongest) will typically get small numbers.  the strongest contestants will typically meet near the end of the tournament, so the strongest contestants will also typically get small numbers.  the large numbers go to contestants in the middle.

within each numbered class, one could further sort somehow, maybe by what round the loss occurred.  we do not pursue this.

example: 2019 NCAA men's basketball bracket.

Virginia:1 (champion)

2: Texas Tech, Purdue, Oregon, Oklahoma, Gardner-Webb

Mississippi State has the highest number, 7.   Mississippi State (a 5 seed in the East region) lost to Liberty, which lost to Virginia Tech, which lost to Duke, which lost to Michigan State, which lost to Texas Tech, which lost to Virginia.

hypothetically, if Texas Tech had defeated Virginia in the final, then Iowa State would have been the cursed team.

(because of the First Four play-in, Mississippi State is not the only team that is 7.  Temple is also 7 .)

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