How to make a weekly tournament?

[Hammurabi8]

So I am in charge of the Rubiks Cube club at our school. Everyone is really new to cubing and we really need help on making a league. How do we run a weekly cubing competition, where the fastest doesn't always win? Is there something we could do with averages? Maybe borrow something from another sport? Because we have such a variety in times I think it wouldn't be any fun if whoever has the fastest average won every week. I want to find a way to make some sort of competition that cannot be easily rigged, and is not solely based on speed. If anyone has any advice or experience to share that would be great! Thanks for reading.

 

[Mikel]

So I am in charge of the Rubiks Cube club at our school. Everyone is really new to cubing and we really need help on making a league. How do we run a weekly cubing competition, where the fastest doesn't always win? Is there something we could do with averages? Maybe borrow something from another sport? Because we have such a variety in times I think it wouldn't be any fun if whoever has the fastest average won every week. I want to find a way to make some sort of competition that cannot be easily rigged, and is not solely based on speed. If anyone has any advice or experience to share that would be great! Thanks for reading.

Everyone who participates puts their name in a hat. Draw a name out. Whoever's name is drawn wins.

 

[Snoutmol]

Everyone who participates puts their name in a hat. Draw a name out. Whoever's name is drawn wins.

xD This is literally the fairest thing you can possibly do.

 

[cxinlee]

I'll rather that you sort the cubers according to their averages, and then get them to compete against each other. So basically if you want to make a league, you can divide it into divisions. The top cuber of each division is promoted, and the bottom cuber is relegated.

 

[Kian]

Create handicaps, like they do in bowling and golf. That would judge someone based on their performance against themselves, not against others.

 

[Ranzha]

Standard deviation is kinda useful. Perhaps something with that?

Noah Arthurs does his BLD Doubles Competition like this:

For each event, each person will be paired with the person opposite them in ranking. So the best will be paired with the worst, the second best with the second worst and so on. If there's an odd number for an event, the middle person competes twice.

Your pair's score for an event is the average of your two scores.

 

[Henrik]

In the cubeclub at Copenhagen Uni (KUbe) they find the winner according to improvement.
See here:
http://kube.coq.dk/

Odder is quite fast, but if he does worse than last time he will not win

 

[cubecraze1]

The divisions area is quite good. People could enter on their skill level. So, you could have a sub 15 section, sub 20, sub 30. Etc.

 

[cparlette]

The divisions area is quite good. People could enter on their skill level. So, you could have a sub 15 section, sub 20, sub 30. Etc.

I think the biggest problem with divisions is that you:

a) Get punished for getting better, so going from 21 to 19 actually makes you a lower ranking, and
b) Even if you "win" the sub-30 category, you know the guy who "lost" the sub-20 category is still faster

I think handicapping is the best way to make people want to beat their own times. Maybe make it percentage based? That way faster cubers can shave off less time but have it be a greater percentage of their total time.

 

[Ickathu]

I'd say one of these:

• draw names from a hat if you want to be really fair.
• Divide into speed-based categories
• Do this:

  For each event, each person will be paired with the person opposite them in ranking. So the best will be paired with the worst, the second best with the second worst and so on. If there's an odd number for an event, the middle person competes twice.
  
  Your pair's score for an event is the average of your two scores.

I'd think the last one would be the most fun, and it would encourage people getting to know each other, because otherwise the faster people might not hang out with the slower ones. The category option would still be fair, and I wouldn't say it's getting "punished" to get faster and move into a lower category, because the sudden losing would encourage you to get faster. In fact, after I attend a competition, I am reminded how bad I am and I usually practice more over the next few days/weeks than I did before the competition to prepare.
And drawing names would insure everybody wins sometime, but that's not really a cubing competition then.

 

[Carrot]

In the cubeclub at Copenhagen Uni (KUbe) they find the winner according to improvement.
See here:
http://kube.coq.dk/

Odder is quite fast, but if he does worse than last time he will not win

ha!

KUbe record still 0.02 better than 3x3x3 NR avg and 0.01 better than pyra WR avg :3