TANTRIX
TOURNAMENT MASTER TITLES – 2. CONCLUSIONS
2.1 Future-proofing the TGM
title:
After a
huge amount of thought and detailed discussions involving those of the
existing controllers who took an interest in this, we have decided to make
the TGM qualification much harder and only achievable through play in the major
(i.e. longer) tournaments. We think that by doing this it will remain what it
should be - an absolute pinnacle of Tantrix achievement for
which we can all have a lot of respect for many, many years to come,
hopefully even forever.
2.2.
Re-introducing the ITM title:
Following
on from this, we have also decided to reintroduce ITM ("international
tournament master") titles for those meeting the original tournament
master standard. The rules for this are exactly the same as before, apart
from introducing the allowance for the number of games in the
tournament described at the end of the intro above.
To be fair,
the allowance for the number of games described in section 1.5 will
be applied retrospectively, so anyone with previous performances of more than
1950 such that rating + g >= 2000 (based on 7+ games and 4+ opponents
played) will get additional ITM norms. This is still infinitely harder than
becoming a lobby master (LM?) but should not seem nearly as impossible to most
strong players as becoming a TGM.
2.3
ITM qualification:
3
ITM norms required
To get an
ITM norm in a single tournament:
- rating+g
(g up to 50) for that tournament >= 2000
- you must
play at least 7 games in the tournament
- these
games must involve at least 4 opponents
Bonus norm
for winning the WTC
ITM not
awarded unless/until the player has an established (T >=3 and G >=
32) OVERALL Elo rating of 1900 or more (you don't lose the title if
you later drop below 1900)
2.4
TGM qualification:
3 TGM norms
required
To get a
TGM norm in a single tournament:
- rating+g
(g up to 50) for that tournament >= 2050
- you must play
at least 20 games in the tournament
- these
games must involve at least 5 opponents
Bonus norm
for winning the WTC
TGM not
awarded unless/until the player has an established (T >=3 and G >=
32) OVERALL Elo rating of 2000 or more (you don't lose the title if
you later drop below 2000)
2.5
What this would mean for the TGM title:
a) limiting
the g that can be counted to 50 means that you could not qualify with a
rating of less than 2000, keeping the link to the original criteria
b) only
allowing TGM norms for tournaments with more than 20 games means that you could
only get them in the major tournaments
c) we could
later relax this for very high quality shorter tournaments like last year's
Pacific - eg. if we wanted to run one-day invitation Masters tournaments
where every player was already at least an ITM (since winning a tournament
like that should intuitively be enough for a norm, perhaps?)
d)
requiring the overall rating to get above 2000 too (based on T>=3 and
G>=32) is a MASSIVE extra barrier, as you'll see if you look at past Elo
rating lists, and hence the biggest safeguard of all against it becoming too
easy
2.6
Who would qualify for what now?
Matt would
have only qualified as an ITM at the end of last year, but as a TGM after
this year's NZ, so he will still be a TGM in time for the WTC. Two of his norms
will have come from last year's WTC and one from this year's NZ - both were
performances of more sustained total domination than we have ever seen before,
and fitted the true definition of 'master' perfectly.
I would
qualify as an ITM now, instead of as a TGM under the old system, but that seems
like a fair enough sacrifice to make if it safeguards the prestige of the TGM
title far into the future.
A few more
people than before (eg. pepe) will now have two ITM norms on this
basis and about 10 more players will have one.
As far as I
can tell, only one person other than Matt will have more than 1
TGM norm. Julia will have got two (rating plus bonus) for her 2001 WTC
win. Don't be fooled by how badly she plays when she hasn't put in hours of
solo training and doesn't really care if she wins or not - I reviewed many of
her games from the 2001 WTC and she was playing as well if not better than
anyone else in the world. She had to not just beat but completely annihilate
some of the best players of that time like papillon and lolo to get such a
high rating for that tournament. We are also very comfortable with the fact
that there is a high correlation between dominant world-championship winning
performances and TGM norms.
Of course,
no one but Matt is anywhere near a fully established OVERALL rating of over
2000 at present.
2.7
What are the implications for the future?
At the moment,
I imagine the only feasible way of becoming a TGM will be to have had one or
two norms beforehand and then win the World Championship, sweeping all
before you like Matt did last year ... and even that might not be enough.
There is
nothing to say we can't relax the criteria later if they really prove to be
virtually impossible even when there are a lot more tournaments (though I doubt
I would recommend that), whereas if we set criteria now that have a fair chance
of proving to be too lax in the future, it would be far harder from a PR point
of view to tighten them later when some people had already qualified under the
old system.
As
mentioned above, the only person adversely affected to the extent of losing a
title by all this right now is me (since I become an ITM not a TGM), but I
don't mind if it serves the long-term good of Tantrix as a whole. That was why
this had to be sorted out now before the WTC, when other people could
potentially qualify too.
In any
case, I think it is fair enough - Matt has proven to be a cut above the rest of
the players at the moment on just about any serious measure available
and is far more consistent a player than I am. A couple of other players
go close to Matt's standard at times, eg. Shaun Cooper, but to his credit
he has said in the past that making a big breakthrough in the WTC is a
necessary condition to be considered a truly great player. No doubt he will win
the WTC one of these days.
Return to the main Tantrix
Tournament Masters page