Originally Posted by Bottle

Absolutely right. And at the moment, it appears that the best players in tournaments overall are Sniper, myself and machiavelli. So in order to continue to find out whether they are really the best, they should not be knocking each other out in round 1.


Would you suggest having Federer playing Nadal in the first round of Wimbledon, so all the other players have a chance of overtaking one of them in the world rankings?

The point of rankings is that the best players rise to the top. They can't do that if they are playing each other all the time while the weaker players get more points than them because they're playing other weaker players. If Federer played Nadal in round 1 of every tournament this year, odds are that someone else would be world number 1 by the end of it, because they would both have half the number of points they'd expect to have. In other words, the two best players in the world wouldn't be number 1 in the rankings. That makes a mockery of the rankings themselves.

If your argument were valid there would be no such thing as seedings in major sporting events. Funnily enough, pretty much every single sporting event does in fact have seedings. Maybe that should tell you something about your argument.

Originally Posted by Bottle

You're just reinforcing my point that the two best teams, being less likely to be "upset", are deserving of reaching the final. What happens when you put the two best teams (which according to your own argument is the sum of the best players) together in round 1 is that one gets knocked out much earlier than they deserve to be.

So, according to what you're saying, Team 6 should absolutely crush Team 1, because Team 6 consists of three great players and would require 3 upsets. So Team 1 is eliminated in round 1 and gets the minimum number of points. However, if Team 1 were then to play any other team in the competition, they would win (once again, 3 upsets would be needed, according to your argument). So the second best team won't come second.

Now, if a lower seeded team were to beat Teams 1 or 6 fair and square, causing 3 upsets, then yes, they deserve the ranking points more than the "favourites". But they should get those ranking points by beating the so-called better team, rankings-wise. Getting more ranking points just because you had a kinder draw in Round 1 is quite frankly unfair.

If I were mach, Stiv or Darkness, I'd be spitting blood right now. The quality of their team doesn't deserve to have a good chance of being knocked out in Round 1.

I reiterate that major sporting competitions, including team events, have a seeding system for a very good reason. According to your argument a seeding system is never necessary. Let's think who is right: you, or every single major sporting body in the world...