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From: "Timothy Rogers" <trogers@srv1.mech.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Mechanical Engineering
To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 14:58:32 +0000
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Subject: The Tour Format
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I think much of the Tours problems revolve about the current seeding 
structure.

1)  At the moment, if you miss a tour, particularly the first then 
your scuppered if you want to have a crack at the top teams.  I know 
its supposed to be 'a tour', but there are loads of players 
(including most students) who cannot afford to go to all tours.

2) To compensate for the fact that many players can't go to all 
tours, we need huge teams of 20+ players.  Why do we do this?  The 
next world clubs is 2 years away.  Is it not better to spread the 
talent amonst more competitive teams, and increase the amount of 
pitch time, fitness and skill of British ultimate players?  Surely it 
doesn't take more than a season to prepare to play 20 a side.  
Needing so many players encourages super teams, discouraging the 
building of geo and student teams.

3) Competitive summer tournaments serve as an important bridging gap 
for players who have the basic skills.  Where does a student team go 
if they win or do well in student nationals, if they can't compete in 
the Tour and see how far they can go.

An alternative seeding structure might be to have a Swiss tournament 
structure (play teams who have won as many games as you) to find the 
top 8 on Saturday, or maybe have a few shorter games Saturday 
morning.  Both would flatten the seeding structure and avoid too much 
time being spent on the stronger teams gubbing the weaker teams.

Tim
Ro-Sham-Bo