not a complaint or anything but i don't think tournaments has random pairings anymore.

reason i say this is because...

this week i have drawn timpark in about 6 of the last 7 orig tournaments i have entered, the 1 where it wasn't random i couldn't see tim in it.

last year

adam_147 in about 8 random quarter finals all in carom

year before that

kenny77 always in 1st round

just wondered if tournaments is seeded or anything.

cheers

Can't see how they can be (seeded that is) as there isn't a reliable criteria in which to do so.

Edit: clarification

Edited at 16:59 Thu 12/05/11 (BST)

everytime im inactive for five minutes it draws me against someone with a really low rank and if if inactive for ten i lose at least 8 points everytime

There is no possible way of generating 100% genuinely unique random fixtures.

Apart from that statement being untrue, the standard pseudo-random methods are sufficiently 'statistically random' for the fixtures to be considered 'random' to intents and purposes. Due to the fact that the number of combinations are comparatively small, it is not that surprising that it might appear otherwise.

however assuming that it is sufficiently random, the outcomes should be uniformly distributed (discrete uniform distribution). however take the case of dgen and I in random tournaments. 5 tournaments running or something we got each other in the QF and it was always carom. Now with 4 game types and 7 possible opponents thats a 1 in 28 chance of my getting dgen in carom in the QF.

however 5 consecutive tournaments? thats 1 in 17,210,368 which is less likely than winning the lottery... Even using a very small significance level for a hypothesis test on that, you would have to say it suggests it may not be random...

I understand exactly what you are saying Adam and there may well be an element of it not being as statistically random as it was first thought (for instance, often a time element is used as a seed which usually works well unless the seeding time is in some way synchronised to the sequence being generated). However, there are a few things to take into account, that being the relatively low number of combinations, the small sample size and last but not least the natural 'selective memory' that we all succumb to (i.e. remember the coincidences more than the ones that aren't - for example the QF's between you and DGen was last year - what about all the other tournies before and since?)

the small number of combinations is a very good reason to explain it for normal tournaments, however in random tournaments there were 4 game types too which quadrupled the number of combinations.

i would put it down to selective memory if it hadnt been 5 in a row, with none in between. irrespective of things before or since, that probability of that happening is still 1 in 17 million.

It just seems the game seems to have preferences for some things, for instance the other week i was playing wso in arcade with destiny and tinie, and we played about 14/15 games and without fail every time i played destiny, i got break, every time destiny played tinie, destiny got break and every time tinie played me, he got break. if there were 15 games then thats a 1 in 32,768 chance. still very odd...

I too have wondered if the draw is as random as you would expect. God knows how many times me and timpark get drawn together. It's gotten to the point when i'm surprised if we don't draw each other lol. It's the same with allot of other players like bomjaza, spririt, jaybyrne and m wood.

Would be interesting to see how the tournament draw is calculated.

Back in my programming days, generating random numbers was never achieved and a pattern always presented itself unless you randomizes the timer before looking for a random number.... just to add to this great thread. Those that remember basic would know of RANDOMISE TIMER lol

I was thinkin is a truly random number even possible?

i wondered this as well as i always draw spirit2010 in the 1st round of reg with about 40 , 50 ppl joining so thats 1/40 or 1/50 chance that i draw him and i do it all the time

The code just uses Java Math random classes to select a player index:
http://download.orace.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Random.html#nextDouble()
The random seed is the time (in nano or milliseconds, I forget).

The only real peculiarity is that it puts players into 2 pots, those online and those offline. In an attempt to disqualify offlines as soon as possible they are drawn against online in the first round. Example, in a 34 player tournament with 2 offline players it will draw the 2 offline in the first 2 games, then give their opponent byes and skip to the next round. (It could just disqualify them rather than going through this process, but it's this way to show them in the results.) This is deliberately unfavourable for those not logged in. (There are of course valid reasons someone may have logged out since entering.)

Other than that, there's certainly no deliberate seeding or ranking involved in pairings!