An Analysis of Tournament Structure
  This paper explores a novel way for analyzing the tournament structures to
find a best suitable one for the tournament under consideration. It concerns
about three aspects such as tournament conducting cost, competitiveness
development and ranking precision. It then proposes a new method using progress
tree to detect potential throwaway matches. The analysis performed using the
proposed method reveals the strengths and weaknesses of tournament structures.
As a conclusion, single elimination is best if we want to qualify one winner
only, all matches conducted are exciting in term of competitiveness. Double
elimination with proper seeding system is a better choice if we want to qualify
more winners. A reasonable number of extra matches need to be conducted in
exchange of being able to qualify top four winners. Round-robin gives reliable
ranking precision for all participants. However, its conduction cost is very
high, and it fails to maintain competitiveness development.
