[quote="Stefan Łapicki":132zrqfc]What if 110 competitors register to 3x3 in some competition and in a day of competition arrive only 95. If organizator planed 4 rounds, he should change to 3 rounds?[/quote:132zrqfc] I thought this should have its own thread. Does it seem strange to anyone else where the cutoffs are? I will remind you: 9n) Events with up to 100 competitors must have at most three rounds. 9o) Events with up to 16 competitors must have at most two rounds. 9o1) Events with up to 8 competitors must have at most one round. The first thing I find strange is that they are 9n, 9o, 9o1 instead of 9n, 9o, 9p or 9o1, 9o2, 9o3, but that is nitpicky. Why were these numbers chosen like this? I think 16, 32, 64 would be more appropriate. In particular, I don't like jump from 16 to 100. I would be fine with 12, 32, 100 or 10, 30, 100 or something similar but I don't like that from two rounds to three rounds you need double the number of competitors, but from three rounds to four rounds, you need more than six times the number of competitors. I think 16 competitors is too few to be allowed three rounds and 8 competitors is too few to be allowed two rounds. Feedback?

In Clermont 19 people registered for 3^3 and three rounds were planned, but we were only 14 at the competition. So one round got removed and one OH round got added instead. Anyway, I agree that dong three rounds of 3^3 with as few as 17 competitors is silly. Organizers should just add more events instead.

Perhaps we could change it to something like 10, 25, 100. I think it really should be as large as 100 people for 4 rounds, because it is very rare to have so many chances at 3x3. In fact almost every competition I've seen, even very large ones, has done three rounds. So I feel that 4 rounds should only be when there are a truly huge number of people to go through. On the other hand, I am not so sure about having 'hard limits', i.e. 100 people can do 4 rounds, 99 people cannot. I think if it is under that number, it should be possible to have the larger number of rounds, but the WCA delegate must approve it. For example if there are 95 people, it is so close to 100 that a reasonable delegate should allow it. But if there are only 40 people, the WCA delegate should never approve a fourth round. To me it is a judgment call as to whether there are enough people. It is like the old riddle, if you have one stone it is not a pile, if you have two stones in one place it is not a pile, and so on, but if you have a million stones in one place it is certainly a pile, so where exactly does it become a pile? It's got to be a large number, but since there is almost no difference between that number and one smaller or larger, it's impossible to precisely give an answer to it.

I agree with qqwref, 10/25/100 seems good.

I'd be ok with having these removed entirely. Perhaps an event shouldn't have more than 3 rounds anyways - holding 4 (or just a lot in general) rounds can be really unfair to slower competitors. Also on a similar note... 9p? What is the point of this? I have never heard of a regulation like this in any sport before. This is also unfair. What if there are 10 people, and there is plenty of time to let all of them advance? Why kick the slow person out?

[quote="jbcm627":1owdjmn8]I'd be ok with having these removed entirely. Perhaps an event shouldn't have more than 3 rounds anyways - holding 4 (or just a lot in general) rounds can be really unfair to slower competitors.[/quote:1owdjmn8] Or does it make it even more fair? The only competitions I've been to with 4 rounds (WC 2007 and US2008) had a qualification round + 3 rounds. How about you are allowed 3 rounds + qualification round? This way, people only get chances at 4 rounds if they do not meet the pre-qualification criteria (and if they don't, they probably won't make the final anyway). If we only allow three rounds total with no other change, very large competitions like Worlds, if they had a qualification round, would only give two rounds of solves to the majority of competitors. [quote="qqwref":1owdjmn8]On the other hand, I am not so sure about having 'hard limits', i.e. 100 people can do 4 rounds, 99 people cannot. I think if it is under that number, it should be possible to have the larger number of rounds, but the WCA delegate must approve it. For example if there are 95 people, it is so close to 100 that a reasonable delegate should allow it. But if there are only 40 people, the WCA delegate should never approve a fourth round. To me it is a judgment call as to whether there are enough people. It is like the old riddle, if you have one stone it is not a pile, if you have two stones in one place it is not a pile, and so on, but if you have a million stones in one place it is certainly a pile, so where exactly does it become a pile? It's got to be a large number, but since there is almost no difference between that number and one smaller or larger, it's impossible to precisely give an answer to it.[/quote:1owdjmn8] Maybe changing "must" to "should" would fit here, then, though I would like to see a precise lower bound for the cutoffs for having 2 & 3 rounds. [quote="qqwref":1owdjmn8]Perhaps we could change it to something like 10, 25, 100.[/quote:1owdjmn8] Yes. I like the change to factors of 5 & 10. Typically you have powers of 2 (such as our 8 and 16) for tournaments where there is head-to-head action so that the bracket works out nicely, but we don't have that in speedcubing.

I like the hard limits. It takes away people from trying to pressure the delegate to add more rounds,"Oh come on, we're just 3 people away."