User:Kroml8r/sandbox

This system was developed by Gary Stavrou OAM, tournament director of a Sydney group known as the Sydney Backgammoners.

It is a scoring system that can be used in Backgammon and other tournaments where the scoreline of the matches matters.

In knockout tournaments the scoreline is usually irrelevant. A player either wins or loses the match and the loser is usually knocked out of the tournament. However in Swiss-style tournaments, and indeed in round robins, the winning margin does matter.

Take as an example a round robin between five players where each player plays the other four. The winner is the player who has won the most matches. If two or more players have won the same number of matches, we then count the overall number of games won.

If two or more players are still tied, we then count the overall number of games lost.

These three calculations

1. Number of matches won

2. Number of games won

3. Number of games lost

are all accomplished in one action using the Stavrou System.

In the Stavrou System the Total Score is made up of two components.

1. The Score Points, which are simply the number of games won minus the number of games lost.

2. Match Points, which are 100 points awarded to the winner.

For example, in a 7-point match, say player A beats player B with a score of 7/2.

Player A gets 5 Score Points plus 100 Match Points giving a Total Score of 105.

Player B gets -5 Score Points and no Match Points giving a Total Score of -5.

With each round in the tournament the Total Points for each player are added cumulatively. If after four rounds player A has a score of, say, 312, it is immediately obvious that A has won three matches and won twelve games more than were lost.

Swiss tournaments are just a subset of large round robins, sometimes with added rules such as "winners play winners". As the system's scoring is very precise, the top winner can easily be matched to the second-best winner rather than to any winner.

The system also allows for points to be allocated for byes (if they are counted as wins) and allows for penalties to be imposed for any transgressions simply by adjusting the Match Point value.

The Stavrou Scoring System has been used very successfully in major tournaments such as the Sydney Open Backgammon Tournament and the New South Wales Open Backgammon Tournament.