PURPOSE
Purpose of using a lottery system
- The lottery system will guarantee that any team that signs up gets the possibility to represent themselves during the ETDS and, if there’s enough registrations, participate in the Maus tournament.
- The lottery system takes away any stress during the registration period.
- The lottery system ensures there will be less participants without a partner after blinddating. The system aims to keep the difference between lead and follow as small as possible.
1: CONDITIONS
GENERAL DEMANDS
In order to have a successful tournament several demands have been made for the lottery system. Besides above mentioned purposes the following demands have been made of the lottery system, in no particular order:
- The lottery needs to be as fair as possible.
- Every team will have their team captain(s) present at the tournament. If a team has more than 20 participants 2 team captains can automatically participate, if a team has less than 20 participants only 1 team captain is assured of a spot.
- Couples registered together won’t be split up.
- By actively searching for a balanced leader/follower distribution, there is an increased chance every participant will have a partner for the competition.
- If a participant was excluded from a previous ETDS using the same lottery system (xTDS) at the last lottery round of that ETDS, his/her name will get a higher change within the lottery, which will increase the chance of participation.
PARTNERS
A dancing couple that registers together will not be split up by the lottery system. Lottery will take place in pairs. If a dancer without a partner (blind dater) signs up, a lead/follow overflow might be created. In order to decrease the overflow a matching system has been developed. A Blind Dater will be matched to a “virtual partner”.
This virtual partner will be the best available partner, according to dancing class, for the blind dater that signed up. A Ballroom Breitensport and latin Open/CloseD Class dancer will be matched (if possible) with someone dancing the same classes. This will make sure that as many participants as possible can find a partner during blind dating. We expect that the number of followers without a partner will decrease.
TEAMCAPTAINS
A team needs their team captain(s), so team captains and their (virtual) partners have a guaranteed spot in the tournament. Every team can have a maximum of 2 team captains. Teams with up to 20 participants will have 1 guaranteed spot for a team captain. Teams with more than 20 participants will have 2 guaranteed spots of team captains.
ESSENTIAL TOURNAMENT SUPPORT
To ensure there will be enough participants that can (and are willing to) fill essential shifts, lottery will initially fill up to 90% of the available participation spots. The final 10% can be used to fill essential positions by hand. The filling or not filling of these essential positions does NOT influence the chances of being selected by the lottery system. If additional tournament support isn’t necessary, then the lottery system’s random selection will proceed until the maximum number of participants has been reached.
2: SELECTION PROCEDURE
The general selection procedure for the tournament by lottery system can be found in the image below. From all participants first the team captains and their (virtual) partners will be selected. After that the rest of the participants will be randomly selected until 90% of the maximum of participants has been reached.
The remaining 10% will be selected as described in the paragraph Essential Tournament Support.
The remaining registrations that have not been selected will be placed on the waiting list. Below you will find how the lottery procedure will continue, as described above, with the help of an example. The first step of the lottery system, the selecting and matching of the team captains will not be explicitly explained. The ‘matching procedure’ is the same as every other sign up without a partner.
REMAINING PARTICIPANTS
All other registrations (Breitensport and Open/CloseD) will be placed on a list in a random order. The person on top of the list will be selected and ‘matched’.
If a partner is found, both participants will be selected for the tournament and taken off of the list. The next participant on the list will be treated in the same way.
If no partner is found, this person will not be selected for the tournament and the next person on the list will follow the same procedure. This will continue until 90% of the spots for the tournament have been filled. After this, it will be checked if there are enough participants who can fill the essential tournament support shifts.
If the essential tournament support shifts have been filled the remaining spots will be filled in the same way as described above.
ESSENTIAL TOURNAMENT SUPPORT
It is important to note that a participant’s willingness / possibility to be a volunteer for essential tournament support does NOT influence their chances in the lottery system. Every time a participant is chosen by the lottery system will be completely random.
3: PARTNERS
In the previous chapter the lottery procedure concerning selecting participants was explained. The ‘matching’ of a Blind Dater to a virtual partner will be explained in this chapter.
ASSIGNING A VIRTUAL PARTNER
When looking for a virtual partner, this system will first look for the best possible match concerning dancing class. The process will be explained with the following example:
Felix signed up as a leader for Ballroom and Latin in Breitensport. He will be blind dating in both disciplines. The system has selected him to participate in the tournament. The system will look for a follower without partner dancing Breitensport Ballroom and Breitensport Latin. If there’s no follower available which meets these demands, the system will look for a follower meeting the demands of óne of the following dancing class combinations:
- Breitensport Ballroom / Open/Closed Latin
- Open/Closed Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
- Not dancing Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
If a follower is found in these combinations, this means there’s a partner available for Felix in at least one of the disciplines. From this pool a random partner will be matched with Felix.
Every combination of dancing classes has their own possible combinations for a partner. Enclosed you will find an overview of the combinations a participant has and to which other combinations they could be matched (besides their own combination).
4: POSSIBLE CONFLICTS AND CONSIDERATIONS
Conflicts could occur between before mentioned demands of the lottery system:
- The lottery needs to be as fair as possible.
-
- Every team will have their team captain(s) present at the tournament. If a team has more than 20 participants 2 team captains can automatically participate, if a team has less than 20 participants only 1 team captain is assured of a spot.
- Couples registered together won’t be split up.
- By actively searching for a balanced leader/follower distribution, there is an increased chance every participant will have a partner for the competition.
- If a participant was excluded from a previous ETDS using the same lottery system (xTDS) at the last lottery round of that ETDS, his/her name will be doubled in the pool, which will increase the chance of participation.
During the lottery procedure it could occur that the leaders with combinations Breitensport Ballroom and Breitensport latin have all been selected, meaning that followers in the same category will not have a possible partner available. This will mean that followers in other categories (Breitensport Ballroom with Open/CloseD Latin and Open/CloseD Ballroom with Breitensport Latin) won’t have any leaders available either.
The followers who cannot be matched will not be accepted into the tournament. This is a conflict between demands 1 and 4. If this scenario takes place, rule 4 will be dominant over rule 1. This means accepting that some participants have a slightly lower chance to be selected, but that the chances of finding a partner when selected is a lot higher.
5: NECESSITIES FOR REGISTRATION
In order to ensure every Blind Dater can be matched to partner of the same level the following questions will be asked during registration:
- Have you ever danced competitions?
- If yes, what is the highest level you have danced at?
- Will you be dancing as lead or follow in Ballroom and/or Latin?
- Who is your partner in Ballroom and/or Latin – name / blinddate
ENCLOSURE
Here you will find an overview of combinations that can occur in the matching procedure aside from a dancer’s own combination.
Breitensport Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
- Not dancing Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
Breitensport Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
Not dancing Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
Breitensport Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
- Not dancing Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
Open/CloseD Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Not dancing Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
Open/CloseD Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Open/CloseD Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
- Not dancing Ballroom / Open/CloseD Latin
Open Ballroom / Not dancing Latin
- Open Ballroom / Breitensport Latin
- Open Ballroom / Open Latin
Not dancing Ballroom / Open Latin
- Breitensport Ballroom / Open Latin
- Open Ballroom / Open Latin