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World Champs - better seeded 65th than 64th?

Postby roy142857

An inevitable anomaly as a result of not having a 'flat draw' ...

Players lower than 64th seed have to play an extra match (the seeds 65-96 v seeds 97-128 round), so logically better to be in the Top 64 - right?

And that's probably true if you're not in the battle for the end of season Top 64.

But for the players who are in the mix for both Top 64 at the end of season and Top 64 at the World Championship, it might in certain circumstances be better to 'just miss' with the World Championship seeding. Players this might effect include Steve Davis, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Gerard Greene.

If you have that sort of ranking, you'd fancy your chances against a player seeded 97-128.

But you might lose in the next round (seeds 33-64 v winners of the seeds 65-96 v 97-128 matches) - on the one hand, your chances are surely better playing a player seeded 65-128 than a player seeded 33-64. But if you should lose after winning a match against a player seeded 97-128, you get £1000 to add to your end of season points total. Whereas if you lose having been seeded 33-64, you only get £500.

On the whole, I think seeded in the Top 64 is preferable.

But it's not impossible that a player ranked 65 on the end of season rankings before the World Championship overtakes the player ranked 64 because they both lost in the same round at the World Championship, but the 65th ranked player won an earlier match and was less than £500 behind the 64th ranked player ...

Just hoping in future years we'll have Top 16 through to the Crucible (Reigning Champion plus top 15 for the CURRENT season would be my preference), but the rest of the Pros plus some qualifiers playing in a flat 128 draw to qualify, to stop the risk of this happening.

Re: World Champs - better seeded 65th than 64th?

Postby Roland

From what Hearn said it doesn't look like we'll have flat 128 and I'm all for that. Ok you've picked up on one discrepancy but I doubt the player in 65th will be happier than whoever is in 64th and having to play an extra match. I.e. no one would "play" to land in 65th spot.

I'm interested to see how it all pans out because I think the Worlds should have staggered seeded draw because then rankings earned up to then would mean something.