Today we had a tournament with only 21 teams. During the elimination rounds the first 4 teams chose two others to alliance with and the last 4 chose 1 other team to alliance with. This resulted in every team being put in eliminations except one. Is this how other events work. Keep in mind this was a middle school competition.
According to the Game Manual, under Event Modification, the number of alliances should be adjusted to leave each alliance with 3 teams. Why your competition decided to do this differently is a mystery to me, if you have more questions about it I would ask the event director.
There were 21 teams so following this rule everyone would be put in eliminations.
Yes, there would be 7 teams of 3 (21/3 = 7). How the match ladder would work is slightly different from normal matches though, the first place alliance in the quarter finals would not actually have to play in the quarter finals, and would be moved to the semi finals automatically where the four remaining alliances would play out like normal. (the following quote is from Event Modification)
They should have done 7 teams, but they did 8 with unbalanced alliances. Even so, they should have put the last team with the next alliance, unless they didn’t want to play for some reason.
Pretty much the same exact thing happened at my team’s first comp this year.
That is an oddly specific question, but the answer is no.
I asked because we might’ve seen you at our match today. Which was the first middle school comp in mass this year. Sorry.
I’m pretty sure the event you’re referencing is the one that I was volunteering at today (as we had 21 teams and did what you’re describing). I’m pretty sure we didn’t run 4 normal and 4 unbalanced however, I believe that we did five normal and three unbalanced so that all teams went into the elimination rounds.
If you read the full event modification section in the official game manual it states the following:
The manual is very clear (by use of phrases such as “may be played as follows” or “if a tournament is using this format, …”) that we are allowed to either structure the event in with the normal 8 alliance format, or change to the 7 alliance format and offer the first seed a bye. We just so happened to decide that we wanted to run the event with the normal format with the last three alliances being “unbalanced”, because it felt closer to a normal balanced event vs. offering the first seed a bigger advantage with the bye. I understand that there could be some controversy over whether or not one of these decisions is more fair than the other, but I am unwilling to argue or discuss the topic of which one is more fair or right, the bottom line is that we ran the elimination rounds in a way that we interpreted as legal per the quoted section of the manual above.
I’m surprised that if you had a concern about the format you didn’t mention it at the event, we would have been happy to discuss this topic there and then and come up with the best solution for all teams present.
I hope my response is helpful/leaves you a bit more satisfied, we’d prefer that none of our competitors go home feeling bad about something that we can control at one of our events. If you’d like to discuss this more then I encourage you to contact the event partner for the event so that we can have a better dialog about this.
Thank you. the competition was still fun. It was the best we have ever done at competition. I wasn’t feeling bad just curious.
You shall never know what team I belong to 
I am glad you had a good competition experience. As the EP for the tournament, our focus is to provide an environment where all students have the opportunity to learn and grow. As noted, the configuration of unbalanced alliances appears on the surface to be unconventional, however, it allows all teams to play and for the first alliance to play throughout the eliminations.
If anyone ever has questions about particular events, be sure to reach out to the Event Partner or the RECF Regional Support Manager. You can find the EP’s email address on robotevents.com on the event page. Not all EPs interact on vexforum.com. Feedback from teams is critical to enable us to do a better job at future events.
I am the best team in SD at not being the best team
Wow, much impress
I am the best team at confusing the other teams when trying to explain my name.
Please tell me how do you confuse others when explaining your name
Yes, I am not confused either.