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thibodeaux 
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Posted on: Nov. 22 2010,16:58 |
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If you have a single-elimination tournament with N (where N is any finite, positive non-zero integer) teams, how many total games will there be?
I knew the answer for values of N that are powers of 2, but I didn't know the general answer. It's just not something that I ever thought about.
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| Post Number: 2
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TheCatt
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Posted on: Nov. 22 2010,18:03 |
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It's like magic.
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It's not me, it's someone else.
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| Post Number: 3
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thibodeaux
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Posted on: Nov. 22 2010,18:04 |
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Yeah.
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Malcolm
I disagree.
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Posted on: Nov. 22 2010,22:15 |
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(thibodeaux @ Nov. 22 2010,18:58)
QUOTE If you have a single-elimination tournament with N (where N is any finite, positive non-zero integer) teams, how many total games will there be?
I knew the answer for values of N that are powers of 2, but I didn't know the general answer. Â It's just not something that I ever thought about.
In general, n isn't a power of 2, people cheat the value to make it so using bye weeks or wildcard teams.
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Diogenes of Sinope:
"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC:
"Better dead than smeg."
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| Post Number: 5
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thibodeaux
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Posted on: Nov. 23 2010,04:51 |
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Yeah, but it doesn't matter; you can do it without a power of 2.
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| Post Number: 6
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TheCatt
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Posted on: Nov. 23 2010,06:28 |
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(Malcolm @ Nov. 23 2010,01:15)
QUOTE
(thibodeaux @ Nov. 22 2010,18:58)
QUOTE If you have a single-elimination tournament with N (where N is any finite, positive non-zero integer) teams, how many total games will there be?
I knew the answer for values of N that are powers of 2, but I didn't know the general answer. Â It's just not something that I ever thought about. In general, n isn't a power of 2, people cheat the value to make it so using bye weeks or wildcard teams.
It's not a cheat. It's just a fact.
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It's not me, it's someone else.
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TheCatt
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Posted on: Nov. 23 2010,07:57 |
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Ummm...
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| Post Number: 9
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thibodeaux
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Posted on: Nov. 23 2010,08:17 |
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(Malcolm @ Nov. 23 2010,10:47)
QUOTE
(thibodeaux @ Nov. 23 2010,06:51)
QUOTE Yeah, but it doesn't matter; you can do it without a power of 2. Did you find/derive the general answer? Â I'm slightly curious.
Yep. If you have N teams, then you need N-1 games.
You can confirm this by thinking of a tournament bracket as a binary tree. You have N leaf nodes (the teams). The games are the internal nodes. Consult wikipedia for the relationship between these two entities.
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| Post Number: 10
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thibodeaux
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Posted on: Nov. 24 2010,16:01 |
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The reason I mention this is that on Monday, and then again today, I interviewed a database-engineer who did not know the answer, not even for powers of 2.
Today's guy actually did try to work through for 64 teams, and he wrote down and added up the powers of 2 from 1 to 32. While he was adding, I said to him, "you know, in binary that's all ones." Didn't help him.
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| Post Number: 11
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Malcolm
I disagree.
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Posted on: Nov. 24 2010,16:26 |
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One of our contractors is getting let go because his SQL skills suck balls. Â Granted, he wasn't hired for that, he kind of got screwed into a bad position. Â But, come on, SQL is fucking rocket science. Â Dude didn't know what the "bit" data type was.
I'm not looking forward to hiring any new members for our team because our hiring process is shyte. Management seems to have solved this problem just by letting manpower dwindle and refusing to hire anyone new.
Edited by Malcolm on Nov. 24 2010,16:27
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Diogenes of Sinope:
"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC:
"Better dead than smeg."
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| Post Number: 13
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Malcolm
I disagree.
Group: Privateers
Posts: 27168
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Nov. 24 2010,17:11 |
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It's going to be a loooooooooooooooooong while before the real problem idiots are removed.
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Diogenes of Sinope:
"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC:
"Better dead than smeg."
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| Post Number: 14
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TheCatt
Top 2%
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Posts: 22951
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Posted on: Nov. 24 2010,18:13 |
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The other day, I was talking with one of my fellow DB people at work, and asked him what he thought datalength(13) was in t-sql... He said "2"
Maybe he uses 3 bits to a byte.
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It's not me, it's someone else.
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