Two problems addressed:
1. Favorites' P(1st) was too sharp (e.g. NHL top teams ~20% vs ~12% implied).
- The NHL simulator hardcoded its parity factor (1000) and ignored the
season config's parityFactor, so the knob meant to flatten the
distribution did nothing. It also re-blended raw futures odds into every
game on top of the odds->Elo conversion, double-counting the same signal.
- NHL now reads parityFactor/iterations/seasonGames/overtimeRate from config
and no longer re-blends odds per game (odds enter once, via the central
odds->Elo resolver). Honoring parity 2500 flattens a top team from ~29% to
~13% title odds.
2. "Season Config" and "Input Policy" were two forms over the same stored
object that didn't reflect each other, and the engine-knob half was inert
for many simulators.
- Every simulator now reads its engine knobs (iterations everywhere;
parityFactor for all Elo-based sims) from the merged config, passed in by
the runner via the Simulator interface. Defaults equal the former
hardcoded constants, so behavior is unchanged unless a season overrides.
- The admin simulator page is now a single "Simulator Configuration" card
with structured Engine and Input-derivation sections (profile-driven, so
each sport shows only the knobs it honors) plus an Advanced raw-JSON
escape hatch — all writing the same config.
Also: centralized the duplicated configNumber helpers into config-access.ts;
the central odds->Elo resolver now maps onto the configured Elo floor/ceiling
so those bounds set the odds-derived spread (a real flattening dial).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PAFMogMkFJf52YpHyCDvuf
## Summary
- **Bug fix**: EPL Elo/odds fallback was gated on \`dbEloMap.size === 0\` — if any team had a direct \`sourceElo\`, teams with only \`sourceOdds\` were never populated and the simulator threw "Missing Elo" instead of using their odds data
- **Iterations**: WorldCupSimulator default 50k→10k; manifest \`defaultConfig\` for \`world_cup\` and \`epl_standings\` now explicitly override \`BASE_CONFIG\` with 10k so the production fallback matches; test iterations reduced (WorldCup 500→100, EPL 10k→500) to fix timeout failures on slower CI
- **Cleanup**: Extracted \`runKnockoutRound\` out of the 10k-iteration simulation loop; replaced two hot-loop \`toSorted()\` calls on 2-element arrays with a conditional string comparison; removed local \`normalizeProbabilities\` in favour of the shared \`normalizeSimulationResultColumns\`
## Test plan
- [ ] \`npm run test:run\` — all simulator unit tests pass without timeout
- [ ] Typecheck passes (\`npm run typecheck\`)
- [ ] EPL simulate with mixed Elo+odds data no longer throws
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
Co-authored-by: Chris Parsons <chrisparsons1127@gmail.com>
Reviewed-on: #61
