Previously, all 32 seeded-vs-unseeded matches were added to r1Pairs
first (indices 0–31) and all 32 unseeded-vs-unseeded matches last
(indices 32–63). Since R2 pairs adjacent R1 winners, this created two
completely separate sub-brackets that only converged at the Final:
- Seeded sub-bracket: top players eliminating each other early
- Unseeded sub-bracket: high-Elo unseeded players (e.g. Doets 1818,
Zonneveld 1806) steamrolling weak opponents and making the Final
~20% of the time
Fix: interleave each seeded match with its adjacent unseeded-vs-unseeded
match. Seeded pair i is at r1Pairs[2i], unseeded pair i is at r1Pairs[2i+1].
From R2 onwards, winners from seeded and unseeded regions now merge
correctly as in a real single-elimination bracket.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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