Bracket Contest Scoring via Hierarchical Rank Prediction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for administering single elimination bracket tournaments are cumbersome, requiring participants to predict numerous game outcomes, making it difficult to enter and score contests, especially on digital platforms, and offer impractically low odds for winning a perfect score.
Innovation Solution
A bracket contest system that allows participants to predict the top finishing participants in order, with each selection limited to valid positions in the bracket, reducing the number of decisions needed and enabling scoring based on final ranks, with the potential for achievable perfect scores.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If participants must predict all game outcomes in a traditional bracket contest, then the contest maintains comprehensive scoring accuracy, but the entry process becomes extremely complex and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the essential scoring element from the complex bracket prediction task. Instead of requiring predictions for all 63 games, the system only requires participants to predict the tournament winner (champion). This extraction maintains the core contest purpose while dramatically simplifying the entry process from 63 separate predictions to a single prediction.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the bracket contest into distinct hierarchical levels: (1) champion prediction, (2) finalist identification, and (3) bracket section identification. This segmentation allows the system to provide comprehensive scoring by evaluating predictions at multiple levels of detail, where participants can earn points for correctly identifying the champion, the finalists, and which bracket section the champion comes from, without requiring complete game-by-game predictions.
2Measurement precision
If the contest requires predicting all 63 games to achieve a perfect score, then the scoring system maintains high precision, but the odds of winning become impractically low
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by requiring only a subset of predictions (champion, finalists, and bracket section) rather than all possible game outcomes. This partial prediction approach maintains scoring precision through multi-level evaluation while making the contest achievable for participants. The system can award partial credit for correct predictions at different levels, so a participant who correctly identifies the champion and bracket section but misses the finalists still achieves a significant score.
3Loss of information
If the bracket is divided into many sections for detailed tracking, then the scoring system provides comprehensive feedback, but the interface becomes difficult to navigate on mobile devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the visual representation of the bracket into hierarchical levels that correspond to the prediction requirements. The interface displays the bracket structure divided into sections (e.g., upper/lower halves, regional brackets) that participants can interact with at different levels of detail. This segmentation allows comprehensive scoring feedback by tracking which sections contain correct predictions while maintaining mobile usability through a simplified, hierarchical display that doesn't require showing all 63 games simultaneously.
Data Source
AI summary
A bracket contest system has an entrant device connected to a server having a set of matches in a single elimination bracket tournament in memory. Each match is between two participants in the tournament in which one half of the participants are eliminated in each round. The entrant device receives predictions before a start of a first match. Each prediction includes a pre-set number of predicted winners of each match starting with a winner of a final match. The predictions are entered sequentially based on a predicted final rank of the participants, from first place to nth place. After each selection, a next selection is limited to participants from a predetermined valid position in the tournament. After receiving results of the set of matches, a score of the predictions is made based upon the results, and if the score exceeds a threshold, the predictions are declared a winning entry.