Draw (sport)
In sports tournaments, a draw is used to randomly assign players or teams to groups or encounters. Most tournaments are preceded by a draw. A distinction is made between draws with and without a seeding list .
process
Before the draw, lots are prepared according to the participants and placed in the lottery pot or pots. Then a so-called lottery fairy (often a sports official or a celebrity) draws one lot after the other after shuffling them well. The order of the drawn tournament participants decides on their position in the tableau and - depending on the sport - also on the right to hospitality or similar. The process of drawing lots can also be done a little less spectacularly using a computer's random number generator .
Draw without a seeding list
Without a seeding list, every encounter or group division that would theoretically be possible is conceivable. The players or teams are randomly assigned to the matches or groups.
Draw with seeding list
Since in the case of draws without using a seeding list it can happen that the two supposedly strongest participants meet very early in the tournament (and the objectively second best participant may be eliminated very early), a so-called seeding list is often used. It prevents favorites from clashing early and makes it difficult for weaker participants to progress through pure luck.
The participants are ranked according to their strengths using the most objective yardstick possible (e.g. world ranking list ). Occasionally this objective standard is deviated from, for example by granting the defending champion, the host or the holder of a wildcard a place in the seeding list that he or she is not actually entitled to.
In pure knockout tournaments, the lot is sometimes completely dispensed with and all starting places are instead assigned according to the seeding list. In such cases, the first on the seeding list plays against the last, the second against the penultimate, etc. Most of the time, however, only a part of the starting places is allocated according to the seeding list and the rest is drawn by lot.
In tournaments that are played according to the Swiss system , a different betting method is used: The first player on the seeding list plays against the first player in the lower half of the table, the second in the upper half against the second in the lower half, etc. This ensures that all players of the upper half received a task of about the same difficulty in the first round.
If the tournament is held with a group phase, the participants' tickets can be divided into different pots according to the seeding list. This ensures that there is always a strong, a less strong ... up to a weak team / player per group. The lottery pots can embody other things instead of the supposed playing strength: For example, when the final round is drawn, a soccer world championship is achieved through the use of several lottery pots, so that teams from different continental associations are represented in each group.