The Inversion Paradox and Ranking Methods in Tournaments

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Chéze, Guillaume, Fieux, Etienne
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Chéze, Guillaume
Fieux, Etienne
author_facet Chéze, Guillaume
Fieux, Etienne
contents This article deals with ranking methods. We study the situation where a tournament between $n$ players $P_1$, $P_2$, \ldots $P_n$ gives the ranking $P_1 \succ P_2 \succ \cdots \succ P_n$, but, if the results of $P_n$ are no longer taken into account (for example $P_n$ is suspended for doping), then the ranking becomes $P_{n-1} \succ P_{n-2} \succ \cdots \succ P_2 \succ P_1$. If such a situation arises, we call it an inversion paradox. In this article, we give a sufficient condition for the inversion paradox to occur. More precisely, we give an impossibility theorem. We prove that if a ranking method satisfies three reasonable properties (the ranking must be natural, reducible by Condorcet tournaments and satisfies the long tournament property) then we cannot avoid the inversion paradox, i.e., there are tournaments where the inversion paradox occurs. We then show that this paradox can occur when we use classical methods, e.g., Borda, Massey, Colley and Markov methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_02429
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Inversion Paradox and Ranking Methods in Tournaments
Chéze, Guillaume
Fieux, Etienne
Computer Science and Game Theory
Multiagent Systems
This article deals with ranking methods. We study the situation where a tournament between $n$ players $P_1$, $P_2$, \ldots $P_n$ gives the ranking $P_1 \succ P_2 \succ \cdots \succ P_n$, but, if the results of $P_n$ are no longer taken into account (for example $P_n$ is suspended for doping), then the ranking becomes $P_{n-1} \succ P_{n-2} \succ \cdots \succ P_2 \succ P_1$. If such a situation arises, we call it an inversion paradox. In this article, we give a sufficient condition for the inversion paradox to occur. More precisely, we give an impossibility theorem. We prove that if a ranking method satisfies three reasonable properties (the ranking must be natural, reducible by Condorcet tournaments and satisfies the long tournament property) then we cannot avoid the inversion paradox, i.e., there are tournaments where the inversion paradox occurs. We then show that this paradox can occur when we use classical methods, e.g., Borda, Massey, Colley and Markov methods.
title The Inversion Paradox and Ranking Methods in Tournaments
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02429