Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 741, Playing in a Tournament.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 741.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, © BF-WATCH TV 2021 between Irene and Kent.
It uses vocabulary we would talk about in describing a formal competition or tournament.
Let's get started.
How is your team doing in the standings?
They're seated sixth in I thought it was a double elimination tournament.
It is.
That's the only reason they're not out of contention for the title.
Why did the organizers get rid of the Round Robin rounds?
I think it's because they wanted to cut down on the number of games overall.
I'm not sure.
Your team is the defending champion.
What happened this year?
Why aren't they ranked higher?
They didn't have a very good season.
There were a lot of injuries, and as the coach, I had some run-ins with a couple of the new players.
Let's just say we had some clashes in personality.
Yeah, but I have to feed my team first.
They won't play until they get what they want.
What do they want?
Ice cream.
Who knew six-year-olds could be so demanding?
Our dialogue begins with Irene saying, How is your team doing in the standings?
The standings S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G-S.
Plural means the list of how good a set of teams are.
Standings always relate to the rankings.
Is your team in first place, in second place, in last place, and so forth.
So in any competition, especially a sports competition where you have different teams playing over a long period of time, you will have standings, you will have rankings.
Some will be best, some will be worst.
Well, one will be best and one will be worst.
You get the idea.
Kent says that his team is seeded sixth and they're in a bracket with one of the best teams in the tournament.
To be seeded, Which here means that you put an athlete or a team in a certain position in a tournament so that the better the team, the more likely they are to advance in the tournament.
It can be quite complicated, but basically where you are seated in a tournament determines whom you will be playing.
Kent says that his team is in a bracket with one of the best teams in the tournament.
The best way to understand a bracket is to take an example.
Let's say that you have eight teams and you want to determine who is the best among the eight teams.
So you have team A play team B. Team C plays team D.
The winner of the AB game plays the winner of the CD game.
And then for the other four teams, E and F, G and H, E plays F.
G plays H, and the winner of those games play each other.
Then finally, the winner of the ABCD bracket, or side of the tournament, plays the winner of the EFGH side of the tournament.
So a bracket is the.
You can think of it as the A and B is a bracket, or the A B, C and D could be considered a larger bracket or section of the tournament.
Kent is saying that his team is in a bracket with one of the best teams in the tournament.
So if his team is A and team B is the best team, well he's in a difficult bracket, or his team is.
A tournament is just another name for a competition to determine who is the best person in this game.
Whatever the competition is about,
Irene says There are different kinds of tournaments, different kinds of competitions to determine who is the best team or player.
One kind is called a double elimination.
Elimination is when you lose and are out of the tournament.
That is, you can no longer go forward.
Now, my example of the eight teams is what we would call a single elimination tournament.
That is, if you lose once, that's it.
You don't play anymore.
In a double elimination tournament it's more complicated because You actually have to lose two games before you are eliminated from the tournament.
That's double elimination.
Kent says, yes, it is a double elimination tournament.
He says that's the only reason they, meaning his team, is not out of contention for the title.
To be in contention, C-O-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-N, means that you can still win.
It's still possible for you to be the champion, the best player.
To be out of contention is the opposite.
It's to be eliminated from the tournament or to be in a place where you can no longer win first place.
Kent says that his team is not out of contention for the title.
The title here just means the winning position, first place, number one.
Title has some other meanings in English as well.
Take a look at our learning guide for those.
So Irene then asks Why did the organizers, the people who organized or put the tournament together, get rid of or eliminate the round robin rounds?
Round-robin R-O-B-I-N is another kind of tournament.
We've talked about single elimination and double elimination.
A round-robin tournament is where all of the teams play each other.
So A plays B, A plays C, A plays D, A plays E, F, G, and H.
All of the teams play each other.
It's a much longer kind of tournament and usually only works when there are a smaller group of teams and when you have a lot of time.
Kent says I think it's because they wanted to cut down on the number of games overall.
What Kent is saying is that he believes the organizers eliminated the round-robin rounds, that is, they got rid of them because they wanted to decrease or cut down on the number of games overall.
Overall here means the total number of games.
But then he says, I'm not sure.
Irene says your team is the defending champion.
The champion is the winner, the number one position, the person who wins the tournament.
Defending here means the person or the team that won it last time or last year.
So if the Dodgers win the World Series my favorite baseball team next year, they would be the defending champions, because they won it last year.
Unfortunately, they haven't won it since, I think, like 1988.
So they are not exactly defending champions.
But if they did win last year, then they would be the defending champions this year.
And if they win this year, they would be the defending champions next year, and so forth.
Irene asks, That is, why isn't his team... ranked or put into a higher position in the tournament.
Ranked here is related to the idea of being seeded in a tournament.
Kent says they didn't have a very good season.
A season is the period of time when games are played for that particular sport.
The football season is from, I don't know, late August to say January.
The American baseball season is from April to October.
Those are the months or the time periods when the teams play.
Kent said there were a lot of injuries, meaning a lot of players got hurt.
And as the coach, I had some run-ins with a couple of the new players.
A run-in is a disagreement with someone, a fight with someone.
Kent says he had a run-in with a couple of the new players on the team.
He says, Let's just say we had some clashes in personality.
The expression, let's just say, is used when we don't want to give the person a lot of information about the topic.
We don't want to give them a lot of details.
So we're trying to make a general statement, a summary statement about what happened.
Kent says, let's just say we had some clashes in personality.
A clash, C-L-A-S-H, is an argument or disagreement between two people who have different opinions or beliefs about something.
Clash has a number of other meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
And, of course, The Clash was a famous punk rock group back in the late 70s, early 80s, when I was a young person many years ago.
Irene says, isn't there a game this afternoon?
Kent says, yeah, yes, but I have to feed my team first.
He has to give them some food.
They won't play until they get what they want.
Irene says, what do they want?
Kent says, ice cream.
Who knew six-year-olds could be so demanding?
To be demanding means to need a lot of special attention and care, which usually creates a lot of work for other people to take care of you.
Of course, we find out that the team that Kent is coaching is not an adult team.
It's a group of six-year-old children.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
How's your team doing in the standings?
They're seeded sixth, and they're in a bracket with one of the best teams in the tournament.
Our team has already lost to them.
I thought it was a double elimination tournament.
It is.
That's the only reason they're not out of contention for the title.
Why did the organizers get rid of the round-robin rounds?
I think it's because they wanted to cut down on the number of games overall.
I'm not sure.
Your team is a defending champion.
What happened this year?
Why aren't they ranked higher?
They didn't have a very good season.
There were a lot of injuries, and as the coach, I had some run-ins with a couple of the new players.
Let's just say we had some clashes in personality.
Yeah, but I have to feed my team first.
They won't play until they get what they want.
Ice cream.
Who knew six-year-olds could be so demanding?
This episode was written by the top-ranked podcast scriptwriter in all of Hollywood, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
