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ZooChat Cup S3: Aquarium Cup

Discussion in 'ZooChat Cup' started by ZooBinh, 17 Jul 2018.

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  1. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    As Season 1 and the original game was presented by @CGSwans , and Season 2 by @pachyderm pro , I present to you ZooChat Cup S3: Aquarium Cup. The contestants of this season are 24 amazing aquariums from around the world.
    Georgia Aquarium
    Monterey Bay Aquarim
    Shedd Aquarium
    Dallas World Aquarium
    National Aquarium Baltimore
    Alaska SEA LIFE Centre
    Tennessee Aquarium
    Vancouver Aquarium
    AquaRio
    Sao Paulo Aquarium
    uShaka Marine World
    Two Oceans Aquarium
    Aquarium of Western Australia
    SEA LIFE Centre Sydney
    Waikiki Aquarium
    National Marine Aquarium Plymouth
    Aquarium of Genoa
    TurkuaZoo Aquarium
    Oceanografic Valencia
    Miyajima Public Aquarium
    Shanghai Ocean Aquarium
    S.E.A Aquarium
    Okinawa Churami Aquarium
    SEA LIFE Centre Busan
    How it's gonna go
    Two aquariums will face each other, then the winner will face the next aquarium, the loser of that matchup will then face the first loser, and the winning loser will face the winner of the first two matches. So all aquariums will start off in 8 groups of 3, and each group will have 4 starting matches. All you have to do is vote, and if you want to explain, you are more than welcome to. May the best aquarium win!
    The Categories
    For this season, there are 8 categories
    Freshwater Fish
    Coral Reef Species
    Sharks and Rays
    Saltwater Fish
    Seabirds
    Marine Mammals
    Herps and Inverts
    Miscellaneous Species
    The first poll will be my next thread. Thank you for taking part in this!
     
  2. aardvark250

    aardvark250 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Why does Miyajima makes it on the list? And why don't seaworld count? Also, i think toba and osaka should make in the list. Busan and Rio makes it but not Taiwan?
     
  3. jayjds2

    jayjds2 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Does “coral reef species” include the coral as well as fish and invertebrates, or just some of that assortment?
     
  4. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I didn't know Taiwan had an aquarium, I chose some of the lesser known but good quality aquariums to make it more interesing, and also Miyajima and Busan have finless porpoises, and to me that's pretty cool. I'm not an expert with aquariums out of America, so I tried my best with this.
    Yes, it is the corals, as well as the fish and invertebrates.
     
  5. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I believe Seaworld was excluded due to cetaceans, since there are many excellent aquariums that do not hold cetaceans. (I am referring to something I saw in discussion about the cup in another thread, although I don't remember which.) If I am wrong in this I expect @ZooBinh can provide the answer.

    I am interested in how the DWA will hold up, I feel if it gets the right categories it will hold its own, but will go down easy if it gets unlucky. (I believe the best thing to a marine mammal they have is manatees.) Miscellaneous species getting drawn could be interesting if it means all the land animals, forest birds, etc.
     
  6. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    @Great Argus is correct, I excluded SeaWorld due to their gigantic number of cetaceans. It can easily outrule better places in my opinion just because of that.
     
  7. ThylacineAlive

    ThylacineAlive Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    So we're already disqualifying certain collections right off the bat due to them having a strong collection in one category yet including others because they have a particular species you like...?

    Also, no Aquarium of the Pacific, Mystic Aquarium, or New York Aquarium? Why?

    ~Thylo
     
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  8. nczoofan

    nczoofan Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    The categories are crafted in a way that only a few aquariums on the list can actually compete. Instead of having seabirds as its own category (basically just puffins and penguins at most places), why not have it lumped with pinnipeds in a more birds/mammals category that evens the playing field. Also miscellaneous species includes what?? Also how does one decipher coral reef species and saltwater speciea? As many species spend time in coral reefs, yet not all their time their.

    Also excluding seaworld due to cetacean is inserting a bias into this game. Georgia Aquarium has beluga and dolphin, yet they are still here.
     
  9. aardvark250

    aardvark250 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    But i still think Toba should be in. over 1000 species and lots of rarities.
     
  10. lintworm

    lintworm Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    It is your thread, but I am surprised the Istanbul and Genova aquariums are on the list but not Den Bla Planet, Oceanario Lisbon and Nausicaa, which are all very possibly much better aquaria.
     
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  11. BigNate

    BigNate Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Just my opinion and suggestions on all this

    First for the categories, I would at least consider having only three categories. Fresh water fish, salt water fish, and other (which would be mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians)

    And then, there's been a lot of suggestions for other aquariums to be added, so why not bumping the Aquarium number from 24 to 32, so it can be like the American ZooChat cup that just finished, and easily go from 32 to 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.

    Looking forward to participating @ZooBinh :)
     
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  12. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Some changes to the list, Toba will replace Miyajima, Taiwan will replace Busan, uShaka by SeaWorld San Diego, SEA LIFE Alaska by Den Bla Planet.
     
  13. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Explaining the categories
    Freshwater Species (including freshwater inverts)
    Coral Reef Species (fish normally in a reef display, including corals and inverts)
    Sharks and Rays
    Saltwater Fish (more open sea species, pelagic fish)
    Seabirds (penguins, puffins, and other shorebirds)
    Marine Mammals (polar bears, otters, manatees, cetaceans, and pinnipeds)
    Herps (reptiles including sea turtles, amphibians and unaquatic inverts)
    Misc. Species (other species in aquariums, like flamingoes, and unaquatic species)
    Hope that helps!
    How it works (again)
    24 aquariums are in 8 groups of three, 2 of three in a group will go against each other, the winner will then face the third aquarium, and the loser of that match will face the loser of the first match, and the winner of the third match will face the winner of the second, eventually reducing the number number of aquariums to 8, 4, then third place playoff, 2, and the winner. Hope this helps everything.
     
  14. ThylacineAlive

    ThylacineAlive Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I would like to repeat my question again, but this time adding Oceanario Lisbon, as these seem like pretty big players to be excluding from the game with no given reason.

    ~Thylo
     
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  15. FunkyGibbon

    FunkyGibbon Well-Known Member

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    I think this is something that should also be reconsidered. The first problem with this format is that the aquarium that starts in the second match (let's call it C), has a large advantage over the first two (A and B), because they need to win three matches to progress whereas C only needs to win two.

    The best way to handle this is to seed the 24 aquariums and put the top 8 into the C slots. However this introduces another problem: let's assume that B is a better aquarium than A. In the first match B beats A and progresses. The second match is B vs C and as the best in the group C wins comfortably. So now B moves into the losers match where it faces A again. It wins and moves into the group final where it matches up against C and loses. C qualifies out of the group.

    The four matches will have thus been these:
    AB
    BC
    AB
    BC

    Now clearly, because we are using different categories in each match, sometimes rematches will go in a different way, and of course the better aquarium will lose because of weaknesses sometimes. But the above example is still the most likely outcome. It seems pretty clear that the system has been designed for participation sport; weaker teams get a good run around and stronger teams should get an easy run to the latter stages, but if they stumble they don't crash out.

    As a spectacle though, the above is not very appealing, and the ZooCups are essentially spectator sports. There's a reason why the World Cup doesn't use this format. I suggest, and it is only a suggestion, that either the format is simplified to a knockout format where the seeded aquariums get a bye in the first round, or, as a more crowd pleasing option, simply add 8 more aquariums and have a 32 aquarium knockout.

    They are excluded because with 24 spots there will always be some tough choices. Presumably also at 32 or even 64.
     
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  16. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I was wondering the same about Seattle...

    Seabirds could stand alone as its own category, several places have enough. MBA houses a variety of shorebirds, puffins, murres, guillemots, two albatrosses and a booby, plus the colony of African Penguins. Several other aquariums house a fair number of seabirds.
    Combining seabirds and pinnipeds could be interesting. Some facilities have a lot of one and few of the other.

    Two things here: One, no category for cephalopods, mollusks, crustaceans? In many cases these don't really fall under coral reef species... They're a pretty major part of aquariums...

    The other is I'm not sure how well these categories will work... For example, MBA has essentially no freshwater animals, and the only marine mammal they hold is Sea Otter... Herps is kind of a weak category over all... in several cases the battle could be over a sea turtle or two. Misc. species is an easy win for the DWA, if it gets that lucky. The variety and specializations could make things tough for good competition.
    Seaworld San Diego could be a tough competitor in many of the categories... A marine mammals category would be tough to beat them in... If seabirds and marine mammals were combined even harder. I feel in many cases the argument against Seaworld will be exhibits.
     
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  17. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Cephalods, mollusks and crustaceans fall under the herps and inverts category.
     
  18. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Coral reef species was changed into tropical saltwater species.
     
  19. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    So that's updated then?
     
  20. ZooBinh

    ZooBinh Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    No it's been like that.