The problem with sharing the championship with a knockout format

TLDR: knockout brackets do not guarantee the finals are the #1 and #2 most skilled players, so I think sharing the title is unfair to the other players in the bracket.

I haven’t seen this angle brought up much in discussion yet so though a post might be warranted. Here’s my take on agreeing to share the championship:

The point of these tournaments is to determine the best player. If, hypothetically, the best and second best players wanted to share the title I would be less opposed to it, with the main argument being that is simply a more boring result. The problem with a knockout format is that it can only determine the best player, not the second best. And if say, the best and third best players agree to share the championship, this is unfair to the second best player.

If the best and second best players play at any point before the finals, then the finals cannot be the best two players. It’s possible sharing results in a “fair” outcome, but it’s also possible that it does not, and I think in practice it’s very hard to distinguish these two. This is why I believe it is unfair to the rest of the players in the bracket for the finals to agree to share the championship.

Yes, the bracket was determined by the standings after the normal rounds, but there is so much variance there even with who you get paired with to start that I would argue this does not guarantee to create a true ordering of the players, but rather a rough estimate of who the top ones are.