> if Ye Zhaoying won over the other person with a higher win rate, that means she's better and can make it into the final on her own merits, no?
No. If the only bit of information you have is a single game, then yes, you'd be right to assume the victor was the better player. But in an iterated game, you can easily get into a state where regardless of the outcome of a single game you're still pretty confident that one player is better than the other. It would take many games to tip your estimate. But you don't have many games, you just have the one coming up. What you don't want to have happen is a minor fluke, causing the worse player (estimated win chance 25%) to move on to the finals where they're more likely to lose.
There could also be factors that cause the odds to not follow a simple ordering rule. It could be that player A will likely beat C, B will likely lose to C, and yet B will likely beat A, due to playstyle or something.
But the former thing is more likely what's going on. A beats C is 50% odds, B beats C is 30% odds, A beats B is 70% odds, you want A or B to win and they're playing next, followed by the winner playing against C. B winning can absolutely happen, but it sucks for you if it does.
No. If the only bit of information you have is a single game, then yes, you'd be right to assume the victor was the better player. But in an iterated game, you can easily get into a state where regardless of the outcome of a single game you're still pretty confident that one player is better than the other. It would take many games to tip your estimate. But you don't have many games, you just have the one coming up. What you don't want to have happen is a minor fluke, causing the worse player (estimated win chance 25%) to move on to the finals where they're more likely to lose.
There could also be factors that cause the odds to not follow a simple ordering rule. It could be that player A will likely beat C, B will likely lose to C, and yet B will likely beat A, due to playstyle or something.
But the former thing is more likely what's going on. A beats C is 50% odds, B beats C is 30% odds, A beats B is 70% odds, you want A or B to win and they're playing next, followed by the winner playing against C. B winning can absolutely happen, but it sucks for you if it does.