ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Tournament selection

Imagine you are playing a big game with all of your friends. Everyone wants to be the winner and get the biggest prize. But how do you decide who wins? That’s where tournament selection comes in.

Tournament selection is like having mini games within the big game. You divide your friends into smaller groups and they have to compete against each other. The one who wins from each mini game moves on to the next round.

In each round, the winners play against each other until there’s only one person left. That person is the big winner and gets the prize!

Now, in real life, we use tournament selection to pick the best candidate for a job or to find the best solution to a problem. You divide the candidates or solutions into smaller groups and you evaluate them based on certain criteria. The ones who pass the criteria move on to the next round until you have the best one left.

So, it’s like playing a big game but breaking it down into smaller games to find the best winner. And that's tournament selection explained for a 5 year old!