Hey everybody - I’ve been running a monthly matchplay and it seems like my IFPA points end up pretty low compared to other tournaments. Can someone help me understand what I am doing wrong. We do 8 rounds head-to-head, with a single elimination final for the top, less than half (per the IFPA guidelines). What should the TGP be? When I look on the average IFPA points on their site for tournaments they are pretty high. I just want to understand better, so I can maximize the points for our players.
Pretty easy for this format. Every round played is 1 game toward TGP.
So 8 rounds is 8 toward TGP.
For finals follow this guide:
This format is going to be low value. Let’s say you get 8 TGP for qualifying, and 8 TGP for finals, that’s a total of 16. The deminator is always 25. So you’re goal for 100% TGP is 25 games towards TGP.
In my hypothetical, you’d get 16/25 of the total possible points your event would have been worth if you played more rounds/games.
You can see here what my gauntlet tournament at Pincinnati would have been worth if we had the same players, but a different format
Had we not only gotten 6 TGP, we could’ve gotten 21.69 points for the winner. Instead they got 5.20 points.
You didn’t say how many players but let’s assume 32 so 16 can go to finals. If you are doing single game single elimination, that’s a very poor format for TGP. I would suggest at least a best of three single elim.
In reality, most head to head formats are not worth a whole lot and you’d be better off doing matchplay in groups of 4.
8 rounds qualifying = 8 games
16 players single game, single elim = 4 games
8+4 = 12
12x4% = 48%, not very valuable
Now with best of three finals:
8 rounds qualifying = 8 games
16 players best of three, single elim = 10 games
8+10 = 18
18 x 4% = 72%, much better value
Now a group matchplay format:
6 rounds of qualifying with majority of the groups are 4 player groups
6 x 2 = 12 games ( if the majority of the groups are 3 player groups 6 x 1.5 = 9 games)
16 players make the finals, (PAPA format where each round is 3 games played, 1/4 finals, semi finals, finals)
3 rounds x 3 games x 2 = 18 games
12 + 18 = 30
30 X 4% = 120% (but maximum is 100% until next year begins. Next year you could actually get 120%)
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Another important factor is the experience level of your player base.
Every player who has played in at least 5 IFPA events brings .5 points to the tournament.
Until they reach that 5 events, they bring 0 points.
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tbf, the TGP methodology is pretty confusing. You say “every round is 1 game toward TGP” which is a direct copy from the TGP guide you linked. But TGP stands for “Tournament Grading Percentage”, and is measured in %, so how does a unit of game translate to a unit of percentage? Well that’s where meaningful games played comes in, mentioned in the WPPR rules but not mentioned on the TGP guide. One meaningful game played adds 4% to TGP. So everywhere on the TGP guide where it says “X games towards TGP” it actually means “X meaningful games”
Or just call it Total Games Played like I did until like last year. Haha.
Yeah, TGP is constantly misused. Tournament Grade Percentage.
Even in group discussions by state IFPA Reps, I constantly see things like 25 TGP. When what they mean is 25 games played. It definitely adds to the confusion.
The main thing to remember is every meaningful game played gets you 4% towards a possible 100%.
Guilty as charged 