See the theme here? First one… if you needed to know, you’d already know. Second and third, if you want to know… join the club. Oblivious to the point there is a big wide world already doing those things just not here engaging all the time. The theme here was ‘this knowledge is known’ and instead of sharing outright, it’s a “need to know” basis… need to know, come to our side… we have cookies.
Well that’s why I labeled it my OPINION vs a matter of fact. Ashame you don’t give the same courtesy when deciding relevancy.
Whatever… I let it go… others replied and so I did in turn. Keep on keepin on…
Context is important here. Let’s start with the one I think is the most misunderstood.
You quote this in two segments. He used the term clique because you did. Really the point is that it’s super easy to be a part of that community, one must simply just get involved.
“If you were running an event, I think other TDs would be willing to help you out.” What do you think that means?
Everyone has to start somewhere. I’ve asked many TDs questions during, before, and after tournaments for advice and it was invaluable. It’s a little disingenuous to think that was implied condescension.
First I would like to point out this was a direct reply to your assertion of cliques. Secondly, I could not disagree more about your interpretation of “what’s what.” You said you’ve organized tournaments for 20 years. You know there’s a lot that goes into planning and running an event. That comes from knowledge and experience, both of which I would hope a TD running high stakes events would have.
This is your seventh post in the same thread about this subject.
Anyways, I think this thread has been very useful for @djreddog, and others, from both player and TD perspectives. I hope you’ve gleaned more than a notion of othering.
My own suggestions are attend and volunteer for other large events. Scorekeeping, judging, running the registration desk all are learning experiences. Understand the differences between a fun league night and a high level tournament. Learn from top players what things make an event unfun.
Wow. No way I’m attending a high stakes event run by someone with this attitude, even though they have nowhere near the experience to back it up.
I recommend starting small and staying that way until you actually know you can consistently run quality tournaments with confidence.
You’ll know you’re getting close when you aren’t being dismissive of experienced tournament players’ opinions on a forum full of experienced tournament players.
With all due respect, I’d appreciate it if less experienced TDs would put a little more effort into being prepared ahead of time.
Not doing so is unfair to the players, as well as those TDs who go above and beyond to use all available time and resources to provide an experience that doesn’t feel half-assed.
This kind of aloof approach towards being involved is a big part of what degrades the quality of places like this, and to a much higher degree, places like Pinside, IMO.
Read and search before asking. Be respectful. Do what you can to provide event experiences as close as possible to the best ones you’ve had the privilege to attend, within your means. Determine your personal definition of a high standard and do what you can to meet that standard. Make it clear to your audience what that standard is. If you can’t adjust until you can. It’s not brain surgery.
I understand the point you are trying to make and I’m sure you have new TD’s out there running tournaments who are disorganized and running crappy events. I would like to think that I’m not one of those people. This past Saturday was only the second event that I put on as a TD, and while I like to personally think I’ve done an awesome job running both, I would prefer that anyone who is on Tilt and attended either one or both provide feedback. I’m extremely organized and I put a lot of time and effort pre-planning for the events so that they run as smooth as possible. I recall several experienced players tell me after the first event that they were shocked that this was my first ever event as TD. I think that speaks volumes of how prepared I was. So yes, it’s not rocket science, if you do you due diligence and prepare thoroughly ahead of time. Both events were group match play with 3 hours of qualifying and then PAPA style finals for “A” and “B” divisions and knockout format for “C”. I had 39 people at the first event and 38 people at the second event. I had the #15 ranked player in attendance along with a handful of players inside the top 400, so the tournaments have had plenty of experienced players in attendance. I shoot for better than expected results when I do something, so I will continue to put on events in Delaware and my goal is to make each new event better than the previous one.
Congrats on running another event! The only feedback I’d be able to give from afar is if you describe some unusual situation / ruling that came up, and discuss how it was handled.
It is a definite plus that you’re pre-planning, especially regarding format and rules, easily the places where new TDs tend to run into trouble.
I assume the critical reaction some folks are giving you is part of some type of initiation. I for for one am proud of you and commend you for the efforts you’ve put into competitive pinball. I also think you’re the type of person to take some of the “constructive criticism” make adjustments and come
back with a tweaked plan. Keep on doing…
Thank you for your feedback. You are spot on about the criticism. As soon as the to tournament ended on Saturday and I announced the awards I asked for feedback. I also went on Pinside and for feedback about everything from fhe food, to the format, to the side pots. I requested good and bad feedback which I have already received and when I got home last night I went into my “tournament notes” and immediately added the new feedback that was provided to me.
I’ve done $2 a person. And actually when the tournament ended on Saturday I challenged anyone to a 1 game match for $50 but no one stepped up to the challenge.
Man, god bless you for wanting to get into running tournaments. I have no idea what motivates people to do that. There are definitely those of us out there that would never, ever do it. I hate thinking of having more than three people at my house at a time, so the idea of hosting an actual event is mindboggling.
I’m interested in high stakes stuff with peer players. I’ll put $20 on a game if I’m in the mood. Probably wouldn’t travel to your event unless it was like 100 players or more. Definitely wpprs are a larger draw for me. If I wanna make $4k in a weekend, there are other ways to do that.
Anyway man, I think you can build a good rep pretty fast. People have short memories. You do a regular thing for a couple years and pretty soon nobody’ll remember when you weren’t doing it.
I played a $20 game of Monster Bash against @Russell and @stepan (who got a $10 discount for being an underdog). We thought it would put us under a lot more pressure, but afterwards we agreed that it didn’t seem to have the intended effect. Playing for $100 probably would have made me sweat a little, especially if I knew there were more games to come after that.
For me, putting WPPRs on the line seems to add more pressure than money.
Aside from all of that, once you get down to the finals in a tournament, your last game is effectively playing for tens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars difference - depending on the event/prizepool.
We do it basically everytime we play… Start at $1, and usually escalate to $5 pretty easy… $10 or $20 weeds the crowd out really quick (even $5 does). At a $1 a play its just to make it interesting… we have people of all levels playing. At $5+, people won’t play if they think there is an obvious favorite in the group.
$100 games are played too… but not by me Chris Newsom was infamous for wanting to play $100 games anytime, anywhere Bring up the topic… and he’d be ready to roll. He of course, is a top level player, so lace up! We have other locals that can easily be talked into $100 games… but I’d tell you it’s probably 5% of the player pool in our area that would do that per game.
Its actually incredibly satisfying to have people enjoy your games or format. It’s a fun way to meet and connect with people too. Bringing your games to shows has similar positive payoffs. Take your games to shows, volunteer at competitions to scorekeep… even those simple things will bring out so much more of the hobby to someone. Then start hosting gatherings, or putting on events… is another angle people can take. I encourage people to try… the returns are way more than any anxiety about consequences IMO.
Start of Janurary we’ll be hauling 12+ games to MAGfest again this year purely for the fun of ensuring there are games to play and ‘giving back’. If we want fun, big events, its us the community that have to make it work
I think it’s really fun. I ran a 40 person event at my house in June. It went so well I did it again in December and upped the ante by streaming the event too (had lots of help though which is huge) Can’t wait to do the next one. It definitely helped that the first one ran so smoothly. I would’ve been reluctant to go through it again.
One of the highlights for me is the social gathering at the Belgian Open in many of the pubs. The site games were regularly being played for £20 per head with Winner taking £60, 2nd got their money back and loser bought the next round.
Many occasions there were 4 different nationalities playing, with a healthy group of people wanting to join the action.
(also explains my usual poor showing on the Saturday morning after drinking until 6am)
The biggest motivator for me was the fact Delaware is an afterthought when it comes to pinball. When I jumped into this hobby in 2016, it was disappointing to find out the closest pinball machine on location to me was 45-55 minutes away. Also don’t forget it only takes 75 minutes to drive through the entire state
So I set out to try and put Delaware on the map. I became the admin for Pinball Map for Delaware and spent several weekends driving around finding games in the wild. I’ve tried to network with other Delaware pinballers, although we don’t have too many in the state. The connections made so far have been awesome and Delaware has a great group of guys supporting the hobby. I played my first tournament at Allentown in 2016 and was hooked, simply because I’m highly competitive in general. I then struggled to find other tournaments to attend, mostly due to location. Baltimore is 90+ minutes away, Philly is 90+ minutes away, so making time to attend these have been a challenge with distance, kids activities, and myself shooting in pool tournaments(local), and playing in paintball tournaments on weekends. I played my second tournament at York in 2016, and then had to wait until PAPA 2017 to play again. After PAPA is when I made the decision to try and bring tournaments to Delaware.
At the time I wasn’t aware of Tilt, so back in May/June of 2017 I started a thread on Pinside to try and drum up interest to see if it was even worthwhile. I remember Levi saying just post the date and if people can make it they will. He also added that he never has more than 22 people show up and for me to not worry about the number of people coming especially since this wasn’t an established tournament. My initial concern was this was being held in the basement of a house and we didn’t have a ton of room. Thankfully Levi’s advice was wrong. We had 49 RSVP’s for Event 1 with 39 people showing up and the basement got a little crowded but we manage. Event 2 was just as successful with 46 RSVP’s and 38 showing up, however we lost several people to a snow storm that hit the night before.
Moving on Delaware will now have an official SCS champion and I will continue to host quality events in an effort to broaden the pinball scene in Delaware.
Lastly, I’m even taking the bull by the horns and will be attempting to host a fall (Nov or Dec) show in northern Delaware in 2018. I meet with a potential venue in January, and hopefully we can come to terms because it is in great location. All this in an effort to make pinball great again. All I need is everyone’s support.
Chris Newsom was infamous for wanting to play $100 games anytime, anywhere 
Bring up the topic… and he’d be ready to roll. He of course, is a top level player, so lace up! We have other locals that can easily be talked into $100 games… but I’d tell you it’s probably 5% of the player pool in our area that would do that per game.