Not sure if you were asking this to me. If so, based off the rest of this thread it may be out of scope for this conversation so maybe better for a different topic or PM. In short though, see image below. You spend 1 day qualifying by playing all the games. This gets your seeding. You then play the bracket out. You could even take it a step further and the first game determines A and B brackets and then the double elimination starts. Really, just trying to think of other ways to do it to where people are doing more playing and less sitting. This is kind of a merger of limited entry and match play.
I tried to make a post on tiltforums bringing up the topic of āwhy does number of players matter so much for WPPRsā and it got zero tractionā¦ but I definitely understand the frustration that pump and dumps create an inflated player count. Pinburgh does the same thing though so eh!!?
You donāt have that problem if you donāt give away free entries with show admission, charge at least $2.50 per entry and have novice/ B division(s).
Iāve coached more than one player through novice divisions in the past and have very much enjoyed doing it. You will always get a few who wonāt take it seriously or will leave early, but if you donāt give any entries away, that number goes way down.
Match play also gets players that are playing more socially than competitively. Some get more competitive, some donāt ever and are fine with it. I like that mix. Nothing personal, but I donāt want to only compete against players who read Tilt forums, no matter what the format.
Iāll be onboard with anything that generates the hype that pinburgh does. Everyone Iāve talked to speaks to itās format being the draw, nothing else.
Iāve never talked to someone that was on their way to a pump and dump due to the prestige of the event. They were attending only because of the circuit status or the proximity.
Talk to me in January when I am on my way to INDISC. I go there because it is my favourite event. I love the format. I love the machine setup. I would go even if it wasnāt worth WPPRs. Of course next year it is The Open, so you may assume I am going because it is a major and a circuit event.
Google āinduced demandā. I guarantee if there were more games and shorter lines I would have put in more tickets to clog the lines and improve my standings. I think I started 7 total tickets. That was a relative bargain compared to NYCPC or papa 20 for what I spent In qualifying.
Games are only part of the equation. 12 hrs is just a short qualifying period. I mean thatās just part of the challenge of the tourney. Managing time, knowing when to shred the ticket, strategically putting in a ticket to counteract an opponent. I donāt think more games is the answer.
Weāre doing neverdrains for Main and Fair Strike for Classics at OBX this year. Come join us and you get both formats at same event and them tasty circuit points from Main.
@djreddog The round robin format Iāve played in over in Europe that is quite fun, and tries to make use of limited # pins over a player pool that might too big to play all at once on those # of pinsā¦
number of player is capped. Players pre-register. For example, 64 players.
Players are divided into some # of groups, letās say 8 groups of 8 players. Groups are set up in a way where each group has a similar distribution of IFPA ranks in it. You have 8 games going at any one time, and just need a couple more pins than 8. As soon as someone is done with a match, they can immediately start a game with another player from their group that they havenāt faced yet ā¦ no need to have 7 separate āroundsā of H2H games within each group.
Each group is assigned a starting time slot to play one H2H game against every other player in their group. The top X from each group moves onto finals based on # of wins. Letās say the top 2 ā so 16 in total.
We can talk about formats, player caps, raising prices, offering free entries to everyone who attends a show, more divisions, more games, longer qualifying period etc. What we need to define is what constitutes āsuccessfulā and I think its situational based.
For example, I run an event a few years in a row focusing on recruiting the Top 64 players in the world and I become a SPC event. Did I accomplish success?
I think it comes down to the organizers/TDās and what theyāre trying to accomplish. If their goals are met to them, that would be successful. I also think there are two categories to ālargeā events, ones that are tied to shows and ones that arenāt and each have their proās / conās.
Queuing is good for the player but bad for the scorekeeper. The ābadā will be dependent upon the size of the event / if its connected to the show / if more people smoke and are outside etc.
I unfortunately missed the last OBX due to illness but I heard a lot of complaints from players about having to wait in line. Yea, Im sure more games and more scorekeepers would of helped but Id assume not once did a scorekeeper need to yell for a player that was up next to play. Weāll be utilizing queuing / DTM this year because its better for the players who are our customersā¦
Iāve worked and helped run the last three TPF tournaments. Here are my suggestions about queuing:
Have a PA available and make sure your scorekeepers know where the mic is located
If the next player up does not respond to the PA announcement within 30 seconds, move on. Neverdrains does not (automatically) remove you until youāve been skipped 3 times.
Train your scorekeepers so they donāt remove people in the queue.
Make sure your players know they are still first in the queue if they get skipped.
Since weāll be using TDM for the first time at OBX and I know they have a PA system this is something we can look at leveraging. Youāre advice regarding the skipping rather then removing is something else weāll train our scorekeepers on. Its imperative all the scorekeepers handle a āplayer up next that is MIAā the same way!
I think most of this āwaiting in lineā stuff is a perception of the same exact waiting around being somehow different. Iām either waiting in line for a turn at Pumpburgh where Iāll hopefully get at least 4 games in over 2 hours, or waiting around for my turn at Pinburgh where Iāll get exactly 4 games over 2 hours. Seems like a wash to me.
at pinbrugh itās not a half hour wait between each game though. You play four games in a row, 4 player. There isnāt that much wait time between balls.
You also donāt have a qualifying ātime limitā per se which adds stress. Everyone is guaranteed 40 games where with best scoring sometimes you have to leap between queues to get more games in. For example, im not going to queue up on a game i may need if a couple of top 100 players are ahead of me.
āat Pinburgh where Iāll get exactly 4 games over 2 hoursā
This exactly is why I donāt gush all over Pinburgh being the greatest event ever. You donāt play that many games relative to the time youāre there as you do at a typical show, nor at a pump ānā dump with short queues or an alert system, nor at a limited entry event where thereās a free play area for before and after. You spend at most 25% of your session time playing - 4 players, 25%, minus waiting time between some games for other groups, and none of that waiting time can be spent playing other machines. The typical European events, for all their limited game counts, have you play your qualifying runs or your round-robin head-to-heads, then go play other games. Iāll take DPMās format, which I see Snailman has also come to like.
