Quick question, when doing a Group Knockout using Fair Strikes, is there a way to set it so the loser of a 2P game only receives 1 strike rather than 2? It seems strange to receive 2 strikes if you lose in a 2P game.
1 Like
In fair strikes the number of strikes given out in any game is the same as the number of players. 0/1/1/2, 0/1/2, 0/2. So on average each player gets 1 strike per game. If you look at it this way it might not seem strange.
If you want to compare to a regular knockout tournament you can think of the strikes in fair strikes as half strikes really. Then in a 2 player game 2 strikes is really 2 half strikes = 1 strike in a normal knockout.
If you only give 1 strike in a 2 player game the tournament could potentially drag on a very long time if 2 players make it to the end with few strikes.
1 Like
^ This
can always use Progressive Strikes if you just want an old-school, mathematically-identical to 7-5-3-1 style, tournament
Fair strikes is pretty brutal imo. Might all work out the same depending on how many strikes you pick and what you’re comparing it to, but first felt extremely powerful at the D82 super series this year.
I wanted to try out Fair Strikes instead of the Regular 0/0/1/1 because I felt like it made sense for 1st place to be rewarded more than 2nd. But it seemed kind of unfair for the player who was first in the standings because when it came to the final 2, it seemed like the advantage he was building by dominating all tournament would evaporate very quickly because he’d be getting 2 strikes per loss where as the 2nd place player only had 1 strike to spare anyway.
But I definitely see everyone’s point about if 2 players made it to the final match with lots of strikes to spare and then it would feel a lot more equitable while also finishing quicker. And thinking about it further, 2 player games should only happen late in the tourney when you’re down to 5 players or 2 players manually adjusting strikes would be an option as well.
Ideally, I’d like to see Match Play allow you to select the number of strikes in Group Knockout on an individual basis for 4 player, 3 player and 2 player games. But I’m sure there are much more important modifications to be made to the software than that.
One of the things that I like about Fair Strikes is that more players stay in the tournament longer compared with Progressive or regular Single Strike. To trade off, Fair Strike becomes more brutal in the later rounds where it’s basically win-or-go-home.
Fair Strike:
- Keeps people in longer, giving more players a longer tournament experience
- Concludes in fewer rounds and helps avoids long-tail battles of two individuals who haven’t accumulated many strikes
Keefer shared his simulation software a few years ago here: Thoughts on Group Knockout/Strikes format w/ 3 strikes per group? - #119 by keefer
I compared the three types of events for a 32-person tournament for two different TGP Ranges:
| Grouping | Tournament | TGP | Keefer Software Command |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group A | 8-Strike Progressive | 19 | FairStrikeSimV2.exe -s8 -p32 -r1000 -c 0 1 0 1 2 0 1 2 3 |
| Group A | 3-Strike 3P2X | 18 | FairStrikeSimV2.exe -s3 -p32 -r1000 -c 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 |
| Group A | 6-Strike Fair | 18 | FairStrikeSimV2.exe -s6 -p32 -r1000 -c 0 2 0 1 2 0 1 1 2 |
| — | — | — | — |
| Group B | 9-Strike Progressive | 21 | FairStrikeSimV2.exe -s9 -p32 -r1000 -c 0 1 0 1 2 0 1 2 3 |
| Group B | 3-Strike 3P1X | 22 | FairStrikeSimV2.exe -s3 -p32 -r1000 -c 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 |
| Group B | 7-Strike Fair | 21 | FairStrikeSimV2.exe -s7 -p32 -r1000 -c 0 2 0 1 2 0 1 1 2 |
Group A - 18/19 TGP
1000 Simulations
Group B - 21/22 TGP
1000 Simulations
8 Likes
Is there any practical use of the Arena Category feature in Matchplay?
I would like to have a matchplay tournament that alternates matchplay rounds between EM/SS and DMD/LCD games. But there doesn’t seem to be a way to activate/deactivate arenas based on category. Will I need to do this manually each round, turning on/off each area? Thanks!
Should be able to just tell matchplay you want to only draw from one category when running the next round. There’s a drop down before you hit go.
Here’s how I use it.
I take the machines and put them into Generic Groupings (as opposed to Type). Usually it’s A for longer-playing games or B for shorter-playing games.
Then, I make sure each machine has either an A or B designation.
At that point, when I do the round draw, I say “draw from A” or “draw from B”. This assumes you have enough machines of both types available so that every group gets a machine.
If you have more groups than you have machines within that group, it won’t assign a machine to some groups. In that case you have to manually draw machines from the other group.
1 Like
@haugstrup Thanks as always for Match Play software! We used it for the finals of TPF (to allow finals foursomes to move freely from one game to the next after Scorekeeper grabbed scores – because we have each group’s three games picked at beginning of the round).
I also used the MP Beta version, due to its greater stability in choosing arenas and adjusting player order (the old/current version frequently hangs. Really like the Beta! There are some bugs I discovered and would like to help the cause by reporting them. Is there a dedicated Beta forum where I can post them, for you to read over at your leisure?
1 Like
@Snailman send your reports to play@matchplay.events and we’ll take it from there. Thank you for taking the time to record the issues you ran in to 
sent in. Also, I really like the new Beta software. It feels better, and it was 100% robust at selecting Arenas and changing Player Order – whereas the original software would hang on those pop-up screens quite frequently (25-33% of the time, it seemed).
Keep up the good work!
1 Like
Thank you @Snailman! Emails have been received – I’m going to work through them one by one so if I don’t respond right away that’s why.
That arena selection/player order bug in the “old” version is a perfect example of why I embarked on making the new version. Seems like a simple thing to fix, but the old software was setup in a way where this style of “lock up” on the screen is almost impossible to fix. The new setup eliminates this style of bug completely. Something that I’m very excited about because I change arenas/player order all the time and run into the bug all. the. time.
1 Like
I use the new beta all the time for our league play now it is great, the flip feature works like a charm, just need to get comfortable with the views to show on our TVs and ensure I can get the link to add to banner for OBS as I still flip back to old version as just feel more comfortable in using those features on old platform.
1 Like
How do You obtain the beta software, I would like to use it for our local tournaments in Manitoba
Well there is a form to fill out to get access… But I think we’re at the point where you can just go to https://next.matchplay.events and login using your regular Match Play password.
Beware of course that there are still missing features and buggy behavior!
3 Likes
Hello!
I thought to experiment with our monthly Flipper Frenzy tournament by using the next.matchplay.events page. I was able to set up the tournaments just fine, but I have a question and an observation.
First the question: Is there a place to see the matchplay live link (in the old matchplay it’s on the overview page, but I couldn’t find it in the new matchplay)?
Observation: In the old matchplay, it would take 3 clicks to declare a winner on the flip frenzy queue screen. On the new, it seems to take 5. The most annoying extra click is having to pick both the winner and the loser. This makes no sense - if someone is the winner the other player is automatically the loser, there’s no reason to have to click them. Is there another results screen that’s more streamlined?
Setting up the tournament, entering the arenas, etc. is much faster in the new system which is nice.
Thanks,
Kevin
1 Like
Thank you for trying on the new version! 
There is not. MP Live is going away with the new version. Players and TDs go to the same place to look at a tournament. For the past 5 years I’ve spent so many hours explaining the difference between the TD’s tournament page and the players’ tournament page. Having them split was never intuitive and I really wanted to merge everything into one.
In the in-between where you might be using one and your players might be using the other the workaround is to search for your tournament on MP Live to find it.
Ah, thanks for the reminder! I have just pushed a fix so you don’t have that annoying extra click. If there’s only one empty spot it’s assigned automatically. Give your browser a refresh to get the update.
The Flip Frenzy in “old” Match Play was this totally special section of Match Play where everything was built custom. It made it difficult to maintain and improve. With “new” Match Play Flip Frenzy tournaments use the same standard components as other tournaments. In a few cases this may result in extra clicks, but the advantage is that I can actually improve on the experience over time instead of everything being stagnant forever 
2 Likes
Interesting situation this weekend regarding final standings in finals:
https://matchplay.events/live/g0dv9/standings
Colin, Steve, and Ron all had 5 points in the quarterfinals. Adam M had 6 points but did not advance and did not get in a tie breaker. Ron was in a 2 way tie and Colin and Steve were in a 3 way tie. Colin got second in the tie, Steve got third. Ron did not win his tie breaker. The final results show Colin at 10th but Steve and Ron tied at 11th. Adam shows as 9th.
1.) is this correct?
2.) if so, why?
3,) if not, what IS correct? My gut tells me Ron and Colin should be tied at 10th and Steve at 11th, or have them all tied at 10th.
So the ties were played out? If so, who was the third person in that 3 way tie?
Same question for the 2 way
Found it. Seems to me there was a 3 way tie with 5 points that did not advance. could’ve been played out to break, then it would’ve just been straight how they finished in the tie breaker game. If it was automatically broken, maybe qualifying seeds broke them?
1 Like