Match Play Events: The Next Generation

[pinmanic]

Max Match Play feedback / requests

I wrote about my experience with Max Matchplay first in other Forum, but got message that Thomas is active here. So better to write here.

I organised a test tournament Max Matchplay in Germany before I will use it in 3-Days tournament in March

https://next.matchplay.events/tournaments/93045/standings

We were 30 players and had 16 rounds scheduled (even rounds should always work out, even if someone is eliminated early).

The first 14 rounds went very quickly.
I was aware that if new rounds are already started, even if only 3–8 players are waiting, there will be problems.
Nevertheless, I let it happen, because I wanted to go for the worst case, to know how to get it done ideally.
In the end, almost everyone was through his 16 Games, but one player with 15 games, two with 14, and even one with 13 games.
Then we had to have someone with 13 rounds play with someone of 14 and so on. Some of the time saved was wiped out by that. Besides, it is not so fair that strong players end up with the same pairings again.

The solution from my point of view: (Sorry but I did not read all posts before)
-Only people selected by the tournament director are allowed to create new games.
-In general, do not create rounds if there are less than 1/3 of the players in the waiting list.
-From the middle of the tournament on, make sure that new rounds are only created when the player with the fewest rounds is also on the waiting list.
-Towards the end of the tournament, watch the whole thing more closely and especially start rounds only when the players who have played the least rounds are on the waiting list.

Sounds complicated, but actually it is not. In the end, you still play more rounds in relation to the playing time than with Swiss or Robin.

The mode has been very well received. I think it is great. I will implement it in the future

I think that the software should be optimized
With a total of 16 rounds, those who have played 15 rounds should not be assigned their 16th round yet, as long as there are still some with 13 and 14 rounds. It is also worth considering whether the 15th round should be drawn if there are players with 13 or fewer rounds.

I have one off-topic question I even don’t find where to post it, so I write here: How can I get email notification if someone write in this topic? I am glad if you send it by PM after solving it I will delete this part

[hisokajp]

@pinmanic

-In general, do not create rounds if there are less than 1/3 of the players in the waiting list.

i was also doing this from the get go on my tournament to avoid too much repeat on the arena being drawn to players that just played on them, if you have a similar amount of arenas than players.

[coreyhulse]

@pinmanic

-Only people selected by the tournament director are allowed to create new games.
-In general, do not create rounds if there are less than 1/3 of the players in the waiting list.

1/3 is a decent benchmark. It allows a chance at everyone getting paired up and usually also results in people getting different machines.

@pinmanic

-From the middle of the tournament on, make sure that new rounds are only created when the player with the fewest rounds is also on the waiting list.
-Towards the end of the tournament, watch the whole thing more closely and especially start rounds only when the players who have played the least rounds are on the waiting list.

I don’t know if Andreas can (or would want to) address in the software, but sounds like something that can easily be done manually by keeping an eye on the scoreboard and games played. I’m going to try this in our next monthly.

@pinmanic

I have one off-topic question I even don’t find where to post it, so I write here: How can I get email notification if someone write in this topic? I am glad if you send it by PM after solving it I will delete this part

If someone hits reply directly from your post, you should get an email.

[pinmanic]

@coreyhulse

If someone hits reply directly from your post, you should get an email.

Thanks for your answers also Notification works

There is one very useful thing which should be implemented in the software.
You should be able to select for which player you want to create games.

So for example you play in total16 rounds and there are some with 12, 13, 14 and 15 rounds playd. you should be able to create games for those who have 12 , 13 or 14 Rounds played. can be chosen manualy. Should be easy to program, but would solve a lot of Work and problems

May I know the username of Thomas in TILTForums?

[coreyhulse]

@pinmanic

May I know the username of Thomas in TILTForums?

Are you referring to Andreas (the creator of MatchPlay and all-around stand-up dude)? → @haugstrup

You can also send feedback to play@matchplay.events and he’ll get back to you.

[haugstrup]

Thank you for the comments on Max Match Play (also you @tommyv). I’m reading them all even if I’m not responding directly. There’s been fewer than 100 Max MP tournaments created and I’m currently collecting feedback and in a little while I’ll revisit and do a round of updates for Max MP. Just want to be clear that you won’t see immediate changes – I want to see how different TDs use the format before making changes.

I can make a few clarifications of course.

@pinmanic

-Only people selected by the tournament director are allowed to create new games.
-From the middle of the tournament on, make sure that new rounds are only created when the player with the fewest rounds is also on the waiting list.

The tournament organizer is always in control. They can do whatever they please.

@pinmanic

-In general, do not create rounds if there are less than 1/3 of the players in the waiting list.
-From the middle of the tournament on, make sure that new rounds are only created when the player with the fewest rounds is also on the waiting list.
-Towards the end of the tournament, watch the whole thing more closely and especially start rounds only when the players who have played the least rounds are on the waiting list.

Those may be good rules of thumb, but remember there are several ways to play a Max MP tournament. For example, if you are using it to play a round robin you want to create matches as quickly as possible (no reason to delay the tournament by waiting). Or if you are playing more matches than a round robin you can also power through the “round robin” matches as quickly as possible.

[haugstrup]

@tommyv

Is there a known issue with the big screen view standings auto-scroll? In our tournament it was scrolling down to the bottom of the standings, but never scrolled back up to the top.

I’ve gotten some reports, but haven’t been able to establish why it happens. I wouldn’t be surprised if a chromecast is somehow involved. In the “three dots” menu you can stop the autoscrolling to sort of maybe work around the issue.

[diehardpinball]

The main feedback from our event was the refresh defaults at 60 seconds. I had to use a 10 second refresh program, the refresh was superior in the old system for Flipper Frenzies as well. Other than that thou as long as I waiting for at least 8 in queue to show up then assign it worked out pretty well.

[pinmanic]

@haugstrup
Thanks for your reply

@pinmanic

There is one very useful thing which should be implemented in the software.
You should be able to select for which player you want to create games.

So for example you play in total16 rounds and there are some with 12, 13, 14 and 15 rounds playd. you should be able to create games for those who have 12 , 13 or 14 Rounds played. can be chosen manualy. Should be easy to program, but would solve a lot of Work and problems

This you did not mention

I plan a 2-Days Tournament start 11.03.23 with approx 40–44 player 36 Rounds

Do you see any chance to implement this feature before?
If not, then maybe to create manual pairings instead, to create all from the waiting list?

This would make the tournament much more safe.

[haugstrup]

Sorry, I tend to ignore any suggestion that’s followed with “should be easy to program”. I react badly to those kinds of statements.

You can currently control the max number of of max active games using the “max active games” setting. If you only want two games creates and you have four games in progress, change the setting to “max 6 games”.

I will do a round of Max Match Play changes after I gather feedback from tournament organizers. I can’t say what those improvements will be (can’t make everyone happy) and I can’t say when I will be making those improvements. The list of improvements to make to all of Match Play is long and I have to weigh them all against each other when determining in what order I do things.

[pinmanic]

@haugstrup

Sorry, I tend to ignore any suggestion that’s followed with “should be easy to program”. I react badly to those kinds of statements.

You can currently control the max number of of max active games using the “max active games” setting. If you only want two games creates and you have four games in progress, change the setting to “max 6 games”.

I am Sorry, I can understand your reaction now.

Each time to calculate and change “max active games” Is a bit work. But good to know that it is solvable this way.

[Shaub]

We’ve just started a 6 session league with only the top 4 results counting. After out first league night last night, I notice that the standings for the series has everyone tied for 1st with 0 points in the “Result” column. Is there something I’m missing?

[Zaxxoff]

I chose to slow down the creation of new games when I notice some disparity of total games played. Have ran three so far for a weekly league with all being 8 total matches.

First one I didn’t pay attention and it started dragging at the end and had one rematch.

Second one I saw that a player was at 4 games as they were playing their 5th and some in the “waiting room” were on 6 or 7. I stopped making games till their game finished and dropped the max number of active games from 9 down to 5.

Third one we had lower attendance so I set it up for a max of 8 active games. Just paid more attention to make sure that we didn’t create new games if it might put some players two games ahead of some players.

Third one ran the smoothest so far for time and making sure everyone finished nearly at the same time. Has been a very fun format and have been learning a lot from running it. My league group really has been enjoying this format!

Links:
https://next.matchplay.events/tournaments/92116
https://next.matchplay.events/tournaments/92753
https://next.matchplay.events/tournaments/93410

[philoflipper]

I haven’t run a league using Match Play, but I would bet it’s because the software is dropping the two lowest nights for each person and there haven’t been three nights yet, so currently everyone is having their only league night dropped. (I’m basing this on my experience using gradebook software that would definitely handle “drop the two lowest quizzes for a student” that way if there weren’t at least three quizzes in the book.)

[Shaub]

Ahh yes, that would make sense. The settings do say “drop two worst results” rather than “keep 4 best results” so that would explain it.

[drainmorten]

Hi @haugstrup , a couple of questions;

1. Is it possible to create some sort of “global” (within my account) arena banks, so I can easily reuse them for different tournaments?

2. It does not seem like I can manually assign banks to groups/matches? I can only choose arena banks to be randomly assigned. We have a format where players choose their bank based on previous seeding, and the banks option assigns these randomly, so I need to change all of the games.

3. If having max matchplay and number of rounds equal to round robin round (amount of players - 1) is it 100 % guaranteed that the system will make sure players not meet same players twice?

[misterschu]

@drainmorten

If having max matchplay and number of rounds equal to round robin round (amount of players - 1) is it 100 % guaranteed that the system will make sure players not meet same players twice?

Max Match Play tournaments

[pinmanic]

@drainmorten

If having max matchplay and number of rounds equal to round robin round (amount of players - 1) is it 100 % guaranteed that the system will make sure players not meet same players twice?

Verry low chances if you have aprox same amount of games as player

[tommyv]

@pinmanic

Verry low chances if you have aprox same amount of games as player

This is not correct.

@drainmorten, yes it works the way you’re expecting, guaranteed.

From the docs that @misterschu linked to:

If there are exactly the right number of matches for a round robin (like 10 players, 9 matches) then a round robin will be played. Each player will play every other player exactly once.

[tommyv]

As a partial workaround you can adjust the number of results to drop during the season (using Next Match Play Events). Start with “No results dropped”. After the second session, change it to “Worst result dropped”. After the third session, change it to “Two worst result dropped” and leave it that way for the rest of the season. It’s not exactly what you’re looking for but it’s pretty close.