Match Play Events: The Next Generation

This month Max MP officially surpassed Flip Frenzies in popularity!

Two bullets:

  • If you’re not playing a true round robin, wait a bit to mash the “create matches” button. I’ve heard folks typically wait until they have 8-10 people waiting
  • If you’re not playing a true round robin, keep an eye on whether one or more players are “falling behind”. If someone does start to fall behind, wait to create new matches until that player is waiting so they are immediately assigned a new match. If you can get them caught up before the very end that’s best

This is good timing because I just made updates to Max MP to address the three most common pieces of feedback I’ve received.

#1: Big screen view update interval
The big screen view will update every 15 seconds instead of every 60 seconds for Max MP tournaments.

#2: Limit number of matches created
When you create matches you can now limit the number of matches created. This is useful if you have a player falling behind and you want to hold back players who have played a lot of games quickly. By limiting the number of matches created you can create matches only for the players who are falling behind while leaving the rest of the field waiting.

#3: Better overview of players
The “players waiting” section is rebranded as a list of all players. The list makes it loud and clear how many games each player has played. The list includes all players (both waiting and playing players), but you can still see how many players are waiting at a glance. Should make it easier to identify players who are falling behind.

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Would it work out to automate the “wait to create matches” stuff? Like if you could set it to automatically create your matches when X number of people are not currently playing. It could have an on/off button for if something comes up like a player falling behind or something like that.

Another suggestion would be to include something on the Big Screen view to show who is (or isn’t) currently assigned a match. Something like the full list of players in the “Waiting Room” as a separate area but even something much simpler like those pulsing circles next to a players name in the standings to show they are in an active game. That way, if Im wondering if Ive been assigned a game, I can look at my name on the standings instead of searching through all of the active games.

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Generally speaking, no, automating the “create matches” action is not possible.

hmm. fair enough.

I’ve got a few issues and suggestions with the Max Matchplay format.

I’ve got a few trusted friends to help with scorekeeping and to keep the format flowing. When I briefed them I’m sure they were able to create matches on their phones. Now the button has gone.
This was really useful as our TD often plays and with this format moving so fast it’s likely for the waiting room to fill until the TD is back to hit “Create games”. So I liked having a few Scorekeepers who would regularly check the page on their phones and hit “‘Create games’” if active games drops below an advised amount.

Did I imagine the scorekeepers being able to create games? If so it would be a really useful addition.

The other solution is advising them to do it via the computer, but I worry that other players would see this (often players submit their results via the pc) and end up taking it upon themselves to click “Create games”, then you have the potential of someone ticking the safety release valve and screwing up the round robin. I know it’s unlikely but it only takes one impatient player who doesn’t understand.
Could it be possible to add the option to disable or enable the safety valve, like how you can change number of games and how tiebreaking works. It would be good to have it removed as an option when you create games as it’s not needed if doing a round robin and can eliminate the chances of someone clicking it if you’re allowing others to create new games.

A feature suggestion I think would be useful is a “pause player” button. Usually in a FF I’d use deactivate player but that won’t work in Max Matchplay.
As the format is so fast paced it would be good if a player or TD could be marked as away/paused if they need a toilet break, getting a drink or the TD who’s playing has to go deal a ruling.
It would solve the issue of a player waiting for their opponent when really they could (if available) play someone else.

The Max Matchplay format relies on players constantly refreshing, or waiting for the big screen to refresh then looking for their name. If it could announce, or jump to the newest matches once a player submits a score it would be useful.
Likewise on big screen, if the new matches could be on a top row with a header so people are drawn to them it might also help?

I also agree on the request for “recent results” in big screen.

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26 posts were split to a new topic: Max Match Play discussion

Is there a guide anywhere on how to use MatchPlay to run Best Game style qualifying events? I seem to be able to setup it up ok, but I’m not sure how the player queues and scores are managed. I’ve turned on “Virtual Queues”, and I’ve figured out that by clicking the player I can add them to a queue for a game. But after that, I’m at a loss. It also seems that I can not add myself (tournament organizer) to a queue for a game and not sure if that is a bug or as intended.

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@haugstrup odds of making it possible to change the number of strikes for the event mid tournament if no one has reached the max strikes yet? We just had a 4 strikes event start as 3 strikes and we played two rounds before noticing. Didn’t take long to start a new one, but would be nice to have this option.

Thanks!

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Yes, would also like to be able to change the scoring when a round starts. Sometimes I mess up and use IFPA 7,5,3,1 for playoffs when I wanted 4,2,1,0 and have to redo the entire playoffs and sucks when you got 16 or 24 players in it…

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i know Andreas is enjoying some Hiking, i am sure to take him away from all those requests :slight_smile:

I was curious about one thing, when we run our last event, we did matchplay qualifier into a group knockout finals. With next Matchplay it did not let me select group knock out as a final type when doing the “create finals” so i had to create a separated event and copy past 20 people into it. Was this never an option even with the old matchplay? I thought it was possible but maybe i dreamt it? :slight_smile:

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Was the option to enter game scores intentionally removed from next?

Click on view details then enter game scores.



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If you have a venue with multiple rooms, where none cou handle the entire player base, how do you ensure a few arenas are drawn from each room?

I’ve tried Arena banks, and that always gives the groups the first game in that bank and never any of the other arena’s.

I thought with Arena banks it would pick one from each bank, in a balanced manner.

I also tried categories and that didn’t help either.

If you’ve got 44 players and 5 banks of 7-10 machines all in small rooms, what can you do?
There’s a chance most of the players will be drawn in one small room which is something we’d like to avoid.

You will want to assign games to categories (not banks) using the generic category labels (A, B, C, D, etc). Then put something like 2-3 pins from each room into category A, do the same for category B, etc. when you start a round, tell it to draw rooms from one of your categories. This should spread the draw through multiple rooms and avoid the random draw of 5 pins in the same room. This method might also necessitate that you have some pins duplicated so you can fill up each category with enough pins. It’ll take some playing around with, but definitely doable.

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@chuckwurt I have to think through that it won’t get your into unexpected trouble, but I think I can let you change the number of strikes after the tournament started.

@diehardpinball Changing the points system after the tournament has started is far more messy since the results of matches have to be rewritten safely. It would be nice to do but is much more involved than changing the number of strikes.

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@hisokajp I was indeed enjoying some time away from my computer, but here I am again… typing.

Pick any random format for your finals. Once the finals tournament is created you can edit iut like any other tournament. Edit it to change it to a group knockout. The “create playoffs” form lists the most popular formats for playoffs but you can always edit the tournament and make it whatever you want.

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that’s what i thought but strangely i wasn’t able to pick another format even after somehow? I even try with NEXT and old Matchplay :slight_smile:

Make sure you’re trying this before you hit start tournament.

must have been it, did a test tournament and it worked fine this time. let me select custom number of players into finals, went with dummy format then was able to change to group knockout before starting finals :slight_smile:

If you find yourself in the situation with a started finals that you need to change in a major way you can always mark the finals as a test tournament, then delete it, then go back to the qualifying tournament and create playoffs again.

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