New format? NOT a Flip Frenzy

General
1

With the new rules nerfing Flip Frenzy tournaments, I ran an alternative version yesterday.

There were 28 players, and we used 11 machines out of a potential 15.
11 players were drawn as P1 and allocated a machine.
11 players were drawn as P2 and allocated a machine.
The remaining 6 were placed in a queue.

After each match P1 became P2 on the same machine, P2 joined the back of the queue and head of the queue became P1.

This continued for about 90 minutes, when we broke for lunch. During that time I reorganised the queue so that those players who had played the most, started in the queue after lunch. Those that had played the least started as P1.

As people became more familiar with the format, I added in an additional game to bring the queue down to just 4.
Some games were also switched in and out. Some based on machine faults, others on game length. F14 and GZ were switched out for 8 Ball Champ and Star Trek.

When a player had reached 25 games, their qualification was over.
If they were P2 on reaching 25, they just didn’t rejoin the queue.
If they were P1 when they reached 25, they joined the back of the queue and that machine was taken out of the circuit. (The next person in the queue waited for the next eligible machine to become available).

Once everyone had played exactly 25 machines the total wins were worked out and the top 4 played a PAPA style 3 game 4 player final.

It worked exceptionally well.

  • There was less than half an hour between the first and last people reaching 25 games.
  • Because everyone played the same no. of games, the decision between total wins and win percentage was moot.
  • Because there wasn’t a time constraint, there would have been no benefit of throwing a game, or giving up if you were massively ahead. (One of the major objections to FF).
  • Everyone played exactly the same amount of games (the other major objection to FF).

It was also ran entirely with printed scoresheets and players marking their own, witnessed by their opponent - not a computer in sight.

2 Likes
2

So basically you ran Max Match Play. The updated version of the mp software can do this for you. We’ve run it a couple times already.

3

It can’t do it if there’s no wifi or mobile signal!

1 Like
4

In comparison to a FF, did it take much longer to complete?
Using the new software has worked for us, but it has gone much longer than a typical FF of similar # of games played.

5

May I recommend joining the 21st century :smirk:

6

Unfortunately I can’t control the hosts wifi or location of towers near his house.

7

It was completely finished (inckuding the final) 6 1/2hrs

8

do remember that removing a game mid-tournament because it is “too long” disqualifies the event for gaining any more TGP after that happens.

9

It was F14 that was replaced due to ball times being too short! It was creating a loop where by the time the player had finished and gone through the queue they were placed back on the same game. It happened 4 times in the first half. 8BC going in sorted it with longer ball times.
Does that increase the WPPRs? :grin:

3 Likes
10

haha that i don’t know but it is usually the other way around :wink:

11

is setting faster games to be preferred allowed? at the end not remove slower ones but makeing them less likely to be auto picked?

12

For anyone interested in a refresher on the language:

Any tournaments that eliminate games due to time, in an effort to speed things up (this is often done by switching to “all Classics” when a tournament is running long) will no longer earn TGP after the point in time in which games are eliminated. For tournaments that run into this problem often, we recommend you changing the format to a lower amount of games played, or eliminating any long playing games at the start of the tournament.