We get a great turnout at our show, and offer cash and prizes for A, B restricted, Novice restricted and Women’s restricted, everybody plays in the same tournament and we just split out in the different skill levels and provide prizing to all divisions in playoffs. It is a great way for some of the non competitive divisions a taste of how a playoff format works and get them hooked on trying to improve their standing each year. I think this type of format really encourages maximum participation.
Leagues in these parts submit results based on end of regular season standings. The finals is a separate one evening event that is played just for money/trophies.
I don’t like the idea that you might play 8 or 10 weeks in a league and then drop 16 spots because you couldn’t attend one specific night.
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We do the same thing in the FSPA. Final standings after 10 weeks are what’s submitted, league playoffs are just for the local glory (and prizes).
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We polled our players with changing to this format in mind, and had an overwhelmingly negative response! Different strokes, I guess. Then again, we’ve never had a no-show for a league final thus far crosses fingers
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Bringing this one back. We have had plenty more tournaments since this was initially posted. Has anyone’s opinion changed? Anyone who hasn’t contributed yet feel like giving their opinion on where the A restricted cutoff should be?
Very positive feedback and positive anecdotes from having a B, Women’s , and Novice division finals at TPF. I used 500 and 3000 for B and Novice thresholds, respectively.
One of the Novice finalists was over the moon in making his first ever finals, and was playing in his first ever tourney in honor of his brother who had recently passed away.
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I think the B cutoff at Louisville was 599. I heard grumbling from a few players that felt like that was too low.
I am going to resurrect this thread to talk about what happened with the C bounty at BPSO. I think there are several learning opportunities here and it needs to be talked about, but I also don’t want to has this conversation overshadow the great event.
Quick summary as I understand it. One C player played a NBA during the volunteer hour at the end. After submitting their score, they looked and saw they they has risen above the live into the top 24. They then asked if they could void their score so that they could win the C bounty, because it was a larger payout then they would get if they qualified for playoffs. The score was deleted, changing the top 24 and the C payout.
My concerns.
- Scores should not be retroactive voided. If they want to wait before submitting and do the math the decide, go for it. But no changing after that decision.
- Something feels wrong when the payout for dropping out of the playoffs is much higher than payouts for most people in the finals. I like C and B division payouts, but I don’t like this sandbagging.
In this situation, I would rather give the C player the option to refuse entry into the playoffs, still get the bounty and the 25th place person can replace them. This option would of course need to be written into the rules in advance.
There I started the conversation. Have at it.
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I definitely agree with this.
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I would say avoid creating a situation where a player is incentivized to finish worse. In this case I would have awarded the B/C bounties regardless of finish (i.e. don’t exclude top 24).
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If they play the game the score should count. There should be no option for doing the math after you’ve played the game. Voiding is when they already have a higher score and recording the current one is pointless.
If voiding is allowed at all, I don’t think you can tell the player what they should or shouldn’t use it for. I do agree that you can tell the player when they can use it, however.
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It is common practice to void scores you do not think are acceptable even when you do not have a score. It can be a strategic advantage to have 4 scores lock in, look like you are in 50th place, when you are actually sitting in 10th with a mediocre score and fighting for a bye. Happens all the time.
+1
This is typically avoided by having a separate lower division finals and not a simple bounty. I wasn’t there, and didn’t read up on the B/C division bounties, but I’m assuming that they were paid out based on standings after qualifying, and that there were no B/C finals played to determine who won the bounties.
It is not atypical to have lower division high-finisher prizes that are greater than the prize to an A finalist who gets knocked out in the first round. But IMHO, there should be separate B/C finals if you’re going to offer cash prizes to lower divisions. If an event organizer makes the call to not have B/C finals (due to time, pin constraints, whatever), then the B/C bounties should be less than prize awarded to worst spot in A div finals.
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The other really strange thing is that C players were not eligible for the B bounty. So there are C players who placed higher than the top B player and did not get paid.
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As someone who finished one point below the cutoff line, I’m not sure if this would have affected my placement, but I certainly don’t enjoy contemplating what might have been if not for a questionable void.
B division was very small. The division thresholds should probably be updated.
Good point. There were only 9 people in B division, 66 in C, 48 in A.
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I don’t understand how this works. How can you appear to be in 50th but actually be in 10th?
This was a major mistake in the set-up by the organizers prior to game play. The bounty set-up was flawed before it began. It cost people real money.
By voiding the score after recorded, it took $200 from the person (A.P.) who should have won it based on the rules as top C qualifier. The correct thing to do now is pay AP the $200 she earned based on the rules laid out.
And if voiding scores after they are recorded is allowed, why can’t someone say “void all my scores” (if they are worried about ratings/efficiency/Power 100, etc.) @pinwizj wanna chime in on your thoughts?
Unrelated topic/same event, yet another concern about TD’s not knowing the rules. There was a tie-breaker in the first round of Main. They allowed one of the same 3 games in that group to be played as the tie-breaker. Not allowed when other games are available. This was corrected AFTER player 1 played ball 1 in the tie-breaker. They switched the game.
It would be great if PAPA can give some suggestions to the organizers on a few issues that need to be clear. It wasn’t a PAPA run event, but the organizers can learn from this by taking advice and hopefully correct a wrong that was done.
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I am talking about only having 4 out of 5 scores recorded.
My math is a little wrong. But if you take Drew or Stevens an example and if they had only recorded their top 4 scores, they would be in 30th in the standings. But we know they could score 50 points on any game, and adding 50 points would put them in about 10th, and a strong score like the ones they got put them in 1st or 4th.