Tournament Standards

[Kyle]

We are asking the entire scene to discuss what tournament standards should be enforced. Everybody who travels and plays should be able to contribute something.

This was started in the Staff Forum, but who are we, individuals elected by the same individuals. We are not the entire community/ or the general public. This is YOU. We are asking how you feel about tournament rules.

Float? Seed? Regions? Byes? When it's appropriate to run losers? Starting tourney's late? Megaphone/microphone? Laptop? How to fill-in losers appropriately- late entries- DQ's. What qualifies a "Major" now these days? How many "Top-Players need to be in attendance to be "Major"? How many total entries need to there to become a "Major"?

...I actually wanted to ask you guys about setting some real set rules about tourneys, such as things like Bozac said about floating, Whiteboard for listing missing people etc., splitting large tourneys to two days, and having a backup bracket runner just incase the main person is shot or whatever. We really need to set some standards about many things in tourneys, so we can make them better and faster.

...I'd like to get some opinions from travellers and top players too.

K Peace.

There's a lot to address. But, once this is done: it can be copy pasta for anyone running a major.

[Rinsuku]

I'll just kind of throw in my opinion where I can.

Most of the time, from what I see. Tournaments are posted WAY ahead of time, so I think that being late should be a DQ. Not saying that things don't happen, but most people have cell phones (right?) and should be able to call ahead of time in case something should happen. Most of these tournaments extend until way in the night (12:00am-1:00am) From late entries AND TOs. TOs should be able to organize everything so that it's on time or close to it.

I do think microphones are necessary because there are too many people trying to talk and the TOs can't get anything done if the people don't show because they can't hear their names. Either people need to be quiet or TOs need a mic.

As for Majors: I didn't know that top people had to show for it to be a Major. I thought it was a major because of the major turnout or Lots of people from different states come together (Evo, NEC, etc...). Iunno. I mean the tournies I go to have mostly 10-15 people per game. If we're lucky. So I'd say like 80-150 could be a Major. Look at EVO. It could be a considered a major even if it wasn't on the roster of games to play because of the turnout.

[Hellmonkey]

Stuck.

Rather than specifying rules about having a laptop/microphone/etc, I think instead we should specify how the tournament organizers are decided, how to make sure everyone knows who they are, and who to go to if they have questions before or at the tournament. Good tournament organizers will know how best to seed players and deal with whatever comes up, the important part is making sure all "majors" have multiple competent/unbiased people who contribute to this. How about some rules about stating who is planning to run/make brackets & who will help them out x weeks/days before an event (perhaps proportional to how big it is expected to be).

Perhaps some set rules on DQing people would be useful too, so there will be no complaints when/if it has to happen.

[ElvenShadow]

Good thread Well posting who all the people who will be running each tournament are in the first post a tournament thread should solve the problem of letting people know whos running what. I have already done so for my upcoming tournament. At the the start of the tournament once the tournament is announced to begin, the guy running the tournament should breifly just introduce himself, saying his name and that he will be running the tournament. If he is having the assistance of other people, he should simply point them out and introduce their names as well. This will take all of 30 seconds and is easy to do if you have a mic or a megaphone.

[Chomite]

Let them pay the double the amount of entrance fee (or any set amount of fine) if late.

[Josh Ballard]

I think a major would be...70+ attendance, maybe? Really, with anything of that size a bunch of top players are going to come.

Keep people in the same region from playing each other until 3rd round of winners, minimum.

In the losers bracket, only float if there's going to be double jeopardy (same 2 people playing in both winners & losers). Once you get to top 8 I don't think you can avoid it any longer, though.

Keep the bracket in public view at all times. Require tournament directors to explain the reason for any changes (floating etc.).

And something else I just thought of recently:

Do not give major gamblers any authority over tournaments. We only need look to sports for the reasons why:

- In major league baseball, a group of players (since dubbed the "Black Sox") on the White Sox were paid off by gamblers to lose the 1919 World Series, and eventually banned for life once found guilty. That was far from an isolated incident - other games were fixed during that decade, and other players were banned once discovered.

- The one that relates most to our situation...within the last few years, an NBA referee named Tim Donaghy was found to have attempted to fix games by favoring certain teams re: calling fouls; it turned out that he was a compulsive gambler who owed money to the mob, and this was his way of paying it off.

- Pro boxing is one of the sports most clearly associated with high-stakes gamblers, and it has acquired a reputation for being not much less rigged than pro wrestling.

Established competitive games are Nazi-like when it comes to gambling, because they have to be - it is a unique threat to their integrity. I'm not suggesting that we go out there and ban anybody who ever places a sidebet, but we should definitely consider this when selecting tournament directors. We have not yet had that Black Sox/Tim Donaghy moment, but we will if we do not heed this warning.

Many thanks,

Josh.

[Henaki]

being late for a tournament shouldn't cause a fee if the person is traveling long distances unless its basically nec, fr or evo wheres its practically implied you will be in a hotel for long distance travelers. dqing should happen instantly if the entire vertical row in their bracket has finished without them showing up, only exception i would make is its said that they have to leave for a specific reason (food is a viable reason, but only for like 45-60 minutes tops). regional seeding is a must, skill seeding/byes, dont matter, luck of the draw. obviously if its a regional tournament, who gives a damn.

[qwerty]

one tv per 8 entrants; everything just falls into place from there.

[doragonkoroshi]

Maybe if the tournament organizer and/or some assistants can have a number available so that people can call if they're going to be late/not show up at all. Maybe this way if you're late AND you don't call AND you don't have an excuse for not doing so or something there can be a penalty. This is probably way too much of an investment for most tournaments, but for something like Tad's Tenkai mobile have pagers like at a restaurant and assign one to each player so people can easily be notified if it's their turn. Of course this wouldn't be necessary at all as long as people can hear you when you call their name, but whatever. If money were no object it might be useful.

[Heidern98]

being late for a tournament shouldn't cause a fee if the person is traveling long distances unless its basically nec, fr or evo wheres its practically implied you will be in a hotel for long distance travelers.

dqing should happen instantly if the entire vertical row in their bracket has finished without them showing up, only exception i would make is its said that they have to leave for a specific reason (food is a viable reason, but only for like 45-60 minutes tops).

regional seeding is a must, skill seeding/byes, dont matter, luck of the draw. obviously if its a regional tournament, who gives a damn.

I completely agree with you. Let me tell you guys from experience, it is very hard when someone is begging you to get in the tourney late and you know you can do it, but you want to stick to the rules. When you look at that person and they tell you how far they traveled to play, its very hard to say no.

I think DQ should happen when the first row is finished.

Also, I really liked Freds whiteboard at evo2k8 where we listed the names of people who were holding up the tourney so they could come by and check every so often.

one tv per 8 entrants; everything just falls into place from there.

This is slightly difficult when you have a 128 man tourney. Even 90 or so is 12 tvs and that is a lot of resources.

Let them pay the double the amount of entrance fee (or any set amount of fine) if late.

Thing is, I understand this is a penalty, but it does not really benefit anyone except top 3. If you can get someone into the tourney, then get them in I say. If you can't, don't.

I'll just kind of throw in my opinion where I can.

Most of the time, from what I see. Tournaments are posted WAY ahead of time, so I think that being late should be a DQ. Not saying that things don't happen, but most people have cell phones (right?) and should be able to call ahead of time in case something should happen. Most of these tournaments extend until way in the night (12:00am-1:00am) From late entries AND TOs. TOs should be able to organize everything so that it's on time or close to it.

I do think microphones are necessary because there are too many people trying to talk and the TOs can't get anything done if the people don't show because they can't hear their names. Either people need to be quiet or TOs need a mic.

I think I will follow your idea and give out my number to people who may need to delay their match or find out their status. The only problem with this is sometimes its so loud that you dont hear or even feel your phone cause all the madness.

Oh and I think Mics and or megaphones are a must if you have over 64

Maybe if the tournament organizer and/or some assistants can have a number available so that people can call if they're going to be late/not show up at all. Maybe this way if you're late AND you don't call AND you don't have an excuse for not doing so or something there can be a penalty.

This is probably way too much of an investment for most tournaments, but for something like Tad's Tenkai mobile have pagers like at a restaurant and assign one to each player so people can easily be notified if it's their turn. Of course this wouldn't be necessary at all as long as people can hear you when you call their name, but whatever. If money were no object it might be useful.

Man that is awesome I wish I could do that.

Imma post some ideas up regarding floating, seeding, and some general stuff after this weekend. I hope others do as well.

Lets get this shit straight so we are all on the same page ya?

[ElvenShadow]

doragon, I like that idea sorta I was actually thinking of making a signup sheet that asks for some information like name, location, games entered, hotel room number(if you are staying at the hotel) and cellphone number (if you have one or one where you can be reached). This information is all basically used so that we can find players who are missing fast and efficiently. Some people may refuse to give such information due to it infringing on their privacy. Of course if I WAS to go ahead and do something like this, no one would see the sheets except tournament directors, but if people realy felt that concerned about me knowing that kinda stuff, it would be their right to refuse. If thats the case though, they had better just be around when its their turn to play is all. Also, calling people on deck is a huge strong point. I think what im gonna do is try to get like a big dry erase board and write down all the station TV numbers on it. Under each one I will have 2 spots. One for who is currently playing and one for who is on deck. That way people can easily check (in addition to me calling them over a mic/bullhorn/whatever I can get). It also lets people know whos always playing incase they want to know for their own knowledge or if someone is recording vids and needs to find out

[qwerty]

This is slightly difficult when you have a 128 man tourney. Even 90 or so is 12 tvs and that is a lot of resources.

assuming everyone involved in coordinating a major has a tv, ps2 and copy of ac, i think it could be done rather easily. if they couldn't do it amongst themselves, then i'm sure people would bring their own setups for use if need be.

of course, then this brings up the issue of liability, how to manage so many stations at once, etc; but, i think that a well organized major would be able to handle something like that.

also, tio tournament organizer is a must have. it's easy mode compared to manually drawing out brackets (and helps a lot for late entrants, etc). though you'll probably want to back up the brackets on paper in the event a laptop explodes or is otherwise compromised.

[doragonkoroshi]

assuming everyone involved in coordinating a major has a tv, ps2 and copy of ac, i think it could be done rather easily. if they couldn't do it amongst themselves, then i'm sure people would bring their own setups for use if need be.

Don't forget that space will become an issue depending on how many different games are being run at once. I think Tad had some sort of chart drawn up for how much space per TV.

[BioLogIn]

Can anyone here please explain to me how "Tournament Standards" (like having a certain amount of TV's and such) should be "enforced"? This discussion can form nice _guidelines_ for TO's, but "enforcement"?..

[Blade]

This is my two cents, but bets should be public and registered if they want to participate. I understand fees support it and you have a player pool, but stuff like this needs to be listed, along with some way of contacting each person who threw in his money.

[Digital Watches]

Eh. Unofficial sidebets are fine, but Blade's idea has SOME merit: Creating a betting pool would be a great way to build hype (Just make sure it's legal the way you implement it. Eheh.) But one thing: I said it in the staff forum and I'll say it here: Cutting out top player seeding is bad for a tournament. In a perfect world, first and second place wouldn't fight until winner's finals. Obviously this is impossible to completely control, but if you have a 64-man bracket and three established top players with major tournaments under their belt, they should NOT be fighting each other right away, or even within the first few rounds.

[Hellmonkey]

Top player seeding is absolutely necessary. Agreed.

[Kyle]

...Keep the bracket in public view at all times. Require tournament directors to explain the reason for any changes (floating etc.)....

wouldn't some kind of overhead projector be amazing!

[CABINET SMASHER]

Seconding the TO giving out his cell number so people can let him/her know if they'll be late. This will allow the TO to put them later in the brackets/seeding. However, it's best for them to call BEFORE the tournament starts. If they call during/ afterward, tough shit.

[j1n[kr]]

I am a fan of different ways of running tournaments than your standard double-elim bracket. however because of time-constraints double-elim brackets are the best just to move quickly. However the problem with double-elim is that it only rewards the 2 best, while 3rd and below can always be quite random/luck of the draw. given enough time, I would want to try running one day double elim-pools (ive given this example before), ie if you had a 32 person bracket, then you split into 8 pools of 4, with top 2 from each pool moving on to a winners bracket pool, and bottom 2 from each pool moving to a losers bracket pool. However, since that takes way too much time, The best Tournament format I think is the Olympic Pools, where everyone starts out in Qualifying groups (World Cyber Games does it this way too, EVO2K3 Sort of did this but made it weird where your losses carried over to the bracket) and they round robin in their pools. Then they take the top 2 from each group and put them into a Tournament Bracket, sometimes single elim, sometimes double elim. (I like single elim at this point, you can still have a battle for 3rd place, which actually is more fun sometimes ie when youre left with 4 people in single elim, top 2 battle for first, losers battle for 3rd.) Why do I like Olympic Pools? consider player A who's spent 300 to travel to your tournament. Is it really cool to let him go 0-2 and be done? I don't think so, as a Tournament Director myself I really don't think that's fair to them, at least in a Pool/Qualifying Group method you're giving them more than 2 matches depending on the sizes of your pool, so you can essentially give a player maybe 4 or 6 matches for entering a tournament rather than just 2. I've never gotten to run a tournament Pool Style, but I think it would be fun to try. Other Tournament notes: I also always made sure my Tournaments had projectors. Not only can you display the brackets, you can also entertain the bored with the internet or videos. Microphones are great tools. Multiple Tv's are always nice I also always like to try to give casual time, or a designated break (Keits also does this) around 1 to 2 hours. And also "Casual" areas to just play. Heres generally how I ran my shit: Needed Equipment: Computer or Laptop, Projector, At least 6 TVs, At least 3 people to help, Media (for recording, or playing), Consoles with Games, Extra Sticks/Controllers for people A Venue with GOOD bathrooms. Schedule: Registration Time Tourney1 or ( Tourney 1 + 2 ) Break Tourney2 or ( Tourney 3 + 4 ) Finish/Cleanup Alcohol time. Generally running more than 2 tournaments at once I think is a bad idea as alot of people are multi-game competitors. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is as a player myself to run from Tekken, To Guilty Gear, to 3S, to something else. I tried running more than 2 at once and it failed and Veteru didn't get to play Melty Blood. I've never run an Entry Fee, mostly because I could get all my needed equipment for free and I usually trusted people not to steal shit, I honestly feel like an Entry Fee is robbing people and as the Tourney Director you should set it up yourself cash wise, but nowadays you need an Entry Fee, cause it really does seem like more assholes are appearing. I mean yeah sometimes I wish I ran an entry fee and made like 1000 in cash every time I ran something. Give free shit away. This is paramount I think. Pot Bonuses, Prizes, anything extra will always make your Tournament extra special. ill prob edit this post with anything else i remember.

[Blade]

Did I ever tell you you're awesome J1n?

[Lamebot]

Nothing too complex, but simply more communication would probably fix a lot of things.

[shtkn]

just a small additon to the whiteboard thing: at evo2k8, we wrote down the names of ppl we were waiting on, and they waited around (like the whiteboard said), but seein as we didnt' know everyone's face, we had no idea that htye were actually there. So, on the whiteboard you should say something like "tell the TOs you are here so that they can assosciate a name with a face". edit: also, if someone's late, then write "get here in the next 10 min or you're DQed" or something like that might help too

[Henaki]

I think DQ should happen when the first row is finished.

this is what i implied, but if someone say, wins their first match, when 2nd row is done besides them (and any pending DQs for a no show), you DQ them then, after top 8, you have NO EXCUSE besides playing another game for not being there though.

[Shoryu Magami]

Well, I've never actually physically been to a tournament (Australian players without passports don't have the luxury of ever finding one, even if they're good players -.-), so I guess most of my comments in this topic would be fairly pointless, but if I think of anything I'll let you know.