Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Flights VS Swiss -1 (Playing one less round)

Pokemon is a lot more popular than it used to be. Its time to suck it up and face reality. We can no longer conduct regional or national scale events in a single day without some significant unfairness and arbitrariness to it all. They realized this in chess years ago and most events larger than club scale are conducted over both days of the weekend. If we continue to run events that keep juniors up until 2am, a lot of parents are going to start declining to participate. And its only going to get worse.
 
It would be nice to have day 1 be Swiss, and day two be Top Cut rounds. Day one can be focused on just the top cut matches, allowing 8-9 solid rounds solidifying who deserves top cut and calling it a day, then the people moving on can come back the next morning and play their last 4-5 rounds and finish before dinner.
 
i think they should make a new division for 35+ my dad is like one of the oldest players and he doesnt stand a chance at top cuting wwith all the good younger people
 
Flights and swiss-1 are similar. However there is a very important difference. Flights introduces an additional constraint upon the pairing algorithm, one that has unfortunate consequences for the majority of real tournaments. The only circumstance under which the additional constraint on the pairing algorithm has minimal impact is when an exact power of two number of entrants are present. For all other sizes using flights increases the number of out of record pairings. That is the discriminating power of the swiss algorithm is reduced by using flights. That may mean nothing to you, so I'll give you the final result of using flights: flights places greater emphasis upon op-win%. There will be more players tied at X-1 and X-2 when flights are used compared with the same number of players in a single swiss-1 tournament.

There are other secondary differences but that is the big one. More players end up on the same record when flights are used. This is not some theoretical statement, It has already happened at a real tournament and of course happens for simulations too. Remember, only exact power of two attendances are safe from this effect.
 
My only problem with the flights is this:

When a certain number of the United States Regionals do 8 rounds as opposed to 7, it puts the players who competed in those pod tournaments at a small - albeit significant - ranking disadvantage.

So all of these people who went 7-1/8-0 in swiss in various places like Missouri, Florida, etc are getting something that people in Texas and Virginia didn't. I know that life isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't sacrifice fairness.

Just my two cents. There just needs to be some uniform standard that is easily applicable to all Regionals - not something that leads to TO's coming up with their own solutions to adjust to extreme circumstances.
 
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To add to what Cyrus said, I was looking at the rankings ths AM ... it's amazing how many games some of the WA players have played for instance. Just looking at NW Regionals numbers, it was huge ... and I suspect that their states and such are similarly large.

This has got to be the flipside of limiting States dates. Instead of the East Coast having an unfair advantage in terms of numbers of events folks could get to now we have the places with huge events really getting an advantage.

When you start talking about Pod Play or Swiss-1 on top of that in some of the not largest areas the disadvantage becomes even stronger ranking wise.
 
^NW Regionals still only had 7 rounds, less then the states mentioned previously. No pods or anything though.

I like being able to play anyone in the tourney, so i'm not a big flights guy.
 
Just an observation: Whenever someone mentions a late tournament finishing time there never seems to be a mention of the starting time. Without the starting time, the finishing time is completely meaningless. No conclusions can be drawn.
 
I really don't mind pods to much, but there REALLY needs to be some sort of method for sorting them out a little better. At VA it was very obvious that one pod held about 95% of the best players at the tourney, while the other one was much easier. A simple "sort by ranking" would really help to keep stuff like that from happening.
 
DarthPika said:
I really don't mind pods to much, but there REALLY needs to be some sort of method for sorting them out a little better. At VA it was very obvious that one pod held about 95% of the best players at the tourney, while the other one was much easier. A simple "sort by ranking" would really help to keep stuff like that from happening.
Click to expand...

Podding is random. Simple as that. There is no intentional "loading" or "stacking" of pods anywhere. As you mentioned, in VA, one pod seemed to be harder. IF the organizer wanted to "help" anyone, why was his son in the "harder" pod? It is what it is.

As to the ranking issue. Does anyone think that Jimmy Ballard is a 1568 player (you start at 1600 btw)??? That is about what he went into Nats with last yr, after only playing a handful of events (CCs and BRs, having a losing record). He would have been placed in a pod as a "weak link" and he would have grinched your points bad! (He did that anyway!!) That is the "error" in that thinking. The "better" players dont always have the best rankings. My son is a perfect example. He is not highly ranked in the SR divison (deck choices/match ups), but he owns 2 Ws over the top ranked SR in the World (at least he was when he beat him 2x).

Keith
 
Lawman said:
Podding is random. Simple as that. There is no intentional "loading" or "stacking" of pods anywhere. As you mentioned, in VA, one pod seemed to be harder. IF the organizer wanted to "help" anyone, why was his son in the "harder" pod? It is what it is.

As to the ranking issue. Does anyone think that Jimmy Ballard is a 1568 player (you start at 1600 btw)??? That is about what he went into Nats with last yr, after only playing a handful of events (CCs and BRs, having a losing record). He would have been placed in a pod as a "weak link" and he would have grinched your points bad! (He did that anyway!!) That is the "error" in that thinking. The "better" players dont always have the best rankings. My son is a perfect example. He is not highly ranked in the SR divison (deck choices/match ups), but he owns 2 Ws over the top ranked SR in the World (at least he was when he beat him 2x).

Keith
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Considering I lost over 40 points to such players, lets not even go in to the whole stupid rating system. :wink:

The point is, it really isn't fair to "randomly" sort the pods. How is it far to have all the good players in one pod and a bunch of n00bs in the other? Having these random pods defeats the goal of trying to find the "best" player since a bunch of n00bs also get into the cut. I know there are a few good players with low rankings, BUT sorting by ranking would make the odds of the pods being even much better.
 
Going 5-2 at a huge tournament and whiffing cut due to resistance _is_ disappointing, but it feels like we're approaching a 1-day event attendance threshold with the larger tournaments without doing podding. Assuming the tournament can be run quickly/on time (like you guys were magically able to do), another round seems like a more cut'n'dry approach for the players.
 
TX did pods and still finished at 2 AM.

Swiss is were it is at. The Best of the Best is displayed when everyone is grouped together.
We already have huge luck factors on what deck you get matched up to. Now you throw in that a major deck in one pod is you bad match up, but the other has so few. Bad luck.

IMO, Pods and cutting time on length of games is not the way to go. This leads to Sour Grapes all the time. And to much luck is factored in.

My solution is:
1. Start earlier. What is the difference of starting 6/7 AM playing till 11/12 PM or starting 10/11 and playing till 1-3 AM. IMO earlier is better.

2. 2 day event!! Although this may require travelers to force to stay overnight. Most (like 95%) would not have a problem with it. Making top cut the second day provides the time to do swiss right and do top cut RIGHT! Luck is kept at bay, people get rest, 2nd day can be a smaller venue. Even though a few might argue the overnight deck control would be hard. All that has to be done is secure the top cut decks list with the TO/Head judge for overnight, lets players take deck with them. Then deck check each top cutter in the morning with a fine tooth comb.

Either of these will provide the time to do all swiss rounds to keep luck at a fair distance and provide the player with time need to rightfully win a game in this format whether in swiss or top cut (1 hour top cuts give G decks to much of an advantage over decks that don't run POKETURN!).
 
turning regionals into a 2 day event essentially doubles the venue costs, not to mention makes finding such venues a lot harder during spring prom/wedding etc. season. booking a one day event is going to be easier than booking a two-day.

move to a smaller venue for day two? so, break down/move/set up AGAIN elsewhere after spending the whole day running the event?

start earlier? i'm sure my day as a staff member for so cal regionals is not unusual: up at 4 am, left the house at 5 am, drove to long beach and arrived around 7:30. setup; staff/judges meeting at 8 am, registration began at 8:30 am. we finished with masters' final somewhere around 12:30 am.

and before the 'stay over' suggestion is made: hauling a van full of teenage boys to the event rules out an overnight stay. drive back; i arrived home at 2:30 am sunday, a 22.5 hour day.

jmho.
'mom
 
We were doing good time-wise through Swiss and the breaks. What killed us was the 5.5 to 6 hours it took to complete the Masters Top Cut. A lot of those games went over on time.
 
DarthPika said:
Considering I lost over 40 points to such players, lets not even go in to the whole stupid rating system. :wink:

The point is, it really isn't fair to "randomly" sort the pods. How is it far to have all the good players in one pod and a bunch of n00bs in the other? Having these random pods defeats the goal of trying to find the "best" player since a bunch of n00bs also get into the cut. I know there are a few good players with low rankings, BUT sorting by ranking would make the odds of the pods being even much better.
Click to expand...

Of course, if the Zigs were so bad, why did the winner come from that pod? And he had to defeat players from the other pod all the way thru SEFs, if I recall! (meaning 4 straight agst the best of the best in the #'s pod)

Keith
 
Lawman said:
Of course, if the Zigs were so bad, why did the winner come from that pod? And he had to defeat players from the other pod all the way thru SEFs, if I recall! (meaning 4 straight agst the best of the best in the #'s pod)

Keith
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I never said there wern't any good players in that pod, just that there were far for in the other pod. Many of the good players in the "hard" pod couldn't make it in, so if it had been more balanced, perhaps the outcome of the tourney would have been different.
 
WOW SD PokeMOM,

Before you go toe to toe with responses from my suggestions. Make sure we are talking and comparing the same apples to apples not oranges.

Was SO Cal top 16 and was it 1 hour or 1 hour 15 min for each round in top cut?

What time did rounds actually start?

I did say the next day venue could be smaller/different, which should make it easier to book.
Also with it being top 16 in each age group, that is like setting up for a BR. My son and I have done that within an hour when we hosted a BR at our local library. (free by the way, great for a top cut playoff).

And the suggestion for a 2 day regionals could be for ones that seem to go into the wee hours of the morning, even with trimming time off top cut. If So Cal did top 16 and 1hour 15 min each round and still finished just after midnight, hats off, and 2 day reg. shouldn't be an option for that region. But to have the option available would be a great tool.
 
I just know that MW Regionals had 181 players, Jr/Sr had 6 rounds T8, Mas had 7 rounds T16. We did registration from 730-9-ish, started around 930. Juniors and Seniors were both done by 10pm, Masters done around midnight. I'm certain some of the other Judges can correct this somewhat.

I was awake at 6am, at the location at 7, and didn't leave until 1130pm. Then spent an hour cooling off after the event, just joking around the hotel for an hour or so. 18.5 hr day. I know that not every tourney is run with as few errors as this one was, but that's still not too bad.

It might be necessary in the future to either make Regionals two day events, or add Regionals to certain areas (Washington, Tennessee, Texas/Oklahoma, Louisiana, etc).
 
I wonder how the costs of a two day regional compare against increasing the number of regionals available. Money isn't the only cost.

Staff and PTO availabilty cuts both ways on this one. More events on the same day means more staff needed whilst long events means exhausted staff and players.
 
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