No Ugly Cup 2012
Is that the reason? Or is it due to the vgc running sunday?
i think vgc its a big part of it, but i mean ... he doesnt really need a reason not to give his own money away
thanks Terry for the supports in the past few years !! see you all in 3 days
Although, I appreciate Bidier's support here. I thought I'd at least explain the reason why I decided not to run the Ugly Cup this year. For that I probably need to rehash some history.
In 2008 the first Ugly Cup was run. When I first conceived of the event as a newly minted Professor, I thought it unfortunate that many of the staff working the events never seemed to get a chance to play. It seemed like the Professor's Cup was planned for this reason, but this event was run at US Nats and there wasn't much chance that our staff would end up there. I really thought this would probably, just be an evening event with some of my Pokefriends. Then we found out that Nats was going to be in BC, and things changed.
For my family it wasn't much of a financial burden to head there, but for many of the players it was (OK, I had a regionally biased attitude at the time / didn't understand the Western Canadian player base etc.), so I put forth the Ugly Cup prize to be airfare and hotel for the winner to BC for Nats. I however stipulated that the format would be Professor Cup format and that players would have to be Professors. In retrospect this was quite important for our local Pokemon community as it convinced a number of serious older players to join the Professor Program and this in turn has provided a wealth of people to turn to for judging staff when the need arises. The first Ugly cup finished up on my dining room table in Georgetown, and we crowned the first Ugly Cup Champion, Genesis P.
Nats 2008 was certainly the highlight of my experiences playing Pokemon. Finishing 5th (after finishing 2nd in the Swiss) with Magmortar in what seemed like a sea of Empoleons, I remember that I had garnered quite a cheering section including a large number of Western players I had never met. Unfortunately none of us qualified for Worlds that year in Florida, and with starting of my new job, it was tough to justify the week of vacation to play the Grinders. So we packed it in for the season, but I was sure the Ugly Cup would resurface in 2009.
In 2009, my good friend Paul A. became much more active in the organizing of Leagues and Tournaments outside of Oakville where we first met. It seemed like a good time to put on some large tournaments, to show what kind of player base we had in Ontario, to the new stores, so we came up with the idea of the Ugly Cup Qualifying tournaments, where only players with enough Qualifying points could play in the Ugly Cup which would be held on the Sunday following nationals. And to ensure high participation I put forward a prize of a trip to World's in San Diego. Almost immediately after the first posts went out on the tournament, something unexpected happened, I got some pretty negative responses from the non-Ontario Canadian player base (both public and private). What I had inadvertently done was throw gasoline on the fire of the long simmering issue of the Western player base feeling that they needed to bear a greater proportion of the cost of competing for the National title (and the ability to participate at Worlds). Understanding this issue, we made various allowances making it possible for any player with an invite or those with a SOTG nomination to participate. However, one key issue for holding the Ugly Cup was to turn the whole weekend of Nationals an event worth coming two with both tournaments ensuring two full days of fun. So the second annual Ugly Cup was a much larger event than I had orginally planned, and when the dust settled Matt Koo was the Champion.
As a side note to the story, Quinn had a disastrous nationals that day going 0-3, and losing his rankings invite in the process. After missing out on 2008 Worlds due to work, I did decide that this year I'd pack up Quinn and take him to Worlds at least to Grinders. When I arrived at World's I found that Matt had somehow managed to figure out how to stretch the "travel award" to get a larger number of Canadian players to Worlds. After Quinn 0-2'd his first two rounds of the Grinders it was a member of this group that encouraged Quinn to keep going, and after finishing 5-2, he and if memory serves me correctly 7 other Canadian Juniors managed to grind into the main event.
From this point on, though the format changed from year to year, the Ugly Cup existed to provide players making the trip to Toronto for Nationals the opportunity to play in a tournament on the otherwise wasted Sunday and provided a chance to play for a chance to Grind in at Worlds. With the change to a two day Nationals last year, one of the key rationale for holding the Ugly Cup was lessened. Our Nationals was becoming an event that did span the entire weekend. However, the removal of travel support for 2nd place finishers, increased the need for support, and hence this
So this brings about the rationale for no Ugly Cup 2012.
Firstly, the two day format is already packed with events with the TCG on Saturday and the VCG on Sunday.
Second, Play Pokemon has re-instated the 2nd place price support ensuring that Canada will have good representation at Worlds 2012.
Third, as most of the Ontario players know, we have been far less active in the Pokemon community than in past years owing to changes in interests for both of my kids. As a result there are many competing demands on my time, including on the weekend of Nationals, which unfortunately coincides with the Robbie International Soccer tournament.
Although, I'm not sure I will be able to participate at all in Nationals this year, we will be staying in the same hotel. So hopefully I'll have a chance to meet up with many of you over the course of the weekend.
