Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Irregularities at Prerelease

Broken Lizard

Broken Lizard

New Member
The following is the text of an email I am sending to PUI OP, and I'm wondering what the rest of you think of this...

I attended a TA/TM prerelease today in Manitowoc, WI, and I have some concerns:

  1. The tournament was listed as beginning at 11:00. When many of their local players had not shown up by 11:00, store employees began calling them. The store made the decision to delay the start until noon so that more local players could drive in. All of the out-of-town players (9 from Chicago and 9 from Brookfield Wisconsin) were there by 10:30. Deck construction began at 12:15, and the first match began at nearly 1:30.
  2. After the second round began, the decision was made to add 2 players to the tournament, who had already played in round 1 but who had not been included in the tournament setup (which is extremely odd). Because these players were not entered into the standings until after round 2, there were serious repercussions on pairing and resistances thereafter. The bottom 2 age divisions were affected, and in both of those age divisions the winner was determined among several players with identical records solely on the basis of flawed resistance numbers.
  3. Because they were attempting to register a large number of players for a concurrent Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, the store decided to give a 1 hour ‘lunch break’ to the Pokémon players. This was necessary because they were running both tournaments through DCI Reporter and it would be too difficult to set up YGO while simultaneously running Pokémon. Most, if not all of the out-of-town players had already eaten.
  4. My youngest son, aged 8, had the best record of the four kids in his division, at 4-2. He was all set to win a box of cards. When the prizes were handed out, the name of another kid (also with a 4-2 record) was announced as the winner, and the box was given to him instead. This was due entirely to resistance. Unfortunately, the kid who was given this box was 11 years old! Apparently, whoever was entering the data into DCI Reporter had mistakenly placed the ‘winner’ into the wrong age category. This is easy to do with reporter, and equally easy to correct. However, the TO/Head Judge said “I really don’t want to deal with it right now”, and let the decision stand. There were very many people in the 11-14 age bracket with a 4-2 record (my older son among them), and the player in question would not have been first there by any means.
  5. The store, My Parent’s Basement, has yet to report results for either the Dragon Prerelease or the Manitowoc City Championship (both of which we drove up for). They have used DCI Reporter to run all of their tournaments, so perhaps they are either unable or unwilling to enter the results in TMS or directly onto the TO website. If tournaments are sanctioned, should they not be reported and completed?
  6. My Parent’s Basement has been awarded the Wisconsin State Championship. I hope that the problems occurring today are not replicated there as well. As of now, there is apparently no firm date for the WI Championship. I hope that a date will be announced soon so that I may avoid conflicts in my schedule.

On a positive note, the store did a number of things right. The HJ/TO is a very nice guy, and relates very well with players. The store gave away quite a few door prizes, which they certainly did not have to do. Overall, I do enjoy playing there quite a bit.

I am upset that my 8-yr.-old son was deprived of half a booster box of product which he legitimately earned. Ideally, I would like that to be rectified.
 
GAH! Pardon me for my suspicious mind, but out of curiosity: how did the two players entered late into the tournament place?

And how can a store keep being awarded the rights to run premier events when they have not reported the results from previous premier events? "I don't want to deal with it" when a player comes in first in the wrong age group?! WTH is that? :nonono:

That is horrible for your little guy, Lizard; my younger son is eight, also :(

'mom
 
SD PokéMom said:
And how can a store keep being awarded the rights to run premier events when they have not reported the results from previous premier events?
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Probaby because the only other PTO in the state that I know of seems to have passed on them.
 
1. I see no problem on running a tournament late so that more players will come. The more players, the better. Go back and look at the tournament announcement. I'll bet you'll see that "registration" starts at 11am.

2. Adding late players is not big deal. It happens all the time. The second round pairings may have been slightly effected, thereby effecting the resistance. But that's just the breaks. Tiebreakers are no fun, but complaining about what the tiebreakers "should've" been due to minor mistakes in entering players just doesn't hold much value to me. BTW, the tiebreakers were NOT flawed like you've indicted. Perhaps pairings happened that would NOT have happened had the players been entered correctly. But, that DOESN'T invalidate the tiebreaker.

3. Giving the players a lunch break?!!!! Now THAT'S a BIG NO NO. :/

4. Giving the 10-under prize to an 11-year old? Finally!!! A valid injustice to remark about. Gotta slap the PTO for that bonehead call, especially if he shrugged it off like you said.

5. The PTO's lazy. Like PokeMom says, PTOs who DON'T report results on time are supposed to be penalized.

No ALL PTOs are perfect like ours here in Colorado.
 
Oh man Broken Lizard - I empathize completely with you. At least you contacted PUI and they should do something about it based on my past expereince. Hang in there. At our TM vs. TA Pre-release they also gave a lunch break. With no deck lists in an open tourney that is a big no-no.
 
SteveP said:
1. I see no problem on running a tournament late so that more players will come. The more players, the better. Go back and look at the tournament announcement. I'll bet you'll see that "registration" starts at 11am.

2. Adding late players is not big deal. It happens all the time. The second round pairings may have been slightly effected, thereby effecting the resistance. But that's just the breaks. Tiebreakers are no fun, but complaining about what the tiebreakers "should've" been due to minor mistakes in entering players just doesn't hold much value to me. BTW, the tiebreakers were NOT flawed like you've indicted. Perhaps pairings happened that would NOT have happened had the players been entered correctly. But, that DOESN'T invalidate the tiebreaker.
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I see a very big problem with both of these. Players are given a registration time and a start time. IF they can't make it then they shouldn't play. It is that simple.

Late players do effect the tie breaker. The tie breaker is based on your opponents win/loss %. If the player has none, it hurts there opponents. Byes in State Should be interesting.

Using DCI reporter for Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh is against both the agreement for using DCI reporter, the PUI contract with the PTO's and the contract with Upperdeck. I would notify all of them. I believe using DCI reporter for something other then Wizards games are grounds for banning for running DCI sanctioned events.
 
Exactly, farbsman...people make plans according to the published information, ESPECIALLY out of town players who have to calculate travel time into their decision on whether to attend an event or not. If the out-of-towners can make it on time, then why not the 'locals'?

A late start or unexpected meal break might not matter to the local players, but may be the deciding factor in favor of a drop late in the tourney for people who still have a couple or more hours drive home ahead of them, especially on a school night. We did NOT have a meal break at our prerelease Saturday since we figured it was the players' responsibility to make sure they'd eaten first when the registration start time was 12 noon; as it was, we didn't finish until after 7 pm.

'mom
 
I have no problem with adding players after a tournament has started so long as they are given a loss for any rounds they missed. Was this the case here?
 
Adv1sor said:
I have no problem with adding players after a tournament has started so long as they are given a loss for any rounds they missed. Was this the case here?
Click to expand...

You can't do that, who are you pairing them against for the win? The software won't allow this. It is just plain and simple, show up in time, or don't play.
 
At least one of the players that was added late actually played in the first round but there was a mix up and the results or the player or some thing wasn't put into the computer properly or at all. I played this player in the 5th round and he told me that he was undefeated up to that point. I beat him. So I think maybe my resistance was not raised as much as it would have been other wise? I'm not exactly sure how that works though. All in all there were some very good rulings made and some VERY bad ruleings made. Considering this the person in charge should not be awarded the profit from running a State Championship. It is too important of a tournament to take the chance of more improper rulings!

As Lizard said the TO did some good things and is a nice guy he just made some bad calls.
 
The results from the first match the two late players played were NEVER ENTERED AT ALL. The TO was unable to edit round 1 to reflect that match. As far as the software was concerned, it never happened. The TO was just going to add 3 points to the winner's score at the end.

One of the players lost in the first round, but won in the second. The other one won in the first round, but lost in the second. They had identical records after round 2: 1-1.

On the results sheet, one of them was listed as having 3 points and an OPP WIN % of 100% (and how is THAT possible?!). The other was listed as having 0 points and an OPP WIN % of 100%.

The situation at the end of the tourney was as follows:

  • 15: Places 2-8 all had a 4-2 record; places decided entirely on RESISTANCE
  • 11-14: Top 6 spots all tied at 4-2; places decided on RESISTANCE
  • 10-: Top 2 spots tied at 4-2; places decided on RESISTANCE (and wrong age grouping)

ANYONE WHO PLAYED AGAINST EITHER OF THE PLAYERS IN QUESTION LOST SEVERAL SPOTS IN THE RANKINGS AND THE ACCOMPANYING PRIZES!

So, SteveP, you would have me believe that this 'happens all the time' and is no big deal? :rolleyes:

Also, when I phoned the store, they confirmed that the tournament was to "start at 11:00 or shortly thereafter".

We had six rounds and no top 8. This took until nearly 6:30 P.M.

When I ran my city championship, I had 7 swiss rounds and completed the tourney in 4 hours, including deck registration.
 
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In 15+= 1st6-0, 2nd &3rd went 5-1
the guy running it didn't evan understand resistance. He had me and the guy that "tied with me for second" split the boosters for 2nd and third palce. palces 11 to, i think 4, all got 4 boosters because they all had the same record. So i guess he thought that they "tied" for forth, therefore he gave them all boosters. So in the end more people got boosters then should have. There's nothing wrong with that other than that the store lost money and that was his fault. So in the end it didn't turn out that bad for several people.
 
Yes, it was 4-11 who were tied at 4-2. I'm pretty sure that no one beyond 8th place got boosters, but I could be wrong. Second and third places should have been given 9, not 4 boosters... but, whatever.

The guy kept saying "bear with me, I'm new at this", which I'm willing to do to a point...

...but, he's a professor and a premier tournament judge!!!

What's going to happen at states? :confused:
 
I'm curious about the comments that "giving a lunch break is a big no-no" (or words to that effect). Why? Where is this documented?

When Registration is from 10-11, all players MUST be present no later than 11 (which is generally too early to have had lunch). Then play goes until 4:30 at the earliest - that's too long to go without lunch (especially for younger players). A lunch break is NECESSARY. We use decklists and random deck-checks to control any deck mods during the event.

Comments?
 
RR: It seems that in this case it's a legitimate complaint.
They had already delayed the start of play to 1:30 waiting for locals to show up.
What time did the lunch break start? 2:00? or even later?

Yeah, if they had started on time, lunch would make sense. But not in this case.
 
Actually, I was not referring to this event, but to other PTO claims that lunch breaks should 'never' be allowed... :)

see SteveP #3
 
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Oops, I think the board sarcasm detector needs to have it's batteries checked ;)

*inserts new batteries, waves it in front of post in question...immediately explodes*

;) 'mom
 
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So, if registration started at 10am and the tournament started at 11am, you were maybe late TOO Broken Lizard because you decided to show up at 1030am instead of the scheduled 10am registration start.

I'm NOT condoning starting a tournament late, but YES it happens ALL THE TIME, for a variety of reasons.

Once again, adding late players SHOULD be no big deal. In your situation, the PTO probably did the wrong thing by entering those later players wrong. It's ALWAYS the PTOs discretion on whether to add late players or not, NOT the players discretion! Anyway, late players are added one of 3 ways (using DCI Reporter):

1. Add with initial round byes (shouldn't be used unless byes are earned)
2. Pair with the player who was given the random first-round bye.
3. Just add the player (he doesn't get credit for any games, but gives his opponent the minimum 33% resistance tiebreaker points).

Also, the scorer can delete the first round, add the late player(s), and enter the actual pairings/results manually. This is time consuming, but is also an option.

Finally, I a retired military man where schedules NEVER seemed to be hard-fast. They change. That just something you have to deal win in life. If you can't deal with it, you're in for a tough life. JMO.
 
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