Length of Gym Challenge

[SD PokeMom]

Uhh, nope: Stadium Challenges are only ONE day...Worlds is two days.

'mom

 

[SuperWooper]

The top players normally take a lot of time... the think out each move and even several turns ahead of what could happen. We look at every single card in play, discard piles and our hands... think of what happens when we play every single card what can happen next turn and so on. It can take a very long time which is understandable if a trip is on the line I think the players are going to be thinking a lot.

Double post.......haven't done one in a while...

Not to mention when good players SARs or Alluring Smile first turn, guess what they do? Look through their deck to see what cards are in their prizes. This can take minutes, but it really helps. Every turn the players figure out odds of finding certain cards in their deck, which pokemon they need to target, their strategy, a lot of this is determined early game.

 

[SuperWooper]

Uhh, nope: Stadium Challenges are only ONE day...Worlds is two days.

'mom

Um...I'm thoroughly confused. Please explain this to me:

actually the main event is 2 day but regardless.

Doesn't this kinda say otherwise?

 

[GymLeaderPhil]

The Stadium Challenges are one day... I dont see anywhere that Sensei mentioned two days, nor anything on the op.pokemon-tcg.com site.
-Phil

 

[SuperWooper]

The Stadium Challenges are one day... I dont see anywhere that Sensei mentioned two days, nor anything on the op.pokemon-tcg.com site.
-Phil

Hm...then what did SHPanda mean?

 

[GymLeaderPhil]

FireFighter095ReBorn - I was pointing out that one of the TOs of this event had Organized a 3-day MAGIC event... (the dates are 16, 17, 18th according to the info at that web site - and yes, the main event is two days )

The Stadium Challenges are 1-day events.

Reread the topic a bit more
-Phil

 

[SuperWooper]

Reread the topic a bit more
-Phil

Did, and realized Sensei recommended hotels. Why would he do this if the event wasn't 2 days? For people having a long drive ahead of 'em, like you Phil? All the way from FL...whew!

Is that why hotels are listed?

Wooper

 

[WeileMom]

Did, and realized Sensei recommended hotels. Why would he do this if the event wasn't 2 days? For people having a long drive ahead of 'em, like you Phil? All the way from FL...whew!

Is that why hotels are listed?

Wooper

Wow...
since the Stadium is for the ENTIRE East Coast and not just for Virginia, I'm sure there are some people who would like to find a place to stay.
We have to do that here in on the West Coast too.
---Nicole
WeileMom

 

[WeileMom]

I suppose I should have put "DC area" not "Virginia" but the same concept applies.
--Nicole

 

[SuperWooper]

So it's one day. Got it, and sorry for wasting a lot of board space! :nonono: :lol:

The hotels and MTG tourney kinda threw me off the rails but I'm good now.

WooPeRizZlE

 

[Ez1]

Looking at the start times of the tournaments it seems many started between 11 and 1:00.

Maybe what really needs to be done is start earlier. Sign-ups between 9-10 and

start at 10 etc.....

 

[DaytonGymLeader]

Been there, done that. Still didn't finish until between 7-8PM.

 

[WeileMom]

It seems like the only way to solve the problem is to run the 3 age groups in separate tournaments.
How many kids do you have to have to do this? Is 8 in an age group enough?
---Nicole
WeileMom

 

[SteveP]

So, you played best 2 out of 3 games all day? Instead of 5 regular of swiss? Wow!
Just curious, when the games went unfinished in 50 min, how did you decide the winners?

We used to normal "who's ahead on prizes" rule from the Floor Rules. It was possible for games (and matches) to end in draws during the Swiss rounds.

The only situation I stupidly DIDN'T plan for was a 1-1 tie in the playoffs when time was called. It happened on one of the 15+ semi-finals. Personally, I detest sudden death, so I gave the players the option of doing sudden death or 15-minutes, 3-prizes (whichever comes first), followed by sudden death if needed (next player to draw a prize in the on-going 3rd game). Both player EASILY choose the 15-minute, 3-prize extension. Other PTOs probably would've choosen sudden death, but that's not my preference when such a big prize is "up for grabs."

 

[SteveP]

It seems like the only way to solve the problem is to run the 3 age groups in separate tournaments.
How many kids do you have to have to do this? Is 8 in an age group enough?

According to POP's "recommendations" for the Gyms, PTOs can run a separate age-pod for 24 or more players in a particular age-group.

It's up to the PTO. Here in Colorado we did 3 separate age-pods (regardless of their size). We had 11, 14, and 12 players in each of the age groups.

 

[DaytonGymLeader]

POP has dropped the requirement from 24 to 16 to move from age modified to age pods.

 

[farbsman]

POP has dropped the requirement from 24 to 16 to move from age modified to age pods.

This is true, but according to the requirements all age groups have to have 16 players to split. Not just one.

The requirements state:

Age Modified / Age Pods:

If your lowest attended age group has at least 16 players, you may run Age Pods instead of Age Modified Swiss.

I started my event at Noon, didn't take a lunch break (especially since last time I checked, most people eat lunch at Noon) and was done with Swiss by around 4:30-5pm. After running 2 of 3 for the age groups with no time limits I had everything cleaned up for the event by 11pm and that was after running 3 sanctioned and 2 non-sanctioned events.

 

[SteveP]

POP has dropped the requirement from 24 to 16 to move from age modified to age pods.

The requirements state:

um, you might want to change requirement to recommendation. I highly doubt POP will ever require TOs to run age-modified when age-pods are preferred by that TO.

IMO, 16 is STILL too high, especially since I can probably count on one hand (maybe even one finger) the number of locations that have at least 16 players in the 10-under category. IMO, the recommended minimum should be 8, the same as the minimum for any sanctioned tournament.

 

[old man]

Some PTO's won't follow recommendations though. Some only see them as a guideline & do whatever they can/want in order to get the tournament over with by a certain time.

This last GC I attended there were 34 in the 15+ age group, and there was enough in each of the other age groups as well that they could've been separated but he chose instead to make it all 1 big group during the swiss rounds.

 

[SteveP]

Some PTO's won't follow recommendations though. Some only see them as a guideline & do whatever they can/want in order to get the tournament over with by a certain time.

This last GC I attended there were 34 in the 15+ age group, and there was enough in each of the other age groups as well that they could've been separated but he chose instead to make it all 1 big group during the swiss rounds.

I'm curious. Are you saying that you went to a tournament where there were at least 16 players in the 10-under age-group?

I can understand why some PTOs are relunctant to separate the age groups. If the PTO is using TMS, after they've registered all the players into one tournament, then they find out they have enough to separate into age-pods, they have to re-register the players.

That's why I use my own software. With the push of a button, I can change a tournament from age-modified to age-separated, even after the tournament has started. That way, when I switch to age-separated for the playoffs, I don't have to drop everyone who didn't make the playoffs and do manual pairings.

Maybe in the future, PUI will add enhancements to TMS to allow age-separated pairings under the same tournament ID.