National Championship structure

[SteveP]

If the Japanese run pods at their tournaments like they did at the TMB 2001 I attended, then it's done like this:

- separate the players into 6 pods

- play round-robin within your pod (1-game matches)

- the 1st place players from each pod advance to the single elimination rounds

- additionally, to even out the elimination brackets, some 2nd place players may also advance to the elimination rounds

- elimination round pairings are based on W-L records, then on a prize-differential tiebreaker

- elimination rounds were 1-game matches at the TMB

That's how they ran the 2001 Tropical Mega Battle.

 

[Prof Clay]

If the Japanese run pods at their tournaments like they did at the TMB 2001 I attended, then it's done like this:

- separate the players into 6 pods

- play round-robin within your pod (1-game matches)

- the 1st place players from each pod advance to the single elimination rounds

- additionally, to even out the elimination brackets, some 2nd place players may also advance to the elimination rounds

- elimination round pairings are based on W-L records, then on a prize-differential tiebreaker

- elimination rounds were 1-game matches at the TMB

That's how they ran the 2001 Tropical Mega Battle.

This is how we run our Academic Quiz bowl tournaments for high school students. It works fairly well. But Swiss is better because you get a better idea of who the best players are because with pods, some pods may be weaker than others, thus giving 1 strong competitior in a weak pod an advantage over another strong player who may be in a pod with many strong players. In the end it still usually works out correctly though.

 

[NoPoke]

...................... Especially if once you have completed a game you can just record your win/loss and move on to the next game as soon as another game has finished. I think that this may free up enough time that we can eliminate time limits and get back to playing this game the way that it was designed to be played! ...................

We (er that would be Ben and Myself in th UK )already use a system that has untimed games at its heart. Curiously it doesn't reduce the number of games played, as might be expected. here http://pokegym.net/forums/showpost.php?p=196793&postcount=4 for brief overview

 

[dld4a]

If the Japanese run pods at their tournaments like they did at the TMB 2001 I attended, then it's done like this:

- separate the players into 6 pods

- play round-robin within your pod (1-game matches)

- the 1st place players from each pod advance to the single elimination rounds

- additionally, to even out the elimination brackets, some 2nd place players may also advance to the elimination rounds

- elimination round pairings are based on W-L records, then on a prize-differential tiebreaker

- elimination rounds were 1-game matches at the TMB

That's how they ran the 2001 Tropical Mega Battle.

Is this 6 pods total, or unlimited pods of 6 players each. I'm in favor of the latter. Then, depending on the number of players (and there for pods) take the top 2, maybe even 3 if need be to even things out, for the top cut rounds.

This is how we run our Academic Quiz bowl tournaments for high school students. It works fairly well. But Swiss is better because you get a better idea of who the best players are because with pods, some pods may be weaker than others, thus giving 1 strong competitior in a weak pod an advantage over another strong player who may be in a pod with many strong players. In the end it still usually works out correctly though.

That's why I'm in favor of sign up sheets too fill out the pods. That way you know going in that you won't have to play your buddies or family members that you play on a weekly or dailey basis during the swiss portion. The "talent" level will even it's self out naturally I believe.

We (er that would be Ben and Myself in th UK )already use a system that has untimed games at its heart. Curiously it doesn't reduce the number of games played, as might be expected. here http://pokegym.net/forums/showpost....793&postcount=4 for brief overview

I'm in favor of anything that eliminates time limits! I think they change the game from the way it is set up to be played at its very core. So if I'm understanding this correctly, it's kind of like 8 player pods, but when you lose you move into another pod and just keep trying to get wins. Does this system give an advantage to those who would just choose not to take a break for lunch?

 

[NoPoke]

Potentially there is an advantage by not stopping to eat. Of course you have to find 7 other players who are similarly minded. I didn't notice any major discrepancy between number of games played by the entrants so it does seem to self-regulate to a large degree. Also the intention is to enter players into the same level flight, so if you continue to play and loose others rise above you while if you win you run out of opponents. The variable number of games is introduced in order to achieve the big positive of untimed games without holding the whole tournament up. I wouldn't use the flight system at Nationals but it is an alternative to normal timed swiss.

I have seen the pod approach used to qualify players for a swiss main event. Only the winner of a pod goes into the swiss. The 7 knocked out players can sign up for another pod and keep trying. Pod play is untimed.

 

[SteveP]

sorry, I meant to say 6-player pods (for the Japanese TMB pods).

 

[bulbasnore]

Find better ways not to have bad hands.

Exactly! Build the deck according to the tournament format. If one tris to shave things too close, cram too much in, probability will catch up with the deck creating multiple bad hands.

IMO if the guidelines are followed to take 25% into the elimination, I don't worry about a swiss loss.

Another thing I think about, speaking of taking the tourney format into account - having a good 'sudden death' approach in my deck.