ninetales1234
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Post-Nationals reflection on improvements for next year
- Thread starter ryanvergel
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How it went
I think overall things went better this year.
Day 1 wise things went a million percent better. There were no long delays and repairings for round 1, which was a huge improvement. There also wasn't a huge time break in between rounds. Shirts still got handed out in a good way. And last but not least, registration for professor cup wasn't on the honor system. A huge improvement all around.
Day 2 was a regression to last year, it might not have been all there fault, but it did happen. It seemed like the time it took them to pair up between rounds was forever. I know that some of it was because games were taking a long time, but you can't tell me that all of it was because of that. There was just huge time lags on Day 2, and there was no excuse for a lot of that delay. Then they announced when lunch would end way too early. With the time that lunch was supposed to end, there was no time to go for lunch after looking at your final standings. That too can be blamed on the slow play of some players, but it was a fact that they announced the lunch time way too early, so it couldn't make up for the time delay. I didn't even know there was an extension, so that was news to me.
Overall things went better this year, great job guys. Just improve for next year.
I think overall things went better this year.
Day 1 wise things went a million percent better. There were no long delays and repairings for round 1, which was a huge improvement. There also wasn't a huge time break in between rounds. Shirts still got handed out in a good way. And last but not least, registration for professor cup wasn't on the honor system. A huge improvement all around.
Day 2 was a regression to last year, it might not have been all there fault, but it did happen. It seemed like the time it took them to pair up between rounds was forever. I know that some of it was because games were taking a long time, but you can't tell me that all of it was because of that. There was just huge time lags on Day 2, and there was no excuse for a lot of that delay. Then they announced when lunch would end way too early. With the time that lunch was supposed to end, there was no time to go for lunch after looking at your final standings. That too can be blamed on the slow play of some players, but it was a fact that they announced the lunch time way too early, so it couldn't make up for the time delay. I didn't even know there was an extension, so that was news to me.
Overall things went better this year, great job guys. Just improve for next year.
Thanks for the kudos but I have to point out that registration for professor cup wasn't on the honor system last year either. The only change was that we did not rely solely on reg slips and a manual list of eligible Profs for sign up eliminating the possibility of last year’s mistake. :thumb:
Cyrus
Iron Chef - Master Emeritus
A Hive person can correct me if I'm wrong, but it didn't operate this way in practice. Even though the blue pod was completely finished 18 minutes prior to the yellow/orange pod one round, they still ended up starting everybody at the same time. So there wasn't any time efficiency advantage - everyone concluded at the same time.
At any rate, swiss was great. Top cut was not so great, with 7/8 of the top 16 matches going to time, as well as our Nationals being decided on a coin flip for the second year in a row. 75+3, please - US Nationals deserves it.
Mystery Thing
Administrator
Not true. Some rounds were started off of each other - I think it was only one this year, but last year it was three or four of them.
The biggest advantage from splitting them is the entry time. If you run it on one computer, you have one person entering (and then checking) over 500 match slips. By splitting it up, each TOP OP only has to deal with 250ish, which save significant time when you multiply it by 9 rounds.
for one thing, they'd need another two computers/computer operators...
Is there a reason they can't run multiple instances on the same computer?
Mystery Thing
Administrator
That defeats the entire time-saving side of it because only one person can enter at a time.
That and TOM doesn't really enjoy it when you run massive tournaments, forget two of them at once.
King Piplup
Active Member
I realize the question was posed at MysteryThing, but here's my two cents-
Most Java console related programs (Which I'm 95% sure TOM is. Can anyone confirm?) start to freak out when you start running two different "windows". (Tournaments in this case)
TOM may act differently, but I highly doubt it. Running two 250+ tournaments on a single computer likely would be asking for delays due to crashes.
But I'll leave anything certain up to Mystery Thing, since I don't know how much resource chomping TOM does.
Similar programs such as TDX Chess software, which is a Java Console applet (IIRC, so is TOM) crash when I run two tournaments at once, no questions asked.
/General Java rant
Mystery Thing
Administrator
Oh, don't think for a second that I'm an expert. Everything I know, I learned from Gym Leader Blaine.
ANYWHO yeah it's all Java. It can theoretically run multiple instances (I've run three at once before, and I've seen four at once done), but those were all super small tournaments (<20 people). It doesn't really like it when you run a single large tourney, so I wouldn't even want to try running two of those at once.
One of the other complexities with running it in 4 pods is that seeding them into the top cut would be even more complicated than 2 is. TOM doesn't have an import feature (and my unbased, worth-nada opinion is that it won't soon - this would be one of those things where I would have no complaints about being proven wrong), so the entire thing has to be done manually to make sure the seedings remain correct. Writing TOM files from scratch is NOT fun - I had to write 3 rounds of a 25-30ish person CC back together after a tournament file got corrupted a bunch of years ago, and it took well over an hour, and that was just re-entering matches and their results; I didn't need to try and maintain the integrity of placings because it was only swiss still. That Eric can write a top cut file together out of two tournaments, and keep the seedings correct, in the small amount of time it takes him (relatively speaking) is actually pretty impressive.
Way tl;dr: Don't run multiple instances of TOM at once if either of them will be of any significant size. Totally not worth it. If it was to be expanded to 4 pods, it would absolutely, 100% take 4 computers and 4 ops.
ANYWHO yeah it's all Java. It can theoretically run multiple instances (I've run three at once before, and I've seen four at once done), but those were all super small tournaments (<20 people). It doesn't really like it when you run a single large tourney, so I wouldn't even want to try running two of those at once.
One of the other complexities with running it in 4 pods is that seeding them into the top cut would be even more complicated than 2 is. TOM doesn't have an import feature (and my unbased, worth-nada opinion is that it won't soon - this would be one of those things where I would have no complaints about being proven wrong), so the entire thing has to be done manually to make sure the seedings remain correct. Writing TOM files from scratch is NOT fun - I had to write 3 rounds of a 25-30ish person CC back together after a tournament file got corrupted a bunch of years ago, and it took well over an hour, and that was just re-entering matches and their results; I didn't need to try and maintain the integrity of placings because it was only swiss still. That Eric can write a top cut file together out of two tournaments, and keep the seedings correct, in the small amount of time it takes him (relatively speaking) is actually pretty impressive.
Way tl;dr: Don't run multiple instances of TOM at once if either of them will be of any significant size. Totally not worth it. If it was to be expanded to 4 pods, it would absolutely, 100% take 4 computers and 4 ops.
JandPDS
New Member
Maybe it is time that US Nationals stops being an open event. what about having a Super-Regionals right after Battle Roads is over. Hold 6 of the all on the same Saturday, spaced out equally in different areas of the county and let in the say T128 in Masters and the T64 in Seniors and Juniors gain admission into Nationals. You could even let in T8 from Normal regionals and T4 from States. This would lead to a much more manageable National championship.
Surely having a huge national championship is a lot of work, but holding six more tournaments is probably more work than it's worth to cut down the size of one event. I imagine it would cost more money, too. There are the costs of running all seven tournaments, plus players would need to travel to an extra event.
RM
RM
Charranitar
Member
I agree with the need for 75+3 or even better, 90+3 top cut matches. I don't think it's good for the game at all when so many matches are being decided on time.
keniselvis
New Member
Yeah, I'd like to know exactly what they were tracking with this. The two guys handling the league play/prize were REALLY great and really generous.
two things I found really annoying about the league play: 1. There were some people that basically just stood in line, got their prize, went back into line, lather, rinse, repeat. It made me feel stupid for actually playing the game, although I am just as guilty for being greedy and not playing very well some times just to get the game over with. 2. There was some dude there who would play little kids with his unlimited deck that was just a donk deck. No matter who played him, he always won. And I'm pretty sure he just did league play the whole time. lame. /rant
Re: Live Footage of the finals
The technology is easy and they already have the TV's and cables. The guys from the top cut are willing to video (as well as others I'm sure). Seriously, I was totally geeked when I walked in the room and saw the TV's. (This was my first Nats). And I figured that they were for the video game tournament but I really thought that they would show the finals of the TCG for everyone to watch! I was bummed when they didn't and I had no desire to stand in the giant crowd to try to catch a glimpse of the game. Video it so that we can all sit and watch and experience it together!
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