5/31 PLAY N TRADE Murfreesboro, TN RESULTS!

Tournament Results
1

1st-Ryan (Chun-Li)
2nd-Linuka (Ryu)
3rd-Phil “KrazyKorean” Shin (Ryu)
4th-300 LB Eugene (Fei Long)

Now I have to say, excellent tournament, about 26-27 people, but the girl running the Play N Trade Tournament needs to seriously get her act together if she wants me to bring a group of people again…

We all know this is a way for them to make extra money. 1st place is the ONLY person to receive a prize ($100 in store credit) and they basically make between $5-10 per person coming to the tourney ($5 pre-register, $10 day of, which most do) At about $220 or so and them giving away store credit, I think we have a right to a voice here…

The rules changed midway through the tournament with 5-6 stations…

It’s simple. You announce the rules beforehand. It went from 3/5 rounds 1 match 60 second time limit (WTF) to 3/5 rounds one match 99 second time limit to 3/5 rounds 2 out of 3 matches “somewhere” in the winners bracket (I want to say Semifinals) to BACK to 3/5 rounds one match in loser’s with one match 2 out of 3, but then the next one was one match, then BACK to 2/3 in the LAST match of winners, and remained 2/3 for the finals.

I can understand if you want your tournament to end quickly, but that was VERY unprofessional, especially when I brought it up to the woman and was told, well, “it’s our tournament and we’ll do it the way we want to.” Wow. nice way to take the $10 and run.

THe other issue was the bracket. I asked nicely before the tournament if the 5 friends I had come with could all be separated (32 man bracket) which is prettty easy, but the bracket ended up having them all fight each other pretty early (Eugene had a bye and played Chris his first match after Chris won his match). The excuse? “That’s the way the bracket came out on Tournament Maker, we just do it random.” That would be fine if you just tell me beforehand the brackets are RANDOM throughout, end of discussion.

Needless to say, it was a very unpleasant experience, and I never even entered the tournament! If the excuse for them is that they want to end quickly, they should take notes of what we do at our tournaments. They used 4 stations, and a 27 man bracket still ran 2.5 hours. We use 1 station, and we run 2.25 hours with around 20 people in a bracket. It just baffles me to no end.

If everything was CLEARLY laid out before the tournament, then sure, but it’s obvious there was some severe confusion. Eugene thought his match was 2/3, and so did half of the store!

Regardless, good matches, Ryan was on point, Linuka made some good comebacks, Phil was solid, Max was tied for 5th and did some nasty Ken combos to people…Chris ALMOST got over his Q block =)

2

almost…

But yeah that thing was shady as hell. No one knew what the hell was going on during Grand Finals.

3

hmmm…sounds like a clustersex of rule changing going on…what’s a Q block…

4

GV has problems against Q, that’s a Q Block =)

5

Yeah. I was telling the GG guys beforehand that I didn’t support the place, just from what I saw a long time ago at the SC4 tourney that I went to. Nothing’s changed.

What I’ve learned from non-community-organized tournaments, however, is that you cannot expect logic, reason, or even common sense to be used. 9 times out of 10 the people running tournaments who aren’t actually a part of the community cannot be trusted to do things the way the players KNOW they should be done. They don’t see the gravity or importance that small decisions like the # of round changes make in the middle of a tournament because they don’t play the game competitively, nor have they ever been asked to run a bracket a specific way. The workers are there to do what they do on an everyday basis and are randomly asked, “Hey, there’s a tournament. I need you to work extra hours even though you won’t have any idea what’s going on.” Unfortunate, but that’s how it goes. Announcements WOULD have been great with the changing of the round #s, but again, you can’t expect common sense to be used. They assumed that once people heard “Losers bracket is 1 match 3/5” that it carried all the way through, even though that’s not the way REAL tournaments are run.

This is by no means excusing them from the confusion they caused–far from it–but I’ve been part of at least 7 or 8 tournaments for different games (not just fighting games) where they flip-flopped rules just because they simply DON’T KNOW what they’re doing. It’s not their fault–they’re just ignorant to the way things should go.

I agree 100% with everything Jason said up there ^^^. Changing time limits and round/match numbers is ultra garbage. And laggy TVs can’t be tolerated for real tournaments… but c’mon, the ignorance with which this tournament was run makes it apparent to everyone this was not a REAL tournament. Everything, and I mean EVERY little thing, that happens at a non-community-organized event must be taken with a grain of salt.

You should go in and assume that you’ve already lost your $5-10 because somehow, someway, you ARE going to be upset by the rules or lagtastic TVs. Either someone in the community needs to step up and take responsibility at tournaments on PnT’s behalf, or fussing will do no good at all. The next, if there is a next, fighting game tournament that the place has will be riddled with just as much complete bullshit as this one was. Don’t support stuff that isn’t run by the community if you don’t expect some kind of stupid bullshit to occur.

Again, not excusing them, but just sharing my experiences. :chainsaw:

Come out to Game Galaxy and support a scene that’s growing quite large and is run by people who DO know what they are doing. Don’t support tournaments that aren’t run with players’ wants in mind.

6

oh ok the 'Rog player.

7

It wasn’t quite that bad… Ya they did have it on 60 seconds (but they have had 3 others I think with that time setting and no one had told them to change it). Phil talked to them after the first set of matches and asked that it be changed to 99 seconds (and the obliged).

As for the “misunderstanding” on the 2 of 3 games… Meg told Eugene/Phil (i think Phil) that it was only 1 set not 2 out of 3, but they played anyways. Then when Eugene lost to Chun Li guy he looked all confused because he was expecting 2 of 3 again (even though it wasn’t).

Basically everyone was just getting emo for no reason and then personalities started conflicting. That’s how I saw it anyways.

add-on: Basically Cody summed everything else up I would add (regarding non-community run tournaments).

8

I agree with Cody. It’s a game store tournament, so expect it to be run like a game store tournament - poorly.

It’s not a real tournament so don’t take the results too seriously. Except Chun Li beasting on everyone and being unstoppable. Now that’s truth.

9

Hey all, this is Greg from PNT. I just wanted to clear some things up here.

First of all we are NOT running these tournaments to make money off of tournament entries! This is for fun and to promote our STORE. Here is my financial break down on this tournament:

Entries collected: $170 (22 Entries, 11@$10, 12@$5)
Prize paid out: $100 Store Credit
Labor for my employees paid: $85
Total profit: One happy meal

The reason we do store credit is because normally our entries don’t equal our prizes + labor… the only way to break even off the things is to do store credit and hope they buy used games. The only tournaments we hold that actually make money is HALO 3… we make a lot with those… with about 70-80 entries at the last minute but they are such a pain we don’t even have one scheduled right now. If I was in the tournaments to just make money then we’d do a Halo 3 tournament every week. No thanks.

We are not professional tournament organizers. We are a game store. We hold tournaments for fun, to meet people with like interest, hopefully to gain some new customers. We don’t pretend to be experts at tournaments. I constantly ask Phil for advice on the rules.

Every change we made was with the intent of making the tournament longer not shorter. We did 60 second rounds, my bad, you told me its stupid, so I changed it to 99 seconds.

We saw the tournament was going faster than last time, I guess you guys were whipping everyone’s ass too quick. So we decided to make the losers bracket best of 5 instead of best of 3… to make it last longer and let everyone play more.

I also had a new PNT store owner (Clarksville, TN) making a visit to ‘observe’ and ask me for tips on running the store. I spent too much time with him and not enough on the tournament. So my wife, Megan, was stuck running things. That’s also my fault and I apologize, both to her and to you guys.

We screwed up changing things around. I’ve consulted with Phil and I’ve written a set of rules for him to approve. On the next tournament these rules will be in STONE and printed and posted on every game station. Lesson learned.

These tournaments are for FUN to promote our STORE. We are making money if we gain some loyal customers from the tournaments. Apparently with Street Fighter IV this is having the opposite effect. I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s Box trying to hold these tournaments as I’ve never run into this kind of back lash before with other games.

I can just stop holding SF4 tournaments. If we suck that bad at it, perhaps that’s what should happen. Let me know what you guys think. The last thing I want out of these tournaments is bad publicity for our STORE.

There is nothing I can do about our LCD HDTVs having lag. I went with those TVs because we run game demo screens 12 hours a day to attract attention to new games, etc and we want them to look pretty + not burn in.

Thanks to all of you for coming out and again I’m very sorry if you think I robbed any of you. Send me an email gregc@pntmail.com and let me know if you feel that way. I’ll let you in the next one for free or if the consensus is we should give up trying to hold SF tournaments then I’ll give you the money back.

Take care,
Greg
Owner/Operator
Play N Trade Video Games
Murfreesboro, TN

10

o…k…

Well, there seems to be a stereotype that most people here don’t play for fun and that’s extremely false. we ONLY play for fun.

That aside, I agree with everything that Cody said and jason brings up points that need to be considered.

The tourney was shit.

But if the organizers acknowledge the problems then I’ll give it another shot.

No excuses.

11

Greg, I give you a lot of credit for even running these tournaments at your store. I don’t know of a single other game store that even tries to. Glad to hear you are trying to make future events better for the tournament community.

12

[quote=“DreamTR”]

1st-Ryan (Chun-Li)
2nd-Linuka (Ryu)
3rd-Phil “KrazyKorean” Shin (Ryu)
4th-300 LB Eugene (Fei Long)

Humm never thought I see a Chun player win a tournament, Good Shit anyway…also good shit to the Fei Long player as well.

13

I do really want to make them better rather than quit holding them. I’ve loved Street Fighter since the SNES & original arcade but I’ve never played competitively and I’ve never been to a pro level tournament. I also met a lot of you guys last year when we first opened and thought you were some of the nicest gamers we have in our store. That’s another reason I wanted to hold a lot of these tournaments.

If you have problems or input then hang out after the tournament is over and tell me what you think. I’m COMPLETELY open to input and suggestions. If people start barking at Megan mid-tournament it doesn’t really accomplish anything but confuse us, we change things, confuse you, and so on. I appreciate you guys that took Megan aside to apologize for all the confusion, etc.

Sometimes we are totally dead by the end of a tournament on Sunday because Megan and I work 14 hour days Wednesday-Saturday trying to keep the store afloat but I’m all for constructive criticism. If I appear tired or disinterested its not the case, I’m just walking dead by EOB Sunday :slight_smile: We are not some giant faceless corporation with 5000 stores. Its my wife and I with 2 employees.

Megan was so tired after the tourney last night she literally passed out on the drive home. Cleaning PS2 game trades till 1AM a few nights a week really takes its toll! I think I have enough copies of Madden 2002 to build a friggin’ club house.

Greg

14

Greg, no disrespect to your store, I think it’s great a small business owner is coming in with a variety of items for sale/purchase and running tournaments for players. I know how it is since I am doing the same thing and managed arcades and game stores before…

With that said, you really don’t need that many people there to help with a tournament which cuts costs on labor (4 people at $85 for 2.5 hours = $8.50 an hour) it can easily be done with ONE person running brackets, and ONE person (who does not even have to work there, could just be Phil running around) to open/close the kiosks, which takes a lot of time as is. No one is expecting any payment in return for helping out with the tournament, but the community is pretty close knit, and some of us drove pretty far (David lives in Knoxville) to get over there, so I think the whole slap-in-the-face on the brackets thing as well as the confusion of the rules really creates a hindrance with a smooth tournament.

People need to let you know who wins IMMEDIATELY. I am really adamant (in tournaments with more than one station) about the WINNER coming up to the Tournament Emcee and stating they won so the station can be filled immediately. There was a lot of hanging around and the locking/unlocking thing on the kiosks does take some time…

I am pretty sure no one expects you to do anything about the LCDs. It is what it is, but a lot of casual players are not going to notice it because they play on LCDs all the time anyway, but it’s there and if you enter, you get used to it or don’t. End of story.

With that said, I hope you guys contiue to support SF4 tournaments and I’ll even offer my services to run one of your next SF4 tournaments for free, brackets and all so you have a chance to mingle with the tournament players and not have to have so many employees at the place. All I would need is access to the laptop Tournament Maker and someone to open the kiosks/close the kiosks when I announce the matches because I’m very stringent on setups = ) Let me know if you wanted to go that route, but otherwise, I’m glad your store is around and supporting this game !

15

Yeah I personally still enjoyed the tournament. It had problems ( more than the last two ) but like I’ve said, any excuse to get everyone ( especially the people that can’t make it to Game Galaxy often ) together to play is still a good time. I think if you guys did change your rules around to make it more like a professional tournament then it should be fine and worth the money ( even though I still always make sure to sign up early ).

The TV’s do have a split second of lag but we almost all knew they were HDTV’s coming into it. Later in the tournament people seemed to have adjusted and were doing most of their combos and all that good stuff relatively well, so its not the end of the world in my opinion.

16

Respect to Greg as a small business owner holding tournaments to support the local fighting game scene. With no competitive tourney experience, it is what it is, and by it being an actual store I hope no one came expecting something epic. No store really uses tubes anymore and lag on HDTVs arent much noticed in other non-fighting and execution heavy games (Halo, Madden, etc.) that tournaments might be held for.

At the same time, rule changes during tournaments is very unprofessional and a serious offense. Even in FREE tournaments/ranbats. But issues and concerns have been addressed so that future PnT events will run smoothly, and satisfy the players/customers, who will undoubtedly continue to support the store. Communication is key.:wink:

Congrats Chun guy, may you become a regular in the scene. Linuka, nice man, but Sak’s angry. Shoutouts to Phil, Eugene, Max, Chris, and other local players. At least Blanka Bros. didnt sneak away with victory.

17

Isn’t Linuka the guy who said tiers don’t and I’m never counter picking in any game ever again?

I guess what he meant was tiers don’t matter and I’m never counterpicking ever again until I lose at which point I will promptly counterpick with a character rated much more highly in the tier list I don’t believe in.

18

Well I’m glad a few of you had a good time despite the issues. Here are my rules for the next tournament… let me hear any input you have! These will be printed and posted on every game station.

   99 second rounds

   Double Elimination  if you lose dont leave!

   Each match will be best of *5* rounds

   All characters are LEGAL

   If you pause you forfeit the ROUND *NOT THE MATCH!*

   Losers & Winners Finals are best of *3* MATCHES

   GRAND FINALS ARE BEST OF *5* MATCHES

WINNERS MUST REPORT TO FRONT COUNTER IMMEDIATELY AFTER MATCH

Regarding help with the tournament, I could use a volunteer to set up the game stations between rounds for sure. We lock them because I’ve had a guy shove his SD Card in a disk drive of a Wii and other stupid things.

The main problem with labor on the tournaments is the setup/clean up before and after. People usually show up for the tournament an hour early so we start chatting with everyone and disregard our normal duties such as disk cleaning, filing trades etc. Then we tear the store apart to make room then we gotta put it all back together and do quite a bit of extra cleaning. We left on Sunday at midnight, for instance, when we usually get out at 6:30 on Sundays. I’m not complaining just saying what happens.

If we had a volunteer running the stations then I could have an employee getting all the trades from the day under control so we could leave earlier after wards… seems like every tournament day people decide to drag in boxes of a thousand NES games!

Thanks for any input on the rules!
Greg