Ever think about switching to single elim for a while? I would like to see how people play without loser’s brackets and maybe at a LATER point…only one match. It would force people to play better and it would be over so fast we could run two or three a day for like 3 or 4 bucks a tourney.Anyways, just think about it.
den it’ll be likeeeeeeeeeeee japan all over againnnnnnnnnnnnn >< haha and why u got a dude dressed as a cow for ur avatar larry? : x
How is it not reasonable in a round robin? Everyone has to play everyone anyways. Just eliminate the shadiness factor early.
I think using random seeding is going to have to be a direction we will have to accept. I am all for being randomly seeded.
Random will have no bias and no problems and people may end up playing each other but if more people come to the tourney the less chance they will have to play each other.
If it becomes the law of the land then friends wont have issues playing with each other, its just “going to have to be that way”.
leo is right. seeding just complicates things and brews up drama and biasism , yes i said it ‘biasism’ even tho its not a word… haha
key factors : random draw+no seeding+RR pools + fight moniez = yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
I use to run GGPO tournaments similar to what LPN suggests: One round of Round Robin. Round Robin performance decides your seeding in double elimination bracket. The idea, however, was to marathon the fuck out of the players. Get them to play a shit load of matches all-day-long. It made things much more enjoyable than waiting all day to only play a handful of matches or…for a lot of people…2 and peace the fuck out.
Round Robin always needs a form of compensation for everyone involved. It doesn’t take very many matches for the bottom half of the pool to realize they are not going to win. Not even talking, “Ricky and Choi are here and way better than me so waaaaaah!”, I mean the numbers show you’re doomed pretty early on. Even if you set your goal to “top third”, it takes only a few more matches to let you know you’re not even getting that. Obviously, that’s when people start not giving a shit and throwing matches for friends/because their bored/because they feel they are being unnecessarily tortured by being force to play additional matches. Round Robin is so fucking good on paper, but the human element fucks it hard.
i agree with what sosage said about the idea that the moment u realize that u have no shot after looking at the numbers, u mite as well throw matches/ help friends/ etc. so it seems that the idea to have RR pools den a top 8 bracket is better suited for a smaller amount of participants vs larger amounts. only because with a smaller pool say about 4-8, the likelyness of ppl throwing matches because they realized that their next win wont benefit their chances of advancing is reduced to a bare minimal. meaning it wont make a drastic effect on the outcome for top 8 results.
The obvious choice is to just ban and disqualify fixed matches. Penalizing things that are unacceptable when money is on the line greatly reduces people’s motivation for being shady.
very true. If norcal ever wants to unite and play with upmost confidence, to the end, people gonna need this.
I personally would go to more tournaments if they didn’t cost as much
WATCHOUT! Really long post coming?
Personally, I think people paid should reflect the amount of entrants. I think a good rule of thumb is around the top 10% of players should get paid. Something like:
Players ? Places Paid
0-32 = Top 3
32-64 = Top 5
64+ = Top 8
Top 10% of players is generally how poker tournaments pay their players.
As far as format, I would love to see a swiss style tourney.
Swiss style is basically a round robin tourney and after each round the people with similar records are paired against each other (people who are 2-0 play 2-0 people, 1-1 people play 1-1 people, etc). For Street Fighter, doing rounds of swiss until a top 8 emerges then following it up with a seeded 8 man double elim tourney would be sick.
Pros:
No two and outs, more incentive for the casual player to come out.
After first round of random games it?ll be pretty easy to know which matches will be hype and good for streams.
Challonge.com has implemented swiss in their online brackets so no one really has to learn how to do this shit and people on the internets can still follow along.
People play people in their skill level instead of getting unlucky and getting bodied twice and going home or something.
No free rides to top 3.
Cons:
Cannot be done without a computer (well, it could, but it?s a pain in the ass)
Depending on how many rounds ran, it could take much longer than a standard double elim. As an estimate, I doubt a tourney with more than 32 entrants would be feasible using the swiss system.
If you are friends with good players, you will probably end up playing your friends in later rounds. I really consider this a non-issue though, as this is the same in double-elim brackets.
That’s interesting, I’ll look into Swiss Style. That sounds like it has potential.
Jack’s idea sounds unique. Has that format ever been tried in a tournament before?
Is there a “like” button for this post? 
All of this is kind of silly. We keep talking about these sorts of issues like, oh my oh my, just whoooo could be the be people doing this? Everyone knows who splits pots, throws matches, sells their slots in tournies, and is willing to buy wins at tournies. It’s not a huge secret. A lot of the guys that do it will tell you straight out they do.
All this pussy footing around the issue because the people we’re referring to are our friends or session players and we don’t want to hurt their feelings or create confrontation by calling them out and putting them on blast makes the discussions kinda’ pointless. If you don’t like this sort of behavior, then tell those people not to come to your tournies or tell them to go home when they show up. Some of the guys I know that do this are cool dudes, and I like playing with them, but I personally think splitting pots/throwing matches/engineering brackets is a hecka’ bitch move. Then again, I don’t run tournies, so if the organizers are willing to put up with these guys doing it, even going so far as to try and plan around it rather than confronting the problem head on, then that’s none of my business.
All I can do, personally, is play and try to win. When I hear about people doing this sort of thing, that’s just more motivation for me to try and protect my money. Try and fail, but that’s the way it goes.
Sorta’ rambling.
Its not just pot splitting and shady punks though, when i look at the tournament structure I think how can we make it more enjoyable, expand it to people who want to enter but dont for whatever reason, and if cutting some level of the bs out of the picture is part of it…good.
If somebody was actually going to try this it would take a big tourney to really show that it works
One problem I see a lot of people repeatedly bringing up is entry costs. Like Mike said, it seems like the average price for tournaments is going up and shows no signs of leveling off. We’re approaching the point where one day regional tournies will regularly have entry fees between twenty and thirty bucks, and even weekly locals are charging 10 to 15. When you have to pay gas, spend time driving, and then pay entry fee, I can imagine some people start to feel like their time and money is being spent lining other peoples’ pockets and they stop entering or enter a lot less. I personally go to tournaments to get better and hang out with friends, but even for me, some days I do a quick mental inventory of how much it’s going to cost to play in a tournament factoring in gas, toll, food, and entry and it’s a tough call.
One thing I saw that worked really well at the KS2 event at SJBG was having stations available for casuals during the tourny. I know that the instinctual reaction to that notion is to dismiss it because we need all the stations for tourny matches, but no tourny I have ever been to uses all of its stations at peak efficiency, and some stations always sit open for extended periods while people stand around wondering why nobody is playing on that station. So why not bring one or two more stations and use those plus one of the existing stations for casuals during the tourny? That way, people know that even if they lose, they’ll get to play some games.
A problem I always hear when I ask players why they don’t want to go to tournaments is the 2 and out factor. The swiss/round robin is better than a regular double elim format because you get to play a certain number of games despite losing early, but an issue with those formats is that it would take hella long unless there is an abundance of setups at the event. However, that shouldn’t be a problem if people contribute setups for a tourney. Of course we could just say man up and stop being a scrub, but I don’t think its healthy for the scene at all. The people who actually want to get better will continue to come regardless of the tournament format. We should make an effort to reach out towards the people who sit on the fence and are discouraged to come.
I personally really liked that at the ks2 sjbg. It lets players stay warm and if they went 2 and out, then it allows them to continue playing instead of just going home because all the setups are being used for tournament.
Hiro does make good points, but
Point 1: I agree that lowering fees does lower attendance but when I have to pay more than $10 to enter a local that more than likely does not have 64+ entrants I find that pretty damn ridiculous.
Point 2: We should not have control over someone’s reward that they earned and splitting the pot should not be an issue. I think a different format and/or random seeding would help solve the issue of people throwing matches.
Point 3: I have mixed feelings about this. Checks would prevent splitting, but I personally prefer getting cash.
Ranbat style with person with the most points gets bonus prize/money at the end of the season?