So this weekend was the Curleh Mustache 3 tournament. It had quite the large turnout of about 40+ people from New York, Philly and Maryland. The pot easily grew to over a grand which is big money for a local tournament. The pot in the end was split between 1, 2 and 3 place letting each player take home about roughly $300+.
Now, I don’t mind people taking home money but I think splitting lessens the value of the tournament and game play. I feel that it takes away from that thirst to win and the players in the end not giving a shit about their matches. In the end they were playing to just play it out, not because they truly wanted the title.
I realize that splitting will go on regardless but I guess my main issue was that it was blatant that there was a split. Even Yipes was a bit bothered by it and wanted the players to really play for the title of champ.
What about the momentum and hype behind top three or any match at that? Shouldn’t players at the very least try to make the match look interesting or hide the fact that there is a split going on?
It’s not about keeping matches interesting, it’s about preserving the spirit of competition.
Tournaments are not supposed to be about the money; they’re supposed to be about determining who’s the best player. Money is simply the incentive given to players to try their best. Pot splitting will likely lead to players not trying hard, going against the entire point of having a tournament in the first place.
Who gives a fuck? I hate the fact that spectators whining about splitting think they’re important and should influence the people ACTUALLY in the tournament.
I’m not here to argue skill. Making it to top 3 is definitely a feat unto itself but when you have that momentum of raw skill and game play building up to who’s better than who and who will walk out with the prize and title, it shouldn’t be shut down so abruptly by a loss of interest in the game for the sake of taking home an equal share of the pot.
What about the argument that the guys streaming it, the organizers and those who sponsor events all care about what happens in a situation like that? I don’t think any tournament has ever placed spectators over players, but you also can’t stream or put money into a tournament and say that they don’t matter.
It is an issue. To me it looks as if its mostly the top-tier players that seem to be cool with it since they all have something to gain financially from it (they are typically the ones most dedicated to competitive gaming so it is understandable), while a lot of players do oppose it. I wouldn’t doubt that the TOs would oppose it as well—but if they sanction rules than they might miss out on certain players showing up to their events.
I’m sure if there’s a 20k pot (ie. E-Sports/MLG organized tourny), it will become a big issue if it was found out that the top-3 split everything down the middle. You can argue who cares its their money they can do whatever the hell they want with it… and I understand that, but its naive to think it wouldn’t factor in the perception of what the sponsors and spectators think about fighting games.
I think it really depends, if it is dicreet and the players still play at their absolute best in the top 3, then it’s a bit dodgey and kind of wrong but won’t be an issue simply because no-one knows, they are still playing their hardest and the title of the champion is still (hopefully) the most important thing.
That said if I was to enter a tournament, go out and then watch the finals to see people obviously arseing around and not taking it seriously because they’ve already agreed to split the pot it would be kind of annoying, almost like making a mockery of the tournament as a whole.
Still since any anti split rules would probably be really hard to enforce the only way to really do anything about it is to work up to those finals and refuse to split yourself, whether you are confident in walking away with the grand prize or not.