**Important**2013 PC Tournament Details, and Q&A**
Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 12:01 amThe first few lines of this post are a copy and paste of what I wrote on the sign-up thread, but I am now including more details on the tournament. I am also inviting questions on this thread, and I will answer them as we go.
Here's what I wrote before:
"Here is a link to the main page, for rules and details:
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/17
The 2013 tournament will look more like the tournament from a couple of years ago. One of the changes this year is that we are going back to a larger number of events (5), and the traditional 2 round playoff. In the playoff, the top 36 managers will play in 3 twelve team leagues. The playoff teams from those 3 leagues will become eligible for the final 12 team league. The champion from that final league becomes the tournament champion, and the other finalist becomes the runner up for the tournament.
I am going "back to the future" in this way - the score for the "round robin" will be the sum of the best 4 scores out of the 5 events. This provides several benefits for the tournament:
-if someone misses event 1 but still wants to join up for event 2, they can do that, and still have a very realistic chance of making the playoffs.
-if someone joins for event 1 but misses one of events 2-5, they aren't completely "sunk".
-if someone enters all 5 events, but just "boots" one of them, they aren't sunk by that either.
-As a side-bar to the above, this will allow me to invoke closure on entering events with a little more of an iron fist. When you have only 4 events and they all count, it's hard to do that, since it effectively eliminates that manager from the tournament. With the best 4 of 5 counting, you still have a realistic shot at making the playoffs even if you miss an event.
-By invoking closure on the time to enter events, we should be able to herd us cats into a more compressed group, with everyone more or less completing each event at pretty much the same time. Many managers said to me that they would prefer it if there wasn't such a time lag for events to be completed. It should be mean needing fewer fillers for events, also. With just a little extra maintenance by strat-o-matic and myself, this should make the leaderboard on the main event page more interesting and meaningful, as well.
I will publish details on event timelines in a separate post. The overall goal is to start the tournament soon, and to keep the events rolling more like clockwork this year."
Here are the additional details:
Event 1 - will start imminently. Deadline for entry - July 24.
Event 2 - will start June 26. Deadline for entry- August 21. This is effectively the tournament entry deadline.
Event 3 - will start July 24. Deadline for entry September 11.
Event 4 - will start August 21. Deadline for entry September 25.
Event 5 - will start September 12. Deadline for entry October 16.
Players are expected to enter 1 team, and 1 team only in each event. Each "event" will have many leagues, to accomodate the large number of players. So event 1 will have leagues 1 through 12 (or so), in order to include 1 team from each of the participants. But you only enter JUST ONE team in each EVENT - not one team in each league. Just one team for each event.
Entry deadlines will be strictly imposed. The Commissioner retains the right to invoke closure on an event entries. We will try to avoid fillers as much as possible this year. Leagues will be set-up as private leagues with password protection. To keep things simple and moving along, the passwords will be posted in the discussion thread set up for each league. The main idea is to prevent accidental team entries for players who are not participating in the tournament. If someone has difficulty entering a password protected private league, please post this on this Q&A thread, and we will attempt to find a solution for you that works.
Re summer holidays and long vacations - I have deliberately set long timeliness for events 1 and 2 so that people can fit their entries in around their summer schedules. Please note also that the last event begins before Thanksgiving, and ends just before Christmas.
Please note that it is expected that all tournament participants are being asked to commit to make entries in all 5 tournaments. Failure to make an entry in one event does not disqualify someone, but we are asking that each person try to enter teams in all 5 events, as part of their commitment to the tournament. As further incentives, players who enter all 5 events will get 5 bonus points. Plus, players can use their top scores for the top 4 out of their 5 events. So, if a player had teams entered in events 1 through 5 with the following scores - 80, 90, 75, 110, and 65, his combined score would be 355 for his best 4 events (80+90+75+110) plus 5 points for competing in all 5 events, for a total of 360 points. If, instead, he had missed event 3, his score would be 345 (80+90+110+65, and no bonus 5 points, since he did not enter all 5 events).
cont.
Here's what I wrote before:
"Here is a link to the main page, for rules and details:
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/17
The 2013 tournament will look more like the tournament from a couple of years ago. One of the changes this year is that we are going back to a larger number of events (5), and the traditional 2 round playoff. In the playoff, the top 36 managers will play in 3 twelve team leagues. The playoff teams from those 3 leagues will become eligible for the final 12 team league. The champion from that final league becomes the tournament champion, and the other finalist becomes the runner up for the tournament.
I am going "back to the future" in this way - the score for the "round robin" will be the sum of the best 4 scores out of the 5 events. This provides several benefits for the tournament:
-if someone misses event 1 but still wants to join up for event 2, they can do that, and still have a very realistic chance of making the playoffs.
-if someone joins for event 1 but misses one of events 2-5, they aren't completely "sunk".
-if someone enters all 5 events, but just "boots" one of them, they aren't sunk by that either.
-As a side-bar to the above, this will allow me to invoke closure on entering events with a little more of an iron fist. When you have only 4 events and they all count, it's hard to do that, since it effectively eliminates that manager from the tournament. With the best 4 of 5 counting, you still have a realistic shot at making the playoffs even if you miss an event.
-By invoking closure on the time to enter events, we should be able to herd us cats into a more compressed group, with everyone more or less completing each event at pretty much the same time. Many managers said to me that they would prefer it if there wasn't such a time lag for events to be completed. It should be mean needing fewer fillers for events, also. With just a little extra maintenance by strat-o-matic and myself, this should make the leaderboard on the main event page more interesting and meaningful, as well.
I will publish details on event timelines in a separate post. The overall goal is to start the tournament soon, and to keep the events rolling more like clockwork this year."
Here are the additional details:
Event 1 - will start imminently. Deadline for entry - July 24.
Event 2 - will start June 26. Deadline for entry- August 21. This is effectively the tournament entry deadline.
Event 3 - will start July 24. Deadline for entry September 11.
Event 4 - will start August 21. Deadline for entry September 25.
Event 5 - will start September 12. Deadline for entry October 16.
Players are expected to enter 1 team, and 1 team only in each event. Each "event" will have many leagues, to accomodate the large number of players. So event 1 will have leagues 1 through 12 (or so), in order to include 1 team from each of the participants. But you only enter JUST ONE team in each EVENT - not one team in each league. Just one team for each event.
Entry deadlines will be strictly imposed. The Commissioner retains the right to invoke closure on an event entries. We will try to avoid fillers as much as possible this year. Leagues will be set-up as private leagues with password protection. To keep things simple and moving along, the passwords will be posted in the discussion thread set up for each league. The main idea is to prevent accidental team entries for players who are not participating in the tournament. If someone has difficulty entering a password protected private league, please post this on this Q&A thread, and we will attempt to find a solution for you that works.
Re summer holidays and long vacations - I have deliberately set long timeliness for events 1 and 2 so that people can fit their entries in around their summer schedules. Please note also that the last event begins before Thanksgiving, and ends just before Christmas.
Please note that it is expected that all tournament participants are being asked to commit to make entries in all 5 tournaments. Failure to make an entry in one event does not disqualify someone, but we are asking that each person try to enter teams in all 5 events, as part of their commitment to the tournament. As further incentives, players who enter all 5 events will get 5 bonus points. Plus, players can use their top scores for the top 4 out of their 5 events. So, if a player had teams entered in events 1 through 5 with the following scores - 80, 90, 75, 110, and 65, his combined score would be 355 for his best 4 events (80+90+75+110) plus 5 points for competing in all 5 events, for a total of 360 points. If, instead, he had missed event 3, his score would be 345 (80+90+110+65, and no bonus 5 points, since he did not enter all 5 events).
cont.