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Stick with your two round swiss.

I like it. There will be only one winner.

Dashofpepper wrote:At the end of the first day there are multiple "Best General" awards, and are given to the four folks who went 4-0. Thus ends the GT tournament. The prize of "Best Overall" goes to the winner of the swiss invitational (sorry if that's the wrong classification) the next day. IE, its the player who went 6-0. Their painting, sportsmanship, comp are irrelevant to them winning best overall. Those categories are judged and given prizes separately from the TOURNAMENT piece of it, as it should be.

That's the difference between the Nova Open and every other event. They aren't lumping scoring for the hobby portions and behavioral portions into the tournament piece, they're treating each of those categories with equal respect instead.

I think implying that other events don't respect individual parts of the hobby is a bit offbase. There are two (or more) possible views of awards when it comes to tournaments, and both are equally valid. I think claiming one way is more respectful of the other is setting a divisional tone that I for one would like to see simply go away. As Archibald 'Harry' Tuttle once said, "Listen, kid, we're all in it together".

AdeptiCon is a larger multi-event convention. Larger events with fewer rounds demand score separation. Our scenarios are designed to split the fields each round and provide small bonuses/penalties that help break up a static W/L scoring system. We have also chosen to stand with tradition when it comes to the general idea of "Best Overall or Overall Champion". As stated elsewhere, AdeptiCon considers itself a complete Hobby Event, hence the Overall award going the complete Hobbyist. That said, we fully encourage and reward people playing for individual awards. We introduced Best General/Tacticians to our events many years ago to respect that style of play.

What Mike is doing with the NOVA Open is interesting and I think it has great potential. The NOVA and something like AdeptiCon are completely different beasts when it comes to organization, social atmosphere and scope and will no doubt draw different overall crowds. I find this very positive for the community and wargaming in general. Get as many people playing, have events that address all styles and manners of play and it will benefit all. And somewhere...down the road...people will realize that not every event needs to be the same...

For the record, our "Renaissance Man" award yields a Vegas "golden ticket" and is equal parts record, appearance, and sports scores (making it "more" soft weighted than your typical tournament Overall). "Tournament Champion" is more akin to the Best General at other events, and that's the 6-0 finisher. The argument could be made that we go MORE hobby-centric on our equivalent of "Best Overall" than most, where battle points are well over 50% of the total overall evaluator, and it ends up going to the "undefeated pretty guy" as opposed to the "best" hobbyist.

I'm with Matthias in thinking that events don't necessarily need to all be the same on an Independent Circuit. That said, I think in years to come if we were ever to come up with standardized methods for evaluating "generalship" and "artistry" and "sportsmanship" across the circuit, it wouldn't be a bad thing. It's simply not a bad thing this way, either.

I do hope that a certain level of spin, or lumping my personal playstyle as impacting the Open, would not be a great thing ... there is as much (if not more) prize support and honor going to the hobby side as the competitive side at the Open, we're just utilizing a tournament head-to-head system that's designed more toward identifying the top competitors at the same time.

I'm enjoying the input and discussion ... and hope it will continue. You should get yourself and some of the Adepticon folks out here, Matthias

PS again - subjects such as the 6-0 second day, round robin, etc., will go up for input on my blog; ties up for input at http://whiskey40k.com as of now.

Glad to here that next year your planning on bumping it to two days regardless. Like I say MVB I understand needing to stay as close to the black as possible running one of these things.

MVBrandt wrote:For the record, our "Renaissance Man" award yields a Vegas "golden ticket" and is equal parts record, appearance, and sports scores (making it "more" soft weighted than your typical tournament Overall). "Tournament Champion" is more akin to the Best General at other events, and that's the 6-0 finisher.

I want it clearly stated that I think your doing a good thing by finding the best player record wise over the entire tournament. I just find it funny that some people see it as soft scores not counting toward the "winner". You just switched best overall and best general titles and awarded each a golden ticket. Same as most tournaments difference being your placing an emphasis on making sure there is a clearcut winner out of the 64 people attending using purely win/loss for best general. Which to be fair I really like since if it came down to pure win/loss I generally wind up on the winning side of a draw

And like you said because of the lack of difference in BP's the soft scores actually weigh in much heavier than the soft scores for the second golden ticket. More so than most other tournaments.

Good luck with this year MVB. Hopefully I'll be able to swing next year and see family while I'm out there.

**Edit**
Oh and stick with the 2 man swiss. Anything else is asking for a lack of clear winner. Plus after a 4 game day the day before, finding a new venue and worrying about traveling back it's for the best not to add another 3 hours to the gaming day.

In talking to Mike here, maybe its simply a matter of wording.

I think it comes down to the fact that you attend a tournament, and the title "Best Overall." A tournament should have a tournament champion. To reward hobbyists, it should also have categories for painting rewards. Also a fluffy/backstory reward / player choice kind of thing.

I heartily disagree with sportsmanship awards. You come to a tournament, you treat your opponents respectfully, you make new friends, and if you can't behave like an adult, you get kicked out. If you cheat, you get kicked out. Sportsmanship might be part of the score, but the SVDM did very well without it and there weren't any shenanigans with any of the games. And I definitely think that giving someone an award for being the best behaved is insulting and unwarranted, and makes some bad implications. ><


Anyway, my point is that instead of "Best General" and "Best Overall" I think that the division would be HUGELY taken down by relabeling these as "Tournament Champion" and "Best Hobbyist." To go to a tournament, to play in a tournament, and to win a tournament, and not be "Best Overall" is insulting. It wasn't a painting competition, and hobby elements are welcome, but the tournament needs a tournament winner. A Champion.

Honestly, it seems silly, but I honestly think that it would fix, or go a long way towards fixing the division. Whether "Best Hobbyist" includes battle points or not is up for discussion, but there should be a Tournament Champion award, and a hobbyist award. And since it *IS* a tournament, the tournament champion award should be as large or bigger than the best hobbyist award.

So many good thoughts all being generated. Food for the brain. If anyone wants to join in chatting re: tournament / whatever, I'm always at least semi-chattable via gchat (mvbrandt@gmail.com).

MVBrandt wrote:I'm enjoying the input and discussion ... and hope it will continue. You should get yourself and some of the Adepticon folks out here, Matthias

Can't speak for anyone else (although it wouldn't surprise me if a few of them are considering it), but my traveling for tournaments/playing in tournaments days are long over...plus we are expecting our first child in July...so I will be MIA for awhile. I also prefer my Marines in 6mm!

MVBrandt wrote:PS again - subjects such as the 6-0 second day, round robin, etc., will go up for input on my blog; ties up for input at http://whiskey40k.com as of now.

I don't think AdeptiCon missions produce true ties as much as they are meant to have varying levels of success/defeat as represented through Battle Points. It has worked well for our format over the years.

Aye - and when you don't have enough rounds to pare down to a clear winner, you need to do that. I hope folks will understand that when you run an event like Adepticon's 1850, and you only have the time/resources/planning for 3 rounds, there's not really a "better" way to do it.

It doesn't go "see, here's the clear best player," but it at least allows everyone to strive for the prize fairly over 3 rounds.

Very interesting sounding event! I'm nearby, and I came to your charity tournament last year.

I'll think about this one... I'm not sure if the missus would be thrilled for me to spend two consecutive weekends solidly warhammer-ing (since I'm attending GamesDay). I'm also a little hesitant about the format, since I anticipate being in the lower part of the bracket... so if I barely win my first game, I'll be paired up with the person who won their first game by the most. Eek!

RiTides wrote:Very interesting sounding event! I'm nearby, and I came to your charity tournament last year.

I'll think about this one... I'm not sure if the missus would be thrilled for me to spend two consecutive weekends solidly warhammer-ing (since I'm attending GamesDay). I'm also a little hesitant about the format, since I anticipate being in the lower part of the bracket... so if I barely win my first game, I'll be paired up with the person who won their first game by the most. Eek!

No, that's only for the second day invitational.

For day one, 64 people.

32 vs 32. 32 winners, 32 losers.

32 winners stack up against each other in 16 v 16 and on down until there are only 4 people left who have won their games.

Every game you play will be against someone with the same record as you. For the 4 person swiss, then its 1v4, 2v3.

That does present a challenge! The intent of that is twofold.

Here we start with another issue related to tournaments that don't have enough rounds to pare down to a clear winner. When you cannot do that, you *generally* want to swiss pair every round, so that the best players are tested from the get-go as best you can determine. This ensures (or in theory ensures) that the arbitrarily selected "best" at the end really is. The problem with this is that if #1 and #2 in reality play each other in round 2, you instantly pound #2 downard. Worse, if you have draws in play, both players may eliminate themselves from any chance to win, despite being the "best" of the players present. You really don't know.

In this approach, players that "barely" win are challenged to continue to win, while players that are crushing their opponents face a challenge - prove that it wasn't a fluke crushing - without being knocked out early by a near defeat. We also are acknowledging a "Win as a Win" approach vs. "scaled wins" as an approach. A 2-0 will never play a 1-1, for example.

If you can pare a tournament down to a clear winner, you want things to be "most" intense at the end. If players barely won a round against a very tough opponent in Round 1's "random" pairings, they can knock out players who drew "easy" first round pairings. Similarly, players who barely won against weaker opponents are quickly knocked into middling brackets.

An important note is this doesn't work at all if you don't finish the tournament out. We're also swiss pairing the 4th round, since not everyone plays in Rounds 5 and 6 - you want to make sure that the final 4 are fully "tested" and deserving of the spots.

Fortunately, we are also rewarding people within their record brackets. The best 3-1 finishers, 2-2 finishers, yatta yatta - competing well within your skill bracket will be rewarded, as will (in the case of the 3-1's) being in the top 10-15 but facing off against some of the very best in the process and not quite beating them all.

The heart of this, motivation-wise, is that you want 1 to play 2 in the final round. You don't want them knocking each other into the pits in Rounds 1 or 2 or 3.

I recall you attending the Outdoor Charity tourney last year, and am glad you're considering this one.

MVBrandt wrote:Aye - and when you don't have enough rounds to pare down to a clear winner, you need to do that. I hope folks will understand that when you run an event like Adepticon's 1850, and you only have the time/resources/planning for 3 rounds, there's not really a "better" way to do it.

It doesn't go "see, here's the clear best player," but it at least allows everyone to strive for the prize fairly over 3 rounds.

Right. We started looking at ways to improve the Championships last year, but with the size of the event we need to lock things down 5-6 months in advance so we can negotiate space with the hotel, wrangle up sponsor support, order tables, build terrain, find staff...so 2010 didn't see much apparent visible movement. For 2011 we are looking at a 2-day, qualifier format to bring that event in line with how we feel our attendees want it and to perhaps re-balance the competitive and hobby scales in regards to the convention overall (the seminar organization and Rogue Demon painting competition have made significant leaps and bounds over the past couple of years).

I think in the end what is happening with some events at AdeptiCon and what is happening in an event like the NOVA are honestly pretty similar and have many common goals. While I very much want each event to maintain a unique identity and feel - I am positive that there are beneficial lessons to be learnt from all events. No system in perfect and after almost a decade of running/organizing a medium to large sized we still find ourselves adjusting and tweaking schedule and events every year.

Here is a thought: For people coming in from out of town, what if you had another game for the guys who didn't qualify top 4 on the second day?

Lets say I want to come down (actually i DEFINTELY want to come, whether the wife says ok is another matter) and I pay for airfare hotels, but I have to assume that I MIGHT win 4 games, and thus have the sunday free. It would be nice to have something going on. maybe something like: anyone who isnt 4-0 plays two games (same scheduling as your sunday games), at random, for victory points, whoever has the highest VP total at the end wins the Miss Congeniality or Loser's Bracket, w/e you want to call it.

Otherwise you may end up with people who really think they don't have a shot at sunday gaming, only to end up 4-0, and cannot play the sunday, leaving your swiss pairing for the final 4 one man short.

BTW , I gather the VA portion of NOVA is Virginia, but whats the NO part?

NOVA = Northern Virginia. The the rest of state doesn't consider NOVA actually part of VA. Pretty much NOVA is in commuting distance to DC kinda like a suburb

Dumpling has it - the NO is for Northern. NOVA is what we call it up here, and it is more of a DC suburb ... the tournament location is a short trip right onto Constitution Ave and driving by the White House/Mall/Monuments/Etc. with almost no road changes along the way.

As far as the 2nd day goes - if someone cannot attend of the 4-0's, we'll be able to filter down through the 3-1's ... less than ideal, but what can you do.

We don't have the resources *this* year to extend the event to a full 2nd day in terms of table space requirements. We will be working on a number of things to help make sure people who don't make it to the Final Four find themselves able to enjoy their 2nd day in the DC Metro area (to include non-gaming options also).

Oh Mrs. Dash!

Does this mean you wont let your Justin come play down here at Bolter Beach?



G

Dodiez wrote:

Black Blow Fly wrote:I think round robin on the second day would produce a more clearcut winner overall. I don't see why playing one more game is that big of a deal either in regards to time. Adepticon has three games on Sunday and there were plenty of people who played... Didn't seem to affected anyone's travel schedule.

G

Ugh.

Getting home two and half hours later on a Sunday when people have to work the next day could be a deciding factor.

"I don't see why playing one more game is that big of a deal" comes off as rude to me, honestly. You have already tried to sow dissension earlier in the thread. Mr. "weren't you bashing Adepticon".

Just because one tourney does something does not mean this one will do that. Obviously, he wants to be a little different from the rest. That's the point here.

Amidst all of this discussion - if you are someone who is thinking of attending this event, but cannot confirm at this time, feel free to put your name on my list of such players via PM here or e-mail at mvbrandt@gmail.com

The 40k side especially is filling up at almost an alarming rate - and I want to make sure I can "alert" all people interested when things look like they're getting to that very full place, especially people who would have to arrange travel to attend.

Black Blow Fly wrote:Oh Mrs. Dash!

Does this mean you wont let your Justin come play down here at Bolter Beach?



G

I'm undecided about coming anyway. I've been filling out my calendar this year with GTs - the scoring format for Bolter Beach is a turnoff, in addition to the extremely long travel distance, and I don't know anyone who's going - my friends in Florida don't want to, and my acquaintances in the Wrecking Crew aren't going or have family obligations.

With the addition of the Nova Open to the calendar (3 hours away), Bolter Beach is fading in attractiveness. Do you know how long of a drive that is?!?!?

*EDIT* Also, calling me Justin is kind of weird. Stick to Dash if you would on here - when I read your threads and see you responding to someone without quotes and using their first name instead of their forum name, I have no idea who you're talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, a question for the OP:

Since your 64 slots are almost full, would you expand it to 80 slots to put 5 in the day 2 tournament? If fantasy peters out, is there a financial case anywhere for having a second tournament on Day 2 of some sort? Seems like you're getting ridiculous attention this far out for 40k, but I know you said that you can't afford the convention center for the second day and keep decent prize support.

What we would probably do is keep an eye on the Fantasy sign-ups, and double up the 40k heats, then make Day 2's invitational 3 rounds (Great 8 instead of Final Four). I can't really promise this, though - like I've said, we probably can't do a 2nd full day this year, and I'm more inclined to have a wait-list and expand next year, than open up a 2nd set of 32 or 64 this year and risk not filling that.

I will say that we really ... I don't know, I just got 2 more sign-ups in the last 30 minutes. We're a little past 50% now on 40k.

MVBrandt wrote:Scoring and Pairing

First Rounds are random paired

2nd and 3rd rounds are elimintation paired (meaning, that the highest scoring 1-0 faces the lowest scoring 1-0, for example)

Final round is swiss paired (in any true tournament, the ideal is for 1 to face 2 in round 4, 3 to face 4, etc.); this also enables armies built around winning vs. mauling people to be more competitive

In the 2nd day invitational final four, it's 1v4 and 2v3 leading into the final

Hey Dash,

I've highlighted the part I was referring to above... it does sound like a cool format, I'm just a little concerned about getting crushed game-wise

Just signed up(33 spots left). I'm going to try to get some more of the SWVA boys to come.

GG

That number is off by a couple, too - quirk of the system that got fudged in as we were setting it up.

Glad to have you attending, GG.
- Mike

PS - Where ya'll from exactly? I used to date a girl from Chilhowie.

No problem Dash. Maybe I will meet up with you at NOVA.

G

MVBrandt wrote:That number is off by a couple, too - quirk of the system that got fudged in as we were setting it up.

Glad to have you attending, GG.
- Mike

PS - Where ya'll from exactly? I used to date a girl from Chilhowie.

Really?

I think we dated the same chick!

*EDIT* I don't think that was funny. :(

I'm in Marion, but we have guys from Wytheville, Abingdon, and Bristol. Chilhowie is about 5 minutes south from where I live.

GG

I was suggesting the consideration of round robin the second day since I felt this might help to provide a more conclusive result, as this is what you are really after. I realize that this involves more time and there is that possibility you could end up with two players finishing with a 2-1 record the second day, which obviously would go against your main purpose. In light of that I think you should go ahead & use the Swiss pairing... It will work fine and you'll definitely end up with the desired result.

Good luck with your event. It sounds like it should be a good one indeed.

: )

G

Thanks for the positivity - we gonna see you there, BBF?

I am going to try to make it out for sure. Sounds like a good one.

G

Are the fantasy slots filling up just as quickly? I'm still on the fence about this, will try to decide soon...

Fantasy slots are starting to fill up more quickly. We "settled" on using ETC or slightly modified ETC for Fantasy comp, which was a question holding people up. We're also keeping tabs through the circuits we have available on 8th ed, which may be a June release. Depending on that, comp may or may not be necessary, but presuming 7th, there you go.