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Mannahnin wrote:

radical bob wrote:Mannahnin:

An honest question, why is that the best resolution? If there are 9 players in a 3-round tournament then exactly 1/3 of the scores would be inflated artificially. I'm sure that in larger turnouts this inflation may come out in the wash, but does it? Beyond the first round I imagine the impact could be dampened by giving the lowest-scoring players the byes, but what about determining the random first bye?

Why not simply give a Major Victory? Or a Massacre without any extra BP? I think full points is a bit extreme to reward someone for their patience.

Like I said, maybe it does all even out...when I think about it, though, full points seems almost as arbitrary as averaging the 2 games played & taking that as the score for the 3rd game? Inevitably having an odd number of players will plague the results, but the people who had to actually do something tactically sound to earn full points shouldn't suffer for that?

(p.s., I'm not trying to be argumentative here, hope that wasn't inferred! )

Bob- Fair question. This is a good point. Actually, come to think of it, I have played in at least one event where rather than automatically giving max points, the Bye player was given the same points as whoever scored highest in the first round. This meant that they weren’t given MORE points than anyone else, and also meant that they probably got a tough pairing for R2 to attempt to earn more points. Averaging their other two games is, I think, also a reasonable approach. I’ve heard of that too. Honestly, I didn’t remember either of the above off the top of my head; haven’t had to deal with the issue in a while.

I don’t think a Draw or reduced points is fair, as the player should not be denied the chance to do as well as anyone else. Losing the chance to play a game is bad enough without adding insult to injury.

For myself (and the tournament crew I travel with) we will not ever stay at a tournament if there are BYEs, as a whole group we would leave. We'd rather go back home and play in the basement for the day and get drunk than have someone sitting around for 2+ hours.

However, if you have a player that is forced to play 1 less game than everyone else you have 3 problems on your hand:

1) The player is getting less value out of the tournament than everyone else who payed their entry fee. That is really not fair.
2) Having a player who needs to sit around for 2+ hours is a really really hard thing to swallow.
3) While not always the case, the person taking the bye 1st round may actually be in contention for overall if he had someone to play. It is wrong to dock them any points for having the misfortune of not having an opponent. After the 1st round this seldom matters.

Later,
WR

WhiteRaven wrote:For myself (and the tournament crew I travel with) we will not ever stay at a tournament if there are BYEs, as a whole group we would leave. We'd rather go back home and play in the basement for the day and get drunk than have someone sitting around for 2+ hours.

Does your crew roll with an odd number of people? That'd fix the problem for everyone!

Janthkin wrote:

WhiteRaven wrote:For myself (and the tournament crew I travel with) we will not ever stay at a tournament if there are BYEs, as a whole group we would leave. We'd rather go back home and play in the basement for the day and get drunk than have someone sitting around for 2+ hours.

Does your crew roll with an odd number of people? That'd fix the problem for everyone!

Really? What if our crew has odd, and the rest of the tournament is even? Or we take even and they are odd?


If we are odd numbers when gaming in the basement...no one really minds having 2 hours to watch games at home because they can drink and ridicule friends. Both of those are much harder to get away with while on a bye at a tournament

I think Janthkin's saying if your crew has an odd number of people, and the tournament as a whole has an odd number of people, then your crew leaving would mean the tournament has an even number.

Or maybe he's just saying you have an odd crew.

I am bitter because i lost a tournament in the last round cause I had to play the ringer instead of the 2nd place person (Army and mission I was better prepaired to handle the other guy). The Ringer in a 15pt Comp system hada Comp score of 2, while I had a comp of 13 and second had a comp of 14. Ringer was also a free person and not allowed to win prizes. Top prize was FW Blood Thrister Greater Demon.

The way I use to run it is last person plays Ringer and the worste they can score is a draw. But they have to ability to score max points if they win. I am not thinking about giving the bi player points equal to the highest score earned that round.

Janthkin wrote:I like averaging the player's scores from his other rounds, as it leaves his overall score completely in his own hands. On the other hand, if you automatically assign the "bye" to the player with the lowest score, his average is likely to suck (except for the guy w/the round 1 bye, who was just unlucky).

That latter part is ok though. Especially in the later rounds of the tournament, if you're awarding the bottom players the bye (no one should get more than one bye, so it's not necessarily just the bottom player) then they generally aren't getting many points anyway.

The biggest open issue with averaging scores is you still need a scheme for the first round. Obviously you can fill in the bye player's points based on their performance in the later rounds, but you still need to pair them up with a second round player somehow.


As a side note, 3 rounds really isn't enough for anything more than 8 players. If you have 2^n players, you need n rounds to ensure the top players face each other. But it's hard to imagine doing more than 3 rounds for big points, single-day events like 'Ard Boyz. As it is, so much of the tournament scene, at least at low to moderate levels, seems affected by the basic fact that most players won't complete their games. It sucks having to plan lists and strategy around the game ending after three, maybe four turns...

Ozymandias wrote:I think Janthkin's saying if your crew has an odd number of people, and the tournament as a whole has an odd number of people, then your crew leaving would mean the tournament has an even number.

Or maybe he's just saying you have an odd crew.

Both of these.

Sorry to sound like an idiot here, but what exactly is a "ringer" ??

At my LGS we have a guy who is just a decent guy. If theres an odd number he sits out to even it out. He does it to eliminate the need for a ringer.

Ringer= person not in tournament(usually store staff, TO, etc) that steps in to play games when an odd number fo peple show up for the event.

I prefer it when full points are given for a bye if no ringer is available. You end up having to earn it when you face the top player from round one, so the extra points usually even out. You either win against the best, thus securing your place in the final round against one of the other winners, or you lose and play around in the middle rankings. Its not perfect, but it seems to work better IMO.

The one thing I hate is an event that doesnt even know what it is going to do in the event an uneven number of players show up. Listening to the TO thinking out all the different methods and asking 5 different people what they should do, and then arriving at bye = 0 points becasue the contenders looked at your list and cringed in fear and then suggested 0 points ... that is disgusting. That one happened to me. I have alos seen TO's give the bye out to non local players that arnt part of their croney fun gang, or to the most competitive looking list just becasue they wanted to screw with someone and kill their chances. I usually have a mini set of tournament rules that I offer to inexperienced TO's with the suggestion that they at elast have what they are going to do in the situation of ties, and byes, cheating, etc written down BEFORE the event. If they don't adjust I think twice about attending unorganized croney fests.

We structure the 'bye buster'/'ringer' very specifically for WHFB tourneys in OZ.

He is always given a non optimised list (nothing rubbish but in no ways tricky or OTT), and then plays to have a fun game. If the opponent does something silly, they deserve to be punished with normal tactical moves.

Then the points are worked out.

In WHFB I don't think the bye buster has ever acctually won, but the points aren't just given away.
And it means every player gets all their games, which is what tourneys are all about.

If I were at my computer, I would have a wonderful picture of Johnny Knoxville wearing a helmet behaving as though he were mentally impaired(I'm not allowed to say the "r-word") in response to the question "What is a ringer?"

It is my opinion that the person playing the ringer shouldn't get such an advantage as a Massacre.

I beat the Ringer mercilessly, but to keep my sportsmanship score, I offer to help remove his models from the board.

What I don't like seeing is for example... in a fantasy tournament, I got stuck with the ringer, and he switched from playing the army he was supposed to be playing, to a dwarf army. He turtled up, parked himself in the corner and rang his anvil of doom every single turn shot at me and did nothing else, it was annoying as hell and pretty much forced a draw game.

I take it by 'ringer' you mean the guy who you have to play if someone doesnt show or drops out, then my only experience was playing the Jervis Johnson I lost one of the best games of my life, he was so into the game it was unreal, for instance in my force I had a chimera I had modelled with no top (sorta like a salamander) so i asked if it was ok as a countas to be told "Of course the crew have probably taken a forcefield generator or something similiar" (words may have been adlibbed) a truly great game even if it was just to watch JJ look 'THROUGH' the brb to find a rule. Plus I ended up with one of his dice

My preference is to convince the ringer to actually play if the ringer is required. Making them a normal tournament participant seems to take care of the problem.

rocklord2004 wrote:At my LGS we have a guy who is just a decent guy. If theres an odd number he sits out to even it out. He does it to eliminate the need for a ringer.

I've done that a couple of times when the TO didn't have a ringer available.

The Crippler wrote:My preference is to convince the ringer to actually play if the ringer is required. Making them a normal tournament participant seems to take care of the problem.

And I've done this as well. Went up to Toronto, Canada to work the GT there one year. They needed a ringer and threw me in, decided just to let me play as a regular attendee. So room, board and GT for free!

For SCGWL events, the ringer coughs up a minor win if they lose to it, or a major win if they tie or beat it. Its a little more complicated with the 40k events, but basically that same principle. Any bonus and soft scores are tallied normally. I have found this to work well because then whoever is playing the ringer gets a nice relaxed game, whether or not they are playing them due to getting stomped prior or through random round one draw.