Question for anyone that has run a tourney.

[lopxtc]

Hey for anyone here that has run a tourney before ...

What method do you use to setup your schedule? Assuming you have multiple fields how do you go about drawing up who plays who and when.

Like --

Does each team play a even number of games on each field?
Do you try to ensure each team plays another team once before playing them again?
Do you allow the various skill levels to play against each other?

etc ...

Thanks for any assistance you can provide me.

Aaron

[SpitFire1299]

Hey for anyone here that has run a tourney before ...

What method do you use to setup your schedule? Assuming you have multiple fields how do you go about drawing up who plays who and when.

Like --

Does each team play a even number of games on each field?
Do you try to ensure each team plays another team once before playing them again?
Do you allow the various skill levels to play against each other?

etc ...

Thanks for any assistance you can provide me.

Aaron

I dont own a field, but i will do what i can do from experience of playing.

Yes, you usually play an even number of games. If you make it to the finals, you play more.
Yes, you play each team before playing one again.
Yes, skill is varied.

[abunkerer]

If the tournament has a high turout then it will be impossible to let every team get a chance to play eachother, so a "round robin" is not always available, but it is the most fair way to run and score a tournament, and the most fun in my opinoin...highest total points wins!

But for most tournamnets you must know all the teams that are playing ahead of time and set up the brackets for the preliminary games. THen randomly assign teams to the brackets making sure everyone plays an equal amout of times. Based on the total points earned, the teams move to semi and/or final rounds.

If a team is a no-show, a team may get a "BYE". THat ensures that the team that would have played the "no-show team" still gets points for the game that they did not play... so you have to make sure to tell all the teams what the "BYE points" will be before hand, it's usually an average of their total scores.

[VFX_Fenix]

Depending on how many teams you have register (and pay) will determine if you run a round robin style or use divisions to generate smaller sub groups with the top X teams advancing to the semi-Finals.

Scenario - 21 rookie teams + 10 nov teams

Rookies will be broken up so they play no fewer than say, 6 games

Break the Rookies into 3 divisions of 7 teams each. Top 2 from each division advance to Semis , from there the top 2 move on to the finals. Winnah!

Nov division plays 8 games, top 4 move on to semi's then normal round robin, etc. etc. etc.

You can also just have one massive open division where everyone plays say, 10 games, and then the top teams are pulled for the finals from that pool.

It's all dependent uppon how many fields you have avalible to you. Advise is NOT to schedule teams so they'll be playing within 30 minutes of their last game, that's a courtesy to the players and whom ever's with them. Generally you should be able to knock out all your pre-lims before lunch around 1 or 2 PM (provided you start at 7:45-8:00 AM and you don't have a rediculous turn out). Best if you can run more than 2 fields, the more the better, it'll help you knock out those games faster, but will cost more for staffing.

BYE's as noted above for open slots or no-show teams, Max points awarded for forfitures, blah, www.nppl.tv will give you a step by step of how to run a tournament if you look in the NPPL rules.

[Tao]

Hey for anyone here that has run a tourney before ...

What method do you use to setup your schedule? Assuming you have multiple fields how do you go about drawing up who plays who and when.

Like --

Does each team play a even number of games on each field?
Do you try to ensure each team plays another team once before playing them again?
Do you allow the various skill levels to play against each other?

etc ...

Thanks for any assistance you can provide me.

Aaron

It depends of cource how big your tourney is. A small tourney 5 teams or so would be round robin and skill levels would have to be mixed I guess...but I will assume a larger tourney:

It is best as we can imagine that round robin is the best test of each team compared to every one in a group. But taking it to an extreme say 100 teams we don't have time even for 1 team to have 99 games.

A guideline I like to use is how many times can the amount of teams be divided by 2= number of games each team needs to play at the minimum. i.e. 12 teams= 3 games each. This is based on swiss style where the winners get paired up against each other until there is only one person undefeated (assuming no ties).

Anyway it is crucial that all teams play an even number of games. Wether you use win/loss/draw or points this will have a lopsided effect. If there is an odd number of teams you could need to give a "buy" out each round, but if you spend time doing your schedule this should not happen. Also there is no point for two teams to play each other twice (not considering finals obviously). I have played in tourneys where we played everyone once and one rematch (for no purpose really). Up to round robin is good enough.

As for mixing skill levels I discourage this. I have attended (large) tourneys where the only stipulation for entry into either division was that the less experienced division didn't have nearly as good of prizes. So there is one team who can beat most (possible not all) of the more experienced teams who always cleans up in the junior division. They may not have won anything other than a single case of paint in the better division but they are happy to take a bit more home (even if it is only a couple of 3000psi tanks with some paint) being guaranteed to win the junior division. If I were running that tourney I would make some guidelines or else I wouldn't have a junior division after awhile.

Well in short, your question is a little complicated :P

[lopxtc]

Well I guess I should have made it a little more clear LOL .. Ive been playing tournaments for awhile so I know all of that lol

What I should have said is -- How do you draw up your schedules.

I have been writing a program for running tournaments and while I am mostly finished I am stuck on the logic for creating the schedule. I want it to be able to create the playing schedule and the logic for it is killing me.

Variables that I am trying to pin down ...

1) Do you allow teams to play outside of their skill level, if so how many up or how many low do you allow.

2) Is it prefered that the teams play each team at least once before playing a team again. Obviously if its only 8 rounds and you have 50 teams this wont happen but if you have 8 rounds with 6 teams in rookie (five possible unique matches) and then 6 teams in novice you could have the skill levels mingle for the three matchs left over or have the skill levels repeat matches.

3) Do you assign games to fields after you have figured out the match ups, and then do you try to keep it even number of games played on each ...

Basically Im trying to see if there is a common theme in all of that, try to eliminate variables if at all possible.

Aaron

[Tao]

Well I guess I should have made it a little more clear LOL .. Ive been playing tournaments for awhile so I know all of that lol

What I should have said is -- How do you draw up your schedules.

I have been writing a program for running tournaments and while I am mostly finished I am stuck on the logic for creating the schedule. I want it to be able to create the playing schedule and the logic for it is killing me.

Variables that I am trying to pin down ...

1) Do you allow teams to play outside of their skill level, if so how many up or how many low do you allow.

2) Is it prefered that the teams play each team at least once before playing a team again. Obviously if its only 8 rounds and you have 50 teams this wont happen but if you have 8 rounds with 6 teams in rookie (five possible unique matches) and then 6 teams in novice you could have the skill levels mingle for the three matchs left over or have the skill levels repeat matches.

3) Do you assign games to fields after you have figured out the match ups, and then do you try to keep it even number of games played on each ...

Basically Im trying to see if there is a common theme in all of that, try to eliminate variables if at all possible.

Aaron

Ah I may be able to help you there... Are you using java or what? (If you are using java I could send code back and forth with you)

1) I would treat the two differnt skill levels as two seperate divisions i.e. two seperate tourneys played at the same time. Else if there is not enough people for two seperate tournaments I would not give any speacialy benifits. but...

First I would create an array (or better an object) of teams, and then an array of games.
I would first sort the array of teams with the more skilled players at the top and the less at the bottom (2 groups).
The I would randomly mix the selection of teams for each group (keeping the more experienced still at the top).

Then I would schedule games for each team starting with the team below them in the array. but I would not allow it to schedule a skilled team against a non skilled team until they are scheduled against all skilled teams. If they have been scheduled against all of their peers I would pare them up with a RANDOM novice who has not been pared with a skilled team yet(otherwise the top 1 or 2 on the novice list will get to play all skilled teams.)
Then I would assign the games to the novices(I would write out the code but it would take awhile.)

So:
schedule array (10 teams, 3 skilled, 7 novice, 3 fields)

//round 1
0 skilled1 vs skilled 2
(skilled 3 vs skilled 1) would be scheduled but team 1 is already playing so bumped back 3 spaces in schedule array(next round) or better: bumped back 6 (2 rounds: no back to back games.)
1 novice1 vs novice 2
2 novice 3 vs novice 4

//round 2
3 novice 5 vs novice6
4 novice 7 vs novice 1
5 skilled 2 vs skilled 3

//round3
6 skilled 3 vs skilled 1(bumbed back 6 spaces)
7 novice 2 vs novice 3
8 novice 4 vs novice 5
...

2) There is a logic error in the above idea since it would not allow you to schedule the same match up twice. An idea would be to consider the "rematches" as a second round to the tournament (do a new set of pairings).

3)I would assign games to fields by taking the game in the first game in the schedule array and assigning it to the first field. The second field would contain the next game which is not against another team already on a field.

Am I understandable?? Probably not :P

[lopxtc]

Yeah I am using Java ... using Swing for the interface and having it write XML files for the configurations so that past tourneys can be saved and reloaded for reference.

What you are talking about is kind of what I was thinking of last night, but havent had the time to write it down yet on paper to start figuring it out.

My idea is to write a program that can be used for small fields and bigger fields and then release it for free. There are programs out there but you have to pay for almost all of them and most are not 100% setup to run a tournament.

What I want is to have be able to read the config and then when you click on the launch button it will fire off one screen for each field and you can then enter in the points for each round and have something that can keep a running track instead of writing it all on paper.

I could have it done in a week using PHP and MySQL but I want this program to be something anyone can use without having to setup apache or a mysql database. Using Java to run it, and XML files for the saving of tourny configs its pretty much setup to run on WinBlow$, Mac OSX, and any Unix flavor you want it to run on.

Aaron

[Tao]

ah.
Well I am not the best a graphical interfaces or file writing other than siple text but if you want you can send me the part of the code for schedluling and I can take a look at it.