Replying to post in https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=196437
Arrigo II:
Hi and thanks jjthejetplane246 for organising this! I have a question/suggestion.
Is Stage 2 planned to be played in a single week as it was last year?
As a spectator, I didn't enjoy that as much as I would if it were more diluted - I mean, 2+ months of preparation and then everything ends so abruptly?
Maybe more importantly, I would have certainly hated to have to play so many simultaneous games in case I had qualified myself. Of course the fact that it was in August - big holiday season in many parts of the world- wouldn't have helped.
What do other players think about this? If it's technically possible and if it's not only a concern of mine, I would suggest to play Stage 2 at 1 game per week as it is with Stage 1: that's what I would see as an appropriate ending for such a magnificent tournament.
My Response:
hey Arrigo, thx for bringing this up. I appreciate the concern, and I think it's a valid one.
When I was setting this tournament up initially, I set it up exactly as you mentioned. Unfortuantely, Round Robin (as the BGA format) has to be played simultaneously. The only way to break it out over multiple sessions is to make it a 7-round Swiss where players are not to be paired with players that they had played before. That way, everyone would be guaranteed to play each other and it would effectively mimic a Round Robin. However, my new concern with this is with players dropping. I thought it was much more likely that players would drop if they lost their first few games and didn’t want to slug it out for another 4-5 weeks. A single player dropping would completely ruin the standings/result of the tournament. I felt like having all of the games in a single week would make this much less likely to occur. It also makes collusion much less likely when games are simultaneous. I’m not insinuating that any of our top players would do this, but it’s best to be safe when designing large tournaments like this.
On the point of have all the games in one week, I understand it’s a very fast way to end the tournament. You play one game a week for 10 weeks (12 this year), and then boom, you make top-8 and have to play 7 games against top competition in a single week. I’d be curious to hear what the previous top-8 felt about this experience, and I’ll actually take an action item here to go and poll them.
Arrigo II:
Hi and thanks jjthejetplane246 for organising this! I have a question/suggestion.
Is Stage 2 planned to be played in a single week as it was last year?
As a spectator, I didn't enjoy that as much as I would if it were more diluted - I mean, 2+ months of preparation and then everything ends so abruptly?
Maybe more importantly, I would have certainly hated to have to play so many simultaneous games in case I had qualified myself. Of course the fact that it was in August - big holiday season in many parts of the world- wouldn't have helped.
What do other players think about this? If it's technically possible and if it's not only a concern of mine, I would suggest to play Stage 2 at 1 game per week as it is with Stage 1: that's what I would see as an appropriate ending for such a magnificent tournament.
My Response:
hey Arrigo, thx for bringing this up. I appreciate the concern, and I think it's a valid one.
When I was setting this tournament up initially, I set it up exactly as you mentioned. Unfortuantely, Round Robin (as the BGA format) has to be played simultaneously. The only way to break it out over multiple sessions is to make it a 7-round Swiss where players are not to be paired with players that they had played before. That way, everyone would be guaranteed to play each other and it would effectively mimic a Round Robin. However, my new concern with this is with players dropping. I thought it was much more likely that players would drop if they lost their first few games and didn’t want to slug it out for another 4-5 weeks. A single player dropping would completely ruin the standings/result of the tournament. I felt like having all of the games in a single week would make this much less likely to occur. It also makes collusion much less likely when games are simultaneous. I’m not insinuating that any of our top players would do this, but it’s best to be safe when designing large tournaments like this.
On the point of have all the games in one week, I understand it’s a very fast way to end the tournament. You play one game a week for 10 weeks (12 this year), and then boom, you make top-8 and have to play 7 games against top competition in a single week. I’d be curious to hear what the previous top-8 felt about this experience, and I’ll actually take an action item here to go and poll them.
