Azul Official World Championship: registration is open!

[squarerootofthree]

So, has BGA weighed in on whether people are allowed to register to multiple tournaments? I don't blame the individuals since there's no guidance at the present time from the organizers but I sure think that sounds against the spirit of the tournament. And what happens if the same person manages to win multiple tourneys? Unlikely but it could happen with some of the best players here.

I didn't bother pulling the full player lists, but of the players with ELO >600, there are a total of 42 players (hat tip to Douglas Adams) registered across the currently open tournaments. 26 of those players (62%) have registered to multiple tourneys and 38% of those have registered to all four tourneys so far.

Again, not trying to cast blame here. I don't see any rules currently preventing it. Just genuinely curious if this was planned as allowable by BGA organizers all along, which would be very surprising to me.

Also, note: I have no skin in this game and am not good enough to be interested in trying the tourney. So I'm not complaining Just genuinely curious as I follow along from the sidelines.

[AsmodeeRob]

Hello from Asmodee Organized Play,

Some quick answers to questions:

Players may enter multiple tournaments but, are only eligible for the trip once. On the off chance you were to win more than one tournament the trip would be offered to the second place finisher by default.

The time zones for the tournaments were based on where the most people were currently playing Azul by time zone. We would like players to only register for tournaments based near their home time zone but we are not limiting participation by time zone (some people are night owls or early risers). As noted, the tournaments are open to worldwide participation and there are more than 2,000 possible entrants each weekend. We felt this gave ample opportunity for everyone to join the championship.

Turn-based play was chosen to promote participation. Real-time events tend to have a lot of dropouts.

Please remember there will be 4 more tournaments opening for registration next Monday. We hope that anyone who was not able to participate in these first tournaments will take the opportunity to sign up for the next ones.

Hope this helps!

[SpongeCake]

There aren't 2000 possible entries each weekend There is 512, as most players registered for all the tournaments. I work nights so I missed the post and could only enter one tournament as everyone had already entered in triplicate on the closest to EU time zones.

[Essie38]

Doesn’t seem fair that some people can register multiple times and others don’t even get the chance to register at all..?

[Joseph2302]

Doesn’t seem fair that some people can register multiple times and others don’t even get the chance to register at all..?

Agreed, seems downright ridiculous. Let people play only 1 qualifying tournament each, instead of letting a small minority of people play them all....

[cosmosis]

Yeah, looking through these comments I'm surprised people can register for multiple tournaments.

I guess now people will wait for the 29th to submit to the next 4 tournaments, but those that registered early might have 8 chances to win.

We would like players to only register for tournaments based near their home time zone but we are not limiting participation by time zone

Obviously players will take any edge they can when there are actual prizes on the line. Especially if it's turn-based, then time zone doesn't matter too much and signing up for every tournament makes sense. I also have nothing against the players who do this, they just did what was incentivized by the way the tournament was set up.

I'll try signing up on the 29th but I expect it to be a bit of a roulette, especially since the people who filled up the previous tournaments will likely register again.

I'm curious how many distinct players this tournament will actually get.

[themonarch]

"Turn-based play was chosen to promote participation. Real-time events tend to have a lot of dropouts." But, somehow you can sign-up for multiple regions and time-slots? This makes the turn-based part statement seem silly. Most players can't sign-up at all. What happened with this tournament roll-out? Ideally, 4,000 people could play (512 * 8 tournaments), but realistically it's look like only 500-1000 are going to play since you can just mass sign-up.

[OhNoesHS]

36 hours is not enough time for a turn based match, players should have been given several days for time banks and qualifiers should have started months ago.

I will try to make schedules with my opponents to finish our games without running out of time.

So many people are going to be timed out, these qualifiers will be a disaster

[simtt]

Come on organizers, do something before too late.

Right now you are only making the earliest 300-ish participants happy and frustrating hundreds or even thousands of other potential participants who missed and will miss the chance to join the competition. The loss is as big as the popularity of AZUL.

Just make people commit to only fixed number of tourments could fix it (easily).

[chat1978]

Only one tournament still had room at this moment and I'm sorry to say it wasn't EU that is where I'm from. I guess most people registered multiple times.