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BGonline.org Forums
Tournament format+schedule -- proposal
Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Sunday, 9 November 2008, at 3:59 p.m.
Conditions: 64 player weekend Open tournament with Main, Progressive Consolation, and Progressive Last Chance.
Goals: eliminate unscheduled, unknown length time delays, provide an equitable distribution of prize moneys, optimize playing time, and provide sufficient rest time for all.
Parameters:
All matches except finals of Consolation and Semifinals and finals of Main will be scheduled at 2 hour intervals. All matches (regardless of bracket) will be 9-points in length except for finals of Consolation, Semifinals and finals of Main, and QF, SF and finals of LC. All matches will be clocked @12s/move + 2 min./matchpoint reserve time (for each player). (Note: breaks can be taken during a match but the player who chooses to take the break will have his/her clock running during the break.)
Details:
1) Calcutta Auction will be held on Friday night. No door prizes, just business. One hour will be allotted for the auction and that includes some time for buybacks. Draw will be conducted after the auction. Draw will be posted on Friday night, with a public announcement that the draw is being posted and Calcutta buybacks from that point on will only be at the option of the shareholders. (I.e. guaranteed buyback period ends.)
1a) Provisions: players not present are not guaranteed a buyback. Players need not arrive until Saturday. If a player is auctioned and then fails to show up on Saturday, his Calcutta team share owners will be refunded equitably from the Calcutta pool.
2) Play commences at 10:00 AM on Saturday. Round numbers and starting times:
Sat: #1-10AM. #2-12PM. #3-2PM. #4-4PM. (2 hr dinner break 6-8 PM). #5-8 PM. #6-10 PM. (Room locked at 12:15 AM.)
Sun: #7-10AM. #8-12PM. #9-1:30PM. #10-3PM.
3) Progressive nature of non-main brackets is continuous. Loser in first round of main commence consolation in round 2 (i.e. immediately). Losers in first round of Consolation begin Last Chance in round 3 (i.e. immediately).
4) Prize money (after rake) is distributed as follows:
Main (64%) - winner 32%; runnerup 16%; 3rd/4th 8%.
Consolation (24%) - winner 16%; runnerup 8%.
Last Chance (12%) - winner 9.5%; 9th place 2.5%.
OK, what the heck is "9th place"?? As it turns out, for a 64-bracket with prompt progression of main-->consolation-->LC and payouts of 4 places in main and 2 places in Consolation, at the end of round 7 the losing semifinalists from the Consolation feed into the LC and join the SEVEN remaining players who have filtered down the earlier part of the LC. 7+2 = 9, a bad number for bracketing. (Recall there are no time delays so all nine players are present and ready to begin the next round.) Players (in a secret ballot) feed director a slip of paper saying whether or not s/he is participating in a random draw for 9th place (2.5% of the pool meaning original entry + some extra). If one or more volunteers for 9th, a random draw among those volunteers determines the 9th place finisher and the eight remianing players begin round 8. If NO ONE volunteers, all nine names go into the hat and the random draw determines the 9th place finisher and the eight LC quarterfinalists.
5) Matchlengths: As mentioned above, all matchlengths in all divisions are 9 points with the following exceptions: Semifinals of Main, beginning at 8 PM on Saturday, are 13-points each. Final of Main, beginning at 11 AM (*) on Sunday, is 17-points in length. Final of Consolation, beginning at Noon on Sunday, is 13-points in length. Last three rounds of LC (tournament rounds 8, 9, 10) are 7-points in length. (Yes, the last three rounds of the LC are the shortest length matches of the tournament.)
6) Penalties for tardiness: 5 minutes after the scheduled starting time, clocks must be running. If exactly one player is present his opponent's clock will be running. If neither player is present the staff will start the clocks and adjust appropriately when the first player arrives.
7) Miscellaneous: all matches will have assigned seating.
8) Answers to some anticipated questions:
What about side events? Friday will have events which are guaranteed to end on Friday. BUT that doesn't rule out (for example), Masters and/or Doubles. Here is how that could work. Brackets of four players (four teams in case of Doubles) are made. Winner of the bracket (after appropriate rake) takes all. On Sunday, a new completely new (larger) bracket is begun with fresh buy-ins. These are open to anyone no longer alive in the Open (and Intermediate, etc.). Players who won brackets on Friday can choose to re-invest or not. Players not involved in Friday's mini-brackets can still enter on Sunday. This is somewhat similar to a blitz except the qualifying stands alone and the "playoffs" stand alone. (8- or even 16- bracket events on Friday could be conducted with afternoon starting times. But realistically only two matches should be scheduled after dinner so that play can begin on Saturday AM after reasonable time for sleep.
Is 2 hours per round enough time? That might be tight. One alternate schedule is to start at 9 AM (picks up four 15 minute chunks) and shorten the dinnerbreak to 1:45 (another 15 minute) and run all rounds on Saturday for 2:15. Then On Sunday start earlier (9:30 or 9:45) and add 15 minutes to the first (and actually, only) 9-point round that day.
Can the tournament still accommodate other divisions (e.g. Advanced/Interm. and Beginner)? Probably. The now defunct Indy Swiss and the current Madison tournaments have scheduled starting times for matches and a full slate of events for players of all levels.
Who furnishes the clocks? Well, this is still an open question for US events, so maybe we need to wait for that to be resolved. (As most of you know, my rather strong feeling is "the players".)
Because of the 9th place thing, no Calcutta money should go to the LC -- all of it is distributed in the Main and LC. Ditto sidepool (which I'm pretty sure is the standard practice now for sidepool $).
Suppose there is a player (let's call him Kaz Neilaross :) who is really wanting badly to win ABT points and doesn't want to take the chance of finishing 9th in the LC. It might be OK (we should definitely have discussion on this) to 'sweeten' the 9th place pool by tossing in a C-note (for example). But I don't think a player should be allowed to pay off someone to be a volunteer for 9th.
OK, now it's your turn. Will it work? If you think 'no', any tweaks you can recommend?
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