tournament styles?

[Joey9Fingers]

Hey guys, we are talking about hosting our 1st tournament for the locals, so we see what kind of GAME my townies have before we invite the big boys from the city to play. My question is this, where can I look up different formats & rules, or what are some of the favorite/best set ups? I'm thinking kindof a "casual flow" type tourney....maybe pick 5 games out of the line up.... each player plays each table 2 times....highest score out of the two sticks & then once all 5 tables have been played each player would then have a combined score......Highest combined scores win. Am I making mine own 'ish up here or is this a format that exists & I just don't know what to call it?

[Opto]

The easiest way to run one is probably to do a head to head, double elimination bracket.

http://download.cnet.com/ALJ-Tournament ... 20463.html

Write down the names of the machines on paper or poker chips and draw them out of a hat to call the head to head matches. If you don' have very many players, you can do it best 2 out of 3. If you have more than 16, it'll take at least 3 hours in single game format.

[Dropshot]

DO NOT DO ADD THE SCORES.

Bad bad bad. Games like AFM, or Indiana Jones or any billion point game completely ruins a great game on say Arabian Nights where 20 million would be a good score.

Head to head is the best, easiest way to start things off. Or Casual Flow.

[Joey9Fingers]

Okay, I hear you guys loud & clear! Add a score format sucks! The problem with drawing for machine, some of the games are GREAT(TZ HS) Others, not so much... Data East Simpsons, F-14. I Think I can get a local guy to let me bring his Taxi in here for an event & MAYBE his Evira & the party monsters. I would just HATE to draw for machine & end up having to play our COMET!

[Opto]

How many "good" machines do you feel you have? How many local folk do expect to show up?

2 or 3 machines are enough if you have less than 16 people. If you have more you can always keep one or two of the crappier games in early on, then take them out of the drawing pool when it's down to less people.

[Dropshot]

F-14 is a great game!

You can have everyone play each machine and use their scores as a ranking system but instead of using the actual score you give a point value based on that score. So if there are 10 people playing who ever has the highest score gets 15pts, 2nd 12pts, 3rd 10pts, 4th 9pts, 5th 8pts.... then you can add up all the boints across each machine. So if there were 5 machines and a player had the best score on all the machines they would have 75pts. You can then have that be the end/winner or you could take the top 4 players and have them play 3 4 player games. highest score on each game gets 4 lbs, 2nd 2pts, 3rd 1pt 4th 0pts. After the 3 games whoever has the most boints is the winner.

With that format everyone will get a chance to play every game. Let them play each game twice and they can keep their better score even.

[nhm]

What the hell is wrong with Comet?! I love rockin' me some million point shots.

[JeffK]

no talking shit on f-14, general yagov might hear

[Joey9Fingers]

Okay.....in all fairness, let me admit that the problems I have with/feeling towards some of my machines most likely has aA LOT to do with the fact that I just don't have them dialed in! Comet can be alot of fun, agreed, but it is such a different game than Twilight zone(not better or worse, different!) And if I have people draw for machine & not play them all, that just seems like an unbalanced tournament to me personally! F-14 is a fun game, but I am having issues with the machine....all of which will be planned to be fixed BEFORE ANY tournament, even if it's just for the local yokels! As far as how many people might show up, thats hard to say. There hasn't been ANYTHING near a pinball tournament in my area in over a decade! Dropshot, I appreciate the input....but isn't that just basically an add a score tournament, but doing boints? I guess I see the reasoning, some guy gets a billion boints on TZ, he only gets 15 boints for high score....which any other player could equal out by getting high score on ANY other machine & getting an equal amount of boints for their high score round.....okay, sorry for talking crap....makes sense now that I typed it out! 16 hour days 6 days a week are catching up with me! Here are the machines we have right now, some have issues, but that aside....if I were to pick say 5 of these & then have a 6th random machine that everone had to play to do the ranking....what would you guys hope/like to see in a tournament set up if you were going to one....

Batman (data east)
Simpsons (data east)
Check Point (data east)
Back to the future (data east)
Secret Service (data East)

Fire Power (pretty worn play field, but no issues with play)
Black out (needs Repair)
Special Force (bally)
Comet
Pin-Bot
Road Kings
High Speed
Black Knight 2K
F-14
Twilight Zone

[Opto]

With a 4+ hour drive, it's gonna be hard to motivate people to get down there . . . BUT, if you can build you local scene up a bit by throwing regular smaller tournaments, someoday maybe you could throw a *major* and get people from Eugene to come down and maybe even a few portlanders.

The guys in Eugene did a good job of this last summer. Had a few smaller things after they opened and garnered local interest. Then they threw a HERB style major and got people to come in from out of town - you could follow their lead.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1233

HERB Style is the format for Rose City Showdown NW Oh-pin and NW Pinball Championships. Basically what Dropshot described up above only you can keep buying entries. If you think you want to do something like it someday, I would strongly suggest coming up for Showdown - even if it's just on Saturday to see how it works.

First things first though - cut your chops on some local stuff - Head to head is very easy - who cares if you draw Comet????? Both players have to play the same machine . . . Or better yet - only use 3 or 4 of your best working machines when you're drawing matches. You don't need 12 machines for a 15 person head to head tournamnet. 4 is PLENTY - we have 30 person tournaments on 4 machines all the time.

Oh and I wanna play some SPECIAL FORCE!!!

[TheStandardNate]

Special Force is pretty awesome. I will come to your tournament Mr missing digit if it is for WPPR boints. I am a boints whore. I just started playing in tournaments about 8 months ago and I have had the most fun at the casul flow style tounaments and head to head.

[Joey9Fingers]

Opto, thanks for all the advice. I am deffinatly NOT trying to draw you guys in for this or any of the future tournaments for a while. My goal at this point is to get the locals into it as much as possible. I knoe there are a few guys throwing up 1.2-1.5 BILLION on TOM around town, so I want those guys here! The reason I post on here, besides the fact you gays seem to be the shit!, is for advice mostly! Thanks for the input & I think I'lll work up a head to head 4 machine soon as a weekly & then a monthly HERB style. I really want to make it up for next months tourney, but I cant leave my business 2 week ends in a row & I have plans for the week after the tourney! Alas.....I will make it to the ship, 9 9fingers an', all....someday!