Solstice XXIX Rules Review
benlw...@gmail.com
[First off, this was an extremely well-run tournament. Good fields, a
format that catered to competitive games, and a really great crew of
observers that worked very hard and did their jobs well. All of our
games were observed well by obviously skilled observers. Thanks, Lou/
Adam/Sean/Dusty/Keith/etc]
Rule: 60 seconds between score and pull
[Old Rule: 90 seconds]
Grade: A
This was awesome. When my extended family came out to watch the games,
it was very obvious how much Ultimate was being played, and how much
less stand-around time there was. The game moved really, really
quickly. The observers kept consistent, demanding a pull before 60
seconds.
In reality, we celebrated after scores for as much as 30 seconds, then
got a line in and called a D-play. Once you got used to it, it really
wasn't that big of a change (like the new pick rule, for instance).
If teams were organized well, this time limit could go as low as 20-25
seconds, in my opinion...sure, you would need somewhat larger teams,
but from an entertainment view, this would keep time-between-points on
par with time-between-plays in pro football.
Only reason this wasn't an A+ is that the offense only had to give a
line at 50 seconds...we tried coming out of a huddle just before 50
seconds to confuse the D. It worked (several easy goals on matchup
mistakes and cutters left unguarded). Change this to "O has to give a
line by 40 seconds" and this rule is a huge improvement from an
entertainment/watchability standpoint.
Rule: Games to 21
[Old Rule: To 15, or 13, or even 11 sometimes]
Grade: A-
The minus is because this rule only worked with the 60-second rule in
place. Someone could analyze the score reporting, but I'd be willing
to bet that the same percentage of games were going to cap as in a
similar 90-second laid-back tournament.
We played 7 games to 21...roughly the equivalent of 10 games to 15?
Lot's of playing. 4 games in a day was tough (not that this is a bad
thing).
Rule: 4 Time-Outs per half. Two of these were 2 minutes long, and two
were 20 seconds long.
[Old Rule: 2 TOs per half, everyone huddles for at least 90 seconds on
each TO.]
Grade: A
The quick time-out in flow was good strategically near the endzone,
and minimized long boring huddles. Now, instead of talking strategy
between points, you really only have time for strategy talk when you
take a TO between points (cause of the 60 second rules). More
Ultimate, less talking.
If I was going to continue to let this rule evolve, I would say that
you got 2 on-field TOs per half, and 2 between-point-TOs. The on-field
would be required to be the shorter kind.
Rule: Observers allow minimal discussion
[Old Rule; let the players try to work itself out]
Grade: Incomplete
I only saw this happen once, where an observer decided to step in and
shorten the debate. It was nice to have, and maybe the threat of a
step-in made people hurry up.
There were still a couple of fairly long discussions, but those were
usually after the observers stepped in and had to clarify what they
were ruling on in some pretty elaborate call scenarios (fouls causing
travels, etc). These were very well dealt with, IMO, calmly and
thoroughly. Way better than instant replay delays in the NFL.
Rule: Lou's New Format
Grade: B+
Format junkies and tourney directors out there...Lou's format was
pretty sweet as a way to create more evenly matched games. 3 divisions
of 4 teams. You played everyone in your division, and one team from
each of the other two divisions. Bottom and top teams in divisions
moved up or down for semi's and finals of each.
Many tournaments have started going to segregation of top-tier teams
that are hungry for good games against each other. This is a nice
balance between that demand and the ability to give lower-seeded teams
a chance to compete at their own level, and move up if they perform
well. I expect that we will see more of this format time in the
future.
Rule: Midfield Brick
[Old Rule: 20-yard brick]
Grade: B+
Why not? There were definitely more pulls in bounds, though the pulls
were, on average, not as deep/hangy as in other tournaments. This
seems to me like a clear case of pullers being able to pull in often,
but in a 20-yard-brick system they have a reward system telling them
that going for the perfect pull is the thing to do. Heck, I been
pulling out of bounds intentionally for years...this definitely speeds
up the game.
[funny sidenote; Eli Janin (Rhino/Oregon handler) made a flippant one-
handed stab on a huge, wind-shaky, blade pull in the Final...after
hearing that offsides had been called. Of course, he didn't realize
that, had he dropped it, it still would have been a turnover...pretty
amazing catch. Maybe I should have tried that way to catch pulls
instead...my "two-handed pancake" technology obviously didn't work.]
Overall: Lou's World Rules (Lou Burruss was the architect of these
tourney-specific changes) made the game significantly more watchable
without altering the cost-structure (2 observers per game, same round
times, etc). I think this showed me that the time-between-points is,
more than officiating or rules or talent or anything else, the biggest
single variable in making the game better for fans.
blw
fish
neurodancer
Great stuff, thanks for that post Ben. Even us ancient East Coast
pick up players need to know this stuff.
ND
ahal...@gmail.com
1. The thing that took the longest, even with observers, was player
positioning after a call. There's no way an observer can work out
where every individual player was on the field when there's a call,
but every individual player has input on where their defender offender
was. Even when there was a pick or travel or any call really, once
the call was resolved players still spent time bickering over
positioning.
2. Travel calls: while I don't think they should be active calls by
the observers, I think there should be active rulings; think like a
courtroom: Lawyer: "objection!" Judge: "overruled/sustained!" Done.
Since there's no penalty for the thrower to go to the observer anyway,
I just don't understand why they don't do it every time! Not only are
travels pretty easy to watch for, but all the travel calls and
discussions consisted of: 1. Travel! 2. Heated discussion and some
pantomime reenactments, the content of which changed but never
mattered because finally, after 30 seconds to 1 minute, 3. Go to the
observer. Observer makes a ruling.
This is different than other calls like fouls in that as an observer I
can't change possession of the disc, just where it is. There is value
in players resolving fouls and contests on their own because there are
highly contrasting outcomes, but not with travels. So cut out the
discussion when there are observers around and let (and I'd like to be
clear here) observers make active RULINGS on travel CALLS. *Not*
(repeat: *Not*) make active travel calls, but active rulings. It's
what happens, or should happen anyways.
3. I think the format kudos go to Keith Bucher, who not only redid the
formats for every single division of the tournament *the night before*
due to dropped teams, but has invented very creative tournament
formats that lead to lots of good games and teams seeing good exposure
to teams of their level *at that tournament*. Some teams play better
or worse at tournaments, Keith's format really sorts out where you're
at on the weekend and pits you against similarly skilled teams.
4. The midfield brick rule led to people pulling back their pulls, but
I also saw a lot of shitty pulls from teams not being ready to pull at
55seconds. In the rush to pull before a delay was called the pull
quality was significantly lower than normal. This improved with the
elite teams as the weekend progressed (all of their games were
observed) but the teams that played unobserved games were still
struggling with it during later rounds.
5. Impatient Observers: we were told to give the players 10 seconds or
so to resolve their call before we hurried them along. I interjected
during a discussion between two elite players and asked them to hurry
it along. The guy who made the call responded emphatically "We're
discussing it!" No, you're boring, and there are 70 people waiting
around for you to stop your chat with your defender. The same guy in
a different game refused to start the stall when the offense took more
than 20 seconds put the disc (that was in the endzone) into play.
Huh? I'm really not sure where he was coming from, but he could've
had the count at 4 by the time the guy had a pivot, but decided not
to.
5b. The *worst* part about players delaying the game after a call was
when they would start organizing their team and calling plays and
micromanaging things before the disc was put back into play. In
hindsight I'd empower the observers to call "disc in" to move the game
along once all the teams were set. Instead, once everything with the
call was resolved, there were still folks calling plays and whatnot.
I'm fine if somebody uninvolved with the play wants to organize folks
while the call is being resolved, but it was *lame* when the game was
delayed for play calling after the call was resolved so people could
take advantage of the dead disc.
h
Flo
> Things that struck me with the format and with observing:
>
> 1. The thing that took the longest, even with observers, was player
> positioning after a call. There's no way an observer can work out
> where every individual player was on the field when there's a call,
> but every individual player has input on where their defender offender
> was. Even when there was a pick or travel or any call really, once
> the call was resolved players still spent time bickering over
> positioning.
Yes. I have seen exactly the same. And it gets worse the higher the
stakes are. Finals of Nationals in the open division is the worst
(MUCH worse than semis, say). Players are worried that if they miss a
call, they might be at a disadvantage. And then the same is true for
positioning after a call. Makes for very boring watching.
Is there a solution to this problem short of active referees? And let
me say, I don't think that refs would not really be a good solution---
as you stated it is impossible for a ref to work out every single
position correctly. It would just stop the discussions.
>
> 5b. The *worst* part about players delaying the game after a call was
> when they would start organizing their team and calling plays and
> micromanaging things before the disc was put back into play. In
> hindsight I'd empower the observers to call "disc in" to move the game
> along once all the teams were set. Instead, once everything with the
> call was resolved, there were still folks calling plays and whatnot.
> I'm fine if somebody uninvolved with the play wants to organize folks
> while the call is being resolved, but it was *lame* when the game was
> delayed for play calling after the call was resolved so people could
> take advantage of the dead disc.
>
Completely agree here, too. This one could be solved by a rule: No
communication (including play calls, gestures etc.) about tactics
during a stoppage. And this should apply to all players and non-
players of a team (otherwise you can have a coach calling plays on
every stoppage---nothing gained). I think this could be a very useful
rule change.
Flo.
sco1...@gmail.com
>
> 2. Travel calls: while I don't think they should be active calls by
> the observers, I think there should be active rulings; think like a
> courtroom: Lawyer: "objection!" Judge: "overruled/sustained!" Done.
> Since there's no penalty for the thrower to go to the observer anyway,
> I just don't understand why they don't do it every time! Not only are
there is one difference between having the players resolve travels and
going to the observer every time: if the travel is upheld, making it
essentially
an uncontested offensive violation, then the count comes in at the
number reached +1 (never higher than 9 though). so if the count was
already high, and the thrower feeks he did travel, it's not
necessarily
in his best interest to go to the observer, as a travel/contest brings
the
disc back coming in stallingsix.
good feedback about the other rule changes. i'd be very much in favor
of
experimenting with observers counting down and checking the disc in
after a ruling, which would eliminate most of the micro-managing/play-
calling etc. but i think it might lead to many more "violation" calls
as players start to move too early or want to argue about the starting
position of their opponent.
flo is correct that the finals typically have many more disputes of
this
type than other games, although usually (not always) this occurs
in the first few points of the game and then the teams settle into a
more normal pace for the rest of it.
TIMING: i also like the 60 second-rule - at college nationals this
past year
most teams were ready to go by then anyway. not every point, but i
don't
think it would be a huge adjustment. the 30 s timeouts are
interesting,
though the 2 min. ones seem too long.
OFFSIDES: were teams given the choice of whether to play it or not,
when
the other team was offsides? otherwise i'm not sure how eli put
himself in
danger with the stab grab on that pull. if teams did have the choice,
i'm
curious how the observers did with communicating the violation (to
the
team that was NOT offsides) before the disc got put into play.
overall, great work on the rules/format experimentation!
-gc
Josh Drury
>
> there is one difference between having the players resolve travels and
> going to the observer every time: if the travel is upheld, making it
> essentially
> an uncontested offensive violation, then the count comes in at the
> number reached +1 (never higher than 9 though). so if the count was
> already high, and the thrower feeks he did travel, it's not
> necessarily
> in his best interest to go to the observer, as a travel/contest brings
> the
> disc back coming in stallingsix.
Assuming the thrower is playing honestly and by the rules, there
shouldn't be a difference whether it is observed or not. If they feel
like they did travel, there should be no contest, and the count comes
in at count reached +1 (or 9 if over 8). So the observer ruling
should produce an identical result to what happens when resolved
without observers.
ulticritic
>
> 1. The thing that took the longest, even with observers, was player
> positioning after a call. There's no way an observer can work out
> where every individual player was on the field when there's a call,
> but every individual player has input on where their defender offender
> was. Even when there was a pick or travel or any call really, once
> the call was resolved players still spent time bickering over
> positioning.
Haing the officials step in and position them seems to be the logical
answer here......which might require more than just two.
>
> 2. Travel calls: while I don't think they should be active calls by
> the observers, I think there should be active rulings; think like a
> courtroom: Lawyer: "objection!" Judge: "overruled/sustained!" Done.
the IRS (immediate referal system), been screamin it for years. Both
obvious and logical. This is where the official really has to step in
and take control of the game. A loud deep voice would help in this
instance (even the use of a whistle.........of which, did they use
whistles at this event???)
> Since there's no penalty for the thrower to go to the observer anyway,
> I just don't understand why they don't do it every time! Not only are
> travels pretty easy to watch for, but all the travel calls and
> discussions consisted of: 1. Travel! 2. Heated discussion and some
> pantomime reenactments, the content of which changed but never
> mattered because finally, after 30 seconds to 1 minute, 3. Go to the
> observer. Observer makes a ruling.
> This is different than other calls like fouls in that as an observer I
> can't change possession of the disc, just where it is. There is value
What value??? the decision will always go to the official (unless
uncontested obviously) It seems that there would always only be one of
two outcomes......so why not just cut to the chase?
> in players resolving fouls and contests on their own because there are
> highly contrasting outcomes, but not with travels. So cut out the
> discussion when there are observers around and let (and I'd like to be
> clear here) observers make active RULINGS on travel CALLS. *Not*
> (repeat: *Not*) make active travel calls, but active rulings. It's
> what happens, or should happen anyways.
I dont see why the IRS couldnt also be used on fouls.......baby steps
i guess
>
> 3. I think the format kudos go to Keith Bucher, who not only redid the
> formats for every single division of the tournament *the night before*
> due to dropped teams, but has invented very creative tournament
> formats that lead to lots of good games and teams seeing good exposure
> to teams of their level *at that tournament*. Some teams play better
> or worse at tournaments, Keith's format really sorts out where you're
> at on the weekend and pits you against similarly skilled teams.
boulder 4th of july event actually used a version of this back in the
day.
>
> 4. The midfield brick rule led to people pulling back their pulls, but
> I also saw a lot of shitty pulls from teams not being ready to pull at
> 55seconds. In the rush to pull before a delay was called the pull
> quality was significantly lower than normal. This improved with the
> elite teams as the weekend progressed (all of their games were
> observed) but the teams that played unobserved games were still
> struggling with it during later rounds.
seems like "getting used to it" would be the key. I like blw's
insight on lowering the time limit with greater roster size for
further improving entertainment value. Obviously a non playing coach
would help in facilitating this time constraint as well.
>
> 5. Impatient Observers: we were told to give the players 10 seconds or
> so to resolve their call before we hurried them along. I interjected
> during a discussion between two elite players and asked them to hurry
> it along. The guy who made the call responded emphatically "We're
> discussing it!" No, you're boring, and there are 70 people waiting
> around for you to stop your chat with your defender. The same guy in
> a different game refused to start the stall when the offense took more
> than 20 seconds put the disc (that was in the endzone) into play.
> Huh? I'm really not sure where he was coming from, but he could've
> had the count at 4 by the time the guy had a pivot, but decided not
> to.
officials (much better name than observers, more descriptive and more
comprimising to those repulsed by the r-word) should have the power to
take control of any game situation. They should control all time
constraints (including stall counts) for this very
reason.......disgruntal players.
>
> 5b. The *worst* part about players delaying the game after a call was
> when they would start organizing their team and calling plays and
> micromanaging things before the disc was put back into play. In
> hindsight I'd empower the observers to call "disc in" to move the game
> along once all the teams were set. Instead, once everything with the
> call was resolved, there were still folks calling plays and whatnot.
> I'm fine if somebody uninvolved with the play wants to organize folks
> while the call is being resolved, but it was *lame* when the game was
> delayed for play calling after the call was resolved so people could
> take advantage of the dead disc.
again, officials must be givin enough power to step in and take
control. Nothing gets the attention of all like a loud and sharp blow
of a whistle. Officials should also control the timing and act of
checking the disc back into play this way there is now allowance for
play calling. The only thing that should be taking place during the
down time of a call is the process of resolving the dispute and if it
is immediate then players and teams will have to quicken there play
call process to fit the referal system.....not the other way around.
>
> h
way to do the upa's job solstice. I say you guys should get some
grant money for research and development. I'm assuming the acting
officials got some type of payoff. If not they should. Hook em up
upa.
Reid K
i thought i'd offer up another perspective.
I was a little skeptical at first, and wasn't sure how i felt about A4
and B4 automatically being eliminated. As it turns out, neither team
here was the least bit interested in playing another game (or so it
seemed to me), so that worked out ok.
Rule: 60 seconds in between points.
In terms of watchability and keeping the game moving, this rule is
fantastic. The game definetely moved at a faster pace, and it was
necessary if games were to be played to anything above 15. In terms
of calling a D-line after a score, our team (Voodoo) still had some
trouble, even by our third game. I think some of this is due to the
fact that we had a lot of roster changes from last year, people were
out with injuries or missing, and this was our first game as a team.
Maybe if we tried this later in the season when our lines were more in
place, this woldn't have been much of a problem. As far as deciding
what defense to run, it was pretty much impossible to go man-to-man
without having to simply go straight across. an occasional switch
could be made, but that didn't happen that often. Calling junk
defense was still pretty easy though. Unlike Ben, i dont see how this
could possibly go lower than 60 seconds without it creating a
disadvantage for the defense.
Rule: Games to 21
A good idea, but is it feasable? Only two types of game made it to 21
all weekend: games featuring Sockeye, and games between A and C tier
teams. Every other game was capped. While some of this might be
attributable to the fact that teams' offenses are still not fully
developed in June, do we want a system in place where a majority of
games get capped? Would 19 be a better score? On a related note, i
liked that there was only a soft cap in place, and no hard cap. this
meant the winning team had to score the final goal.
Rule: midfield brick
As the main puller for my team, l liked this rule. Partly because i'm
pretty good about keeping my pulls in bounds, and partly because it
speeds up the game. Oddly enough, i think my pulls actually were
better more often than not when Lou or Adam told me to pull before i
was ready. I'm assuming this is because i was just able to grip it
and rip it without overthinking it, especially on the upwinders.
I'm still not completely sold on the format of the tournament, but
thats mainly because its onle been run once, and thats a fairly small
sample size. I do think the idea of power pools at tournaments like
this is a smart idea, because in the end, at this point in the season,
a teams number one goal is to get as many good games in as possible.
Burr
I have to add. But I have gotten a ton of feedback that I'd like to
share with yall, as well as my own thoughts. Here goes:
Almost all of my observations come from observing. The only game I
watched as a spectator was the finals (I recused myself) and
truthfully I spent most of the time playing with my daughter and
chatting up passing Sockeye players, so most of what I say will come
from earlier games.
My motivation: To make ultimate more watchable (by speeding the pace)
without altering the fundamental nature of the game.
60 seconds between points: I had only one person say that 60 seconds
was too fast. Teams typically struggled with it the first half they
played, dealt with it the second half and then were fine. By the end,
most teams were ready and on the line before I'd even signaled the 20
second warning. I didn't witness Sockeye's coming out of the huddle
right before the 10 second warning, but I did get a complaint about
it. The complaining team did say that after they asked Sockeye to
stop, they did.
Overall: This is the way to go; Ben's modification of o-set at 40,
instead of 50, seems like an appropriate adjustment.
Brick at midfield: Everyone's reaction was initial shock followed by
acceptance. I'm not sure how popular this rule was because it takes a
lot of the joy out of pulling. It was a definate plus for the
offense. There were far, far more outside-in, blading pulls than
usual and far fewer huge inside-out pulls. (I made this change after
running some analysis on dead time during ultimate games and the brick
is the worst. You've already had the between points break and then
you and at least a minute as the offense walks to the disc, sets up,
etc.)
Overall: Keep it, but not popular with pullers.
Offsides: I had very few comments of any kind on this one. We did
have a mix up in the Voodoo-Invictus game. I signaled offsides on
Invictus and then watched the Voodoo handlers to see if they wanted to
accept the offsides. In doing so, I missed Voodoo's downfield cutter
who was signalling to accept the offsides. Voodoo's handlers played
it, then play stopped after one pass: what do we do? After consulting
with Keith, we decided to say "sorry, we missed it" to the Voodoo guy
and play it from where it was.
It was very rare for teams to be offsides more than one or two times.
The only thing more time consuming than a brick is the repull rule.
That is the worst. Oh yeah, all the teams wanted to know if they'd
get a warning on their first offsides. No. Why have a warning?
Overall: Keep the penalty, but consider having it be automatically
enforced.
Damn, I got to go to work. I actually have something interesting and
new to say about the game length (21), the format (divisions vs.
pools) and getting enough observers.
Lou
ulticritic
> My motivation: To make ultimate more watchable (by speeding the pace)
> without altering the fundamental nature of the game.
So what is it that actually intales "altering the fundamental nature
of the game"? Or even better, what IS the "fundamental nature of the
game"? Throw, run, catch, defend, score? Is self officiation
considered to be part of the fundamental nature of the game? If so,
thats queer. When i think of what the fundamental nature of
basketball is i dont nessisarily diferentiate that nature based on it
being pick up at the school yard campared to the highest levels of nba
comp. To me its all dribble, pass, shoot, defend, score. Not trying
to rag you burr, just that some hardcore traditionalists might think
that incorperating observers IS in fact altering the fundemental
nature of the game (the wfdf stance, right?). Think about it, if
players can self officiate, wouldnt/shouldnt they be able to self
regulate (time constraints, that is). Just tryin to provoke some
thought, insight and dialouge. Any hardcore traditionalists care to
chime in here.
>
> 60 seconds between points: I had only one person say that 60 seconds
> was too fast. Teams typically struggled with it the first half they
> played, dealt with it the second half and then were fine. By the end,
> most teams were ready and on the line before I'd even signaled the 20
> second warning. I didn't witness Sockeye's coming out of the huddle
> right before the 10 second warning, but I did get a complaint about
> it. The complaining team did say that after they asked Sockeye to
> stop, they did.
ya cant just ask a team to quit doing somthing that isnt against the
rules though. Got to hand it to em, them sockey guys are some fart
smellas though.
> Overall: This is the way to go; Ben's modification of o-set at 40,
> instead of 50, seems like an appropriate adjustment.
seen
>
> Brick at midfield: Everyone's reaction was initial shock followed by
> acceptance. I'm not sure how popular this rule was because it takes a
> lot of the joy out of pulling. It was a definate plus for the
> offense. There were far, far more outside-in, blading pulls than
> usual and far fewer huge inside-out pulls. (I made this change after
> running some analysis on dead time during ultimate games and the brick
> is the worst. You've already had the between points break and then
> you and at least a minute as the offense walks to the disc, sets up,
> etc.)
> Overall: Keep it, but not popular with pullers.
Yea, personally i think there is alot of beauty in a good flat inside
out pull. Seems like there could be some kind of technicality to
deter those blade/roller pulls.......but what?????
>
> Offsides: I had very few comments of any kind on this one. We did
> have a mix up in the Voodoo-Invictus game. I signaled offsides on
> Invictus and then watched the Voodoo handlers to see if they wanted to
> accept the offsides. In doing so, I missed Voodoo's downfield cutter
> who was signalling to accept the offsides. Voodoo's handlers played
> it, then play stopped after one pass: what do we do? After consulting
> with Keith, we decided to say "sorry, we missed it" to the Voodoo guy
> and play it from where it was.
> It was very rare for teams to be offsides more than one or two times.
> The only thing more time consuming than a brick is the repull rule.
> That is the worst. Oh yeah, all the teams wanted to know if they'd
> get a warning on their first offsides. No. Why have a warning?
> Overall: Keep the penalty, but consider having it be automatically
> enforced.
good insight burr and kind of ironic that as simple and black and
white of a rule cant be more judiciously followed but does prove that
even the most pious sport needs to be properly policed.
Burr
Games to 21.
This was the most criticized element of the tournament. Too many
points, too many games, too much ultimate. "Can we have a mercy
rule?" and so forth. In the format as it existed 21 was not workable
and I wouldn't do it again. But...
I came to realize that the main issue was between a good tournament
and a good game. For a good tournament (particularly under current
formats), games to 21 isn't workable. But for a good game, 15 isn't
enough ultimate. What's the solution? I disagree with Ben's idea of
massive teams playing a ton of games to 21. I'd rather see teams as
they are playing fewer games.
Here's a little math: a typical tournament for a typical team is 4
pool play games to 13, quarters and semis to 15. 52 points on
Saturday, 30 on Sunday. That's 82 points. A finals team adds a game
to 15, 97 points. 97 points is about the same number of points as 5
games to 21 (105). Or 4 games to 21, 2 per day, 84 points.
This would take a shift in mentality on the part of teams and
tournament directors. If teams are going to come and play 4 games,
they'd better be good. That means the seeding needs to be
appropriate.
The other issue with games to 21 was how many were capped. Too many.
If I were doing games to 21 again, I'd have the rounds 2:30 with the
cap applied at 2:00. Furious-Voodoo was 15-20 after 1:50 and Revolver-
Rhino was 18-16 after the same time. A two hour cap would allow even
the most even of games to go the distance.
Format
For those who don't know, the elite teams were divided into 3
divisions of 4 teams. Everyone played the other teams in their
division (3 games) plus a game against each of the other 2 divisions.
After pool play, A4, B4 and C3 and C4 were out (although C3 and C4
dropped into open). Semis were A1, A2, A3 and B1 playing for the
championship and B2, B3, C1 and C2 playing in the B bracket.
Overall the comments were positive, particularly from the 4 A division
teams. I heard through the grape vine that the B and C teams felt
like those pools could have been mixed up more. Certainly YR's
"upsets" of Sack Lunch and Invictus showed that they'd been mis-
seeded.
Someone commented that they weren't sure about A4 and B4 dropping out
completely. I believe pool play should mean something. Why play all
those games for seeding. I can't stand the UPA Nationals formats that
continue to let teams have a path back in (although it did help me in
2004). I thought about it this way: if you lose to the other three
teams in your division, what right do you have playing for the
championship? Well designed pool play eliminates half the teams.
Reponses to comments
I thought I'd reply briefly to ulticritic since he asked a direct
question. By "fundamental nature of ultimate" I meant self-
officiation. I am opposed to referees. I think self-officiating is
what makes ultimate special and without it, we'll be taking a ticket
behind football, basketball, lacrosse, rugby, cricket, beach
volleyball, track, bowling, badminton, bass fishing...
I do believe that ultimate is ready to take the next step in terms of
how it is produced and presented, I just don't think it's refs.
I'd prefer if this thread didn't get subsumed into refs-observers-
spirit inferno, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in what we
did at Solstice besides this, so if you want to argue refs and all
that, please make a new thread.
Lou
B.P.
Could you explain how teams were initially seeded into pools? It
looks like the 1,2,3 seeds were in the A pool - was B1 the 4 seed
overall? And why did you not have A4 drop down to play in the B
division?
It all sounds interesting - but since you don't seem to have done a
traditional snake for your power pools, I can quite picture how the
brackets work.
thanks for your write-ups
degnan...@gmail.com
>
> Format
> For those who don't know, the elite teams were divided into 3
> divisions of 4 teams. Everyone played the other teams in their
> division (3 games) plus a game against each of the other 2 divisions.
> After pool play, A4, B4 and C3 and C4 were out (although C3 and C4
> dropped into open). Semis were A1, A2, A3 and B1 playing for the
> championship and B2, B3, C1 and C2 playing in the B bracket.
> Overall the comments were positive, particularly from the 4 A division
> teams.
At first I thought I wasn't going to like the format. New, different,
unused (I think). But I actually did like it... obviously it is tough
to seed the tournament if you begin with stratified pools and only
cross over a small bit. But that was a trade-off for a pretty good
slate of games, many of which were around your team's caliber.
Perhaps I would have A4 drop into the B Bracket with B2, B3, and C1.
Then have B4, C2, C3, D1 or something play out the C Bracket. I agree
that pool play should mean something, but many teams also traveled
quite a ways. It's a pretty early tournament, so you might as well
play some games after pool play (+2). But for a format I was prepared
to dislike, it turned out to be pretty good.
Fish
>
> Could you explain how teams were initially seeded into pools? It
> looks like the 1,2,3 seeds were in the A pool - was B1 the 4 seed
> overall? And why did you not have A4 drop down to play in the B
> division?
>
> It all sounds interesting - but since you don't seem to have done a
> traditional snake for your power pools, I can quite picture how the
> brackets work.
>
> thanks for your write-ups
It seems to me that the pools were formed around different "tiers". In
this respect, teams could play competition geared more towards their
specific level for the early part of the tournament. Later in the
tournament, any errors made with original seeding could be corrected
with the bumping up of the B1 team and the dropping of the A4 team
(though I feel the "bumping up" is more a reward for B1 than a
punishment for A4 in most cases. Someone has to lose in the A
division. Kudos to Voodoo for beating Furious and leaving no doubt). I
believe Lou put the top four teams in the first pool to give them an
opportunity to play one another. Considering these four teams were
quarterfinalists at nationals last year, it seems to be a bit of a no-
brainer that they would round out the A-Pool. This is why the 4-seed
overall was A4 instead of B1. At an early tournament like this, the
purpose is more to get a lot of experience playing teams at a
particular level than attempting to win the tournament or to create
closer match ups post-pool play.
I like that A4 was dropped on Sunday. At first it didn't make sense to
me, until I considered the fact that you'd be putting a team like
Furious George (in this case) with four B-tiered teams. It seems that
Furious would roll over these teams, or at least provide an unfair
semifinal which, again, goes against what I presume to be the purpose
of an early-season tournament (playing teams at your level and
becoming familiar with how your own team works). B-level teams each
got a chance to play a team from the A-tier (as did C-level teams),
and as far as I could see, these games weren't really close (Furious/
Voodoo being the exception). I loved the way the format worked, and
was very happy to have played a higher number of very competitive
games on Saturday as opposed to waiting for two big games on Sunday.
As to the rule changes, I am all in favor of them. It took a league
night on Tuesday to put the 60-second rule into perspective--it was
maddening having to wait three minutes between points when teams
should clearly have been ready to go much sooner. I love the way Lou's
rules sped the game up. More action and faster pace without
sacrificing important aspects of the game. I also think the 30-second
and 2-minute time outs are absolute keepers. Once teams adjusted to
them they were fantastic strategic tools. Finally, I'm another one who
thinks games to 21 were too long. Even in games where one team is
going to roll another, it takes over an hour and a half for this to
happen because the first team still needs to get to 21 for the game to
be over. 17 may have been a better number, as continuing beyond this
point seemed more to be "going through the motions" than really
affecting the outcome of the game.
Thanks for all your work, Lou. There's some real important stuff to be
learned from Solstice.
Fish
#12 Rhino
ulticritic
> Reponses to comments
> I thought I'd reply briefly to ulticritic since he asked a direct
> question. By "fundamental nature of ultimate" I meant self-
> officiation. I am opposed to referees. I think self-officiating is
> what makes ultimate special and without it, we'll be taking a ticket
> behind football, basketball, lacrosse, rugby, cricket, beach
> volleyball, track, bowling, badminton, bass fishing...
But isnt that what its gonna have to do anyways......with or without
refs? Does ultimate get cuts because its self officiated?
> I do believe that ultimate is ready to take the next step in terms of
> how it is produced and presented, I just don't think it's refs.
> I'd prefer if this thread didn't get subsumed into refs-observers-
> spirit inferno, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in what we
> did at Solstice besides this, so if you want to argue refs and all
> that, please make a new thread.
oops, sorry. but while i'm here. Acouple other questions reguarding
observer facilitation process: Did you use the TOS? Could you see
them controling putting the disc back into play....to take away play
calling delay of game tactics? Were there any score boards?
whistles?
>
> Lou
Reid K
For our game against invictus, and for the rhino/furious game, there
were scoreboards. don't know what happened to them before or after
that.
Reid
Frozen Bananas #11