EPC 2013

[Patrik Pal Bodin]

Hi guys!

Stockholm Open is now over, and the EPC train is speeding up. Hopefully we can have the web site up and running within a week or two.

There is no cap on the number of participants, so you don't have to worry about not getting in. The exact participation fee has not been decided yet, but it will be a couple of hundred SEK (9 SEK = €1).

Our new electronic scorekeeping system turned out to be a great success - cutting the staff needs into less than half! It will make it much easier for us to be able to keep our schedule without delays due to staff shortage.

Planned dates and times are still static - Friday Sept 13 18.00 to Sunday Sept 15 18.00 - and we will squeeze everything inside of those borders. But again - don't book your flight home at 19.30 on Sunday - you never know if you end up playing a grandious final including hour-long games, screwing our schedule up! And you need to allocate time to get your trophies. :)

There will be a main division, a Classics division and a team division. We have not yet decided whether the team division will be purely national teams, or if we will allow multiple teams per country and cross-country teams (it's dependent on time and scheduling). There will also be a few small side tournaments and a bunch of training/entertainment machines.

The premises turned out to be just as great as we thought they would be. They have all the facilities we need - both regarding the infrastructure to run the tournament, and regarding things to do for players not playing at the moment. The only downside is that it's not located in central Stockholm, but compared to some previous tournaments it's very downtown. :) You can get to central Stockholm in 20 minutes.

The system is being ironed out right now, and will be built upon the system used in the Swedish Championships. We don't have it described in English yet, but if you're interested you can machine-translate http://www.flippersm.se/?s=system from Swedish. We might change some things though, and the final system will be described (in English) at the launch of the EPC web site.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Regards

/P

-- 

Patrik Pal Bodin | Senior Network Engineer, PAL Communications

CISSP CCNP/CCDP MCSE/MCITP CCSA SCSP CSA/CNA HCP CIW

EU: +46 733 103233, US: +1 650 862 3657, Internet: +46 8 519 72 332 / +1 650 763 2332

Email: p...@pal.pp.se | Skype: The_Pal 

[Patrik Pal Bodin]

Hi!

Some news about EPC:

Chronological schedule:

Friday 2013-09-13:

1800-0000: Main and classics qualifications

Saturday 2013-09-14:

1000-1900: Classics qualifications

1000-2200: Main qualifications

1300-1600: Team qualifications

1600-1900: Team finals

1900-0000: Classics finals

2200-0000: Main qualifications margin hours

Sunday 2013-09-15:

1000-1800: Main finals

1800-1900: Price ceremony

Side tournaments will be one-handed, set the highscore, pinball orienteering and one minute play. Details and schedules will be published on the web site.

Tournament system (in short):

The system will assign a three hour qualification time slot to each player. Each time slot has a limited amount of players. Players will be allowed to choose time slot at registration time, confirmed when payment is received and on a first come first serve basis. One exception: Team players will not be able to choose time slots between Saturday 1300 and 1900. And of course you can't choose to play the main and the classics qualification rounds during the same time slot. Players participating in the classics finals will be able to use the margin hours later on Saturday to complete their main qualification rounds, if needed.

Players will play two-player games on four random machines with two tries on each machine. On certain machines (with physical locks), players may choose to play two singel-player games. This is not match play - the scores will be individually compared to all other players that played the same machine. The best score on each machine for each player will count, combining the four scores in an entry in the SO/PAPA way. At least the 32 best players (probably more - we aim at 25-30%) will advance to the finals. The number will be adjusted as people register for participation, and final decision will be made after registration ends. Registration will end on Sept 6.

The finals system will be head to head in a cup ladder with buys at different levels. At least two levels of buys will exist for the top qualifiers. Each match is played on three random machines.

The general rules will basically be the same as for Stockholm Open: http://www.stockholmopen.nu/rules.php

The cost will be 300 SEK (about €27) for main and 200 SEK (about €18) for classics. We will have T-shirts on sale for 100 SEK (about €9).

More details about the system will be published on the web site.

Team tournament:

There will be a primary and a secondary team tournament. The primary is for national teams only, registered by the IFPA country director for each country. The secondary is open for all other players, and team constellation is free (including across country borders) and will be registered by each team on the web site. They will be played at the same time and using the same system. A player can participate in one single team only. Team players can not choose to play their main and classics qualification rounds during Saturday 1300-1900.

The format in short: Qualification play with two tries on three random machines set to four balls. Two machines with split flipper play, and one machine with one ball per player. Teams are free to choose what to play on which machines, and who plays in what position. The finals will be the same format, but head to head in a cup ladder and only one try per machine. If we will use buys or not depends on the number of teams registered, with final decision after registration ends. The cost will be 100 SEK (about €9) per player = 400 SEK (about €36) per team.

Registration:

The web site will be released at https://www.europinball.org/ next week (the release will be announced here and elsewhere), with online registration available for both individual players and the free constellation teams. National teams will be registered by IFPA country directors (and not on the web site). All info about the tournament will be posted on the web site. Registration ends at Sept 6, and payment needs to be recieved by us on Sept 11 for the player or team to be eligible for participation. There is no cap on the number of players or teams - everyone that wishes to participate will be able to do so.

We need volunteers. The job is easy - our scorekeeping app is very intuitive, and reception work is also a piece of cake. Everything is in English, so you don't need language skills (other than English). You will be able to sign up for voluntary work at the web site, and it will grant you a free meal in the O'Learys restaurant.

The venue:

Heron City is a combined shopping and entertainment center. There is all kinds of shopping, a grocery store, several restaurants (both fast food joints and "real" restaurants), movie theatres, arcade games and of course pinball machines inside the building. In the area there's also a bunch of other business, including the world's biggest IKEA store. The Skärholmen neighborhood (SKHLM), a 10 minutes walk away, have even more to offer, and central Stockholm is less than 20-30 minutes away by car or public transport, depending on traffic. Location: http://bit.ly/1amNXUc

There are three hotels nearby. We are working with all three hotels to make a good deal, and we will also have a central Stockholm hotel option. Details will be posted on the web site.

All players will have a 20% discount on anything they buy in the O'Learys restaurant. You will get your discount coupon at the reception when arriving on the premises.

Game cards:

The training games and side tournaments will be money (not coin) operated. Games are paid for using an electronic card system. You will be able to buy game cards at the reception or in the O'Learys resturant. The same game cards can also be used on all arcade games on the premises. All tournament games are of course set on free play.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards

/P

-- 

Patrik Pal Bodin | Senior Network Engineer, PAL Communications

CISSP CCNP/CCDP MCSE/MCITP CCSA SCSP CSA/CNA HCP CIW

EU: +46 733 103233, US: +1 650 862 3657, Internet: +46 8 519 72 332 / +1 650 763 2332

Email: p...@pal.pp.se | Skype: The_Pal 

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[ANO]

Thanks for the info, Patrik!

I really like the idea of a secondary team tournament.

Just one question about the time scedule: is there a specific reason to play the team competition on Saturday?

With also classics involved, it means that team players have to qualify for the individual tournaments on Friday evening.

Wouldn't it be better to play the team competition on Friday? I think most players would prefer so. Well, at least I would :-)

 

Looking forward to the EPC!

Albert

 

Op dinsdag 18 juni 2013 19:02:15 UTC+2 schreef Pal het volgende:

[Patrik Pal Bodin]

Hi Albert!

There is time both before and after the team tournament on Saturday to play your qualifications rounds, so you can still avoid playing on Friday evening. And if you run into collisions and delays, you will have the margin hours on Saturday night to use. 

This entry-system is not like the Stockholm Open, where we stop further playing at a specific time, no matter if people have entries left to play or not. In this system, all players will get to play all their eight games. If we run into time problem, we have to and will fix them. It means scheduling is much more important than in the SO.

There are several reason to why we put the team tournament where we did. What you say - that most players want to play mid-day Saturday - is actually one of the reasons. Putting the team tournament where we did will automatically distribute a bunch of players over to the not-so-popular time slots. Another reason is volunteer availability - it is much easier to find staff for mid-day Saturday than for Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, so we don't want three divisions running simultaneously on Friday. And the Friday is also the day where we run into all those small problems and have to spend time fixing them, while on Saturday all the problems are gone and we have more time to spend on actually running the tournaments. Further more the schedule allows the possibility for players with busy lives to arrive late on Friday or even early Saturday, and still compete in all divisions on Saturday. 

I missed you guys at the SO btw. The tournament just wasn't the same without the DPE!

Regards

/P

-- 

Patrik Pal Bodin | Senior Network Engineer, PAL Communications

CISSP CCNP/CCDP MCSE/MCITP CCSA SCSP CSA/CNA HCP CIW

EU: +46 733 103233, US: +1 650 862 3657, Internet: +46 8 519 72 332 / +1 650 763 2332

Email: p...@pal.pp.se | Skype: The_Pal 

On Jun 29, 2013, at 10:43 , ANO <albert-a...@hetnet.nl> wrote:

Thanks for the info, Patrik!

I really like the idea of a secondary team tournament.

Just one question about the time scedule: is there a specific reason to play the team competition on Saturday?

With also classics involved, it means that team players have to qualify for the individual tournaments on Friday evening.

Wouldn't it be better to play the team competition on Friday? I think most players would prefer so. Well, at least I would :-)

 

Looking forward to the EPC!

Albert

 

The web site will be released at https://www.europinball.org/ next week (the release will be announced here and elsewhere), with online registration available for both individual players and the free constellation teams. National teams will be registered by IFPA country directors (and not on the web site). All info about the tournament will be posted on the web site. Registration ends at Sept 6, and payment needs to be recieved by us on Sept 11 for the player or team to be eligible for participation. There is no cap on the number of players or teams - everyone that wishes to participate will be able to do so.

We need volunteers. The job is easy - our scorekeeping app is very intuitive, and reception work is also a piece of cake. Everything is in English, so you don't need language skills (other than English). You will be able to sign up for voluntary work at the web site, and it will grant you a free meal in the O'Learys restaurant.

The venue:

Heron City is a combined shopping and entertainment center. There is all kinds of shopping, a grocery store, several restaurants (both fast food joints and "real" restaurants), movie theatres, arcade games and of course pinball machines inside the building. In the area there's also a bunch of other business, including the world's biggest IKEA store. The Skärholmen neighborhood (SKHLM), a 10 minutes walk away, have even more to offer, and central Stockholm is less than 20-30 minutes away by car or public transport, depending on traffic. Location: http://bit.ly/1amNXUc

There are three hotels nearby. We are working with all three hotels to make a good deal, and we will also have a central Stockholm hotel option. Details will be posted on the web site.

All players will have a 20% discount on anything they buy in the O'Learys restaurant. You will get your discount coupon at the reception when arriving on the premises.

Game cards:

The training games and side tournaments will be money (not coin) operated. Games are paid for using an electronic card system. You will be able to buy game cards at the reception or in the O'Learys resturant. The same game cards can also be used on all arcade games on the premises. All tournament games are of course set on free play.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards

/P

Op dinsdag 18 juni 2013 19:02:15 UTC+2 schreef Pal het volgende:

Hi guys!

Stockholm Open is now over, and the EPC train is speeding up. Hopefully we can have the web site up and running within a week or two.

There is no cap on the number of participants, so you don't have to worry about not getting in. The exact participation fee has not been decided yet, but it will be a couple of hundred SEK (9 SEK = €1).

Our new electronic scorekeeping system turned out to be a great success - cutting the staff needs into less than half! It will make it much easier for us to be able to keep our schedule without delays due to staff shortage.

Planned dates and times are still static - Friday Sept 13 18.00 to Sunday Sept 15 18.00 - and we will squeeze everything inside of those borders. But again - don't book your flight home at 19.30 on Sunday - you never know if you end up playing a grandious final including hour-long games, screwing our schedule up! And you need to allocate time to get your trophies. :)

There will be a main division, a Classics division and a team division. We have not yet decided whether the team division will be purely national teams, or if we will allow multiple teams per country and cross-country teams (it's dependent on time and scheduling). There will also be a few small side tournaments and a bunch of training/entertainment machines.

The premises turned out to be just as great as we thought they would be. They have all the facilities we need - both regarding the infrastructure to run the tournament, and regarding things to do for players not playing at the moment. The only downside is that it's not located in central Stockholm, but compared to some previous tournaments it's very downtown. :) You can get to central Stockholm in 20 minutes.

The system is being ironed out right now, and will be built upon the system used in the Swedish Championships. We don't have it described in English yet, but if you're interested you can machine-translate http://www.flippersm.se/?s=system from Swedish. We might change some things though, and the final system will be described (in English) at the launch of the EPC web site.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Regards

/P

-- 

Patrik Pal Bodin | Senior Network Engineer, PAL Communications

CISSP CCNP/CCDP MCSE/MCITP CCSA SCSP CSA/CNA HCP CIW

EU: +46 733 103233, US: +1 650 862 3657, Internet: +46 8 519 72 332 / +1 650 763 2332

Email: p...@pal.pp.se | Skype: The_Pal 

[ANO]

Thanks for the quick reply, Patrik.

Just one more question:

you say that there's time to qualify before and after the team tournament. But the classics finals start right after the team tournament . Of course no one can be sure to be in the classics finals, but it's Always possible.

So as a team player, you can choose to play your individual qualification at Saturday 19:00? And if you're in the classics finals, you complete your qualification after 22:00?

(not sure if I want to though, just like to know if it's possible)

 

And doný worry. DPE is planning to come back to SO! We Always had a great time there. The dates were just a bit unlucky this year.

[Patrik Pal Bodin]

Hi Albert!

Yes - that is exactly the plan. If you pick the Saturday 1900-2200 time slot for the main qualifications, and happen to advance to the Classics finals, you will get some special treatment (like not being forced to play with your planned partner, etc) to make sure you can finish both before the day is over. That is why we don't have a planned time slot after 2200 - to have time for things like that.

Exactly what you will play when if that happens depends on where things are at in the Classics finals at that specific point in time, but I'm pretty sure we will solve that when it happens.

And you're right - you can never be sure about anything in Classics...

Regards

/P

-- 

Patrik Pal Bodin | Senior Network Engineer, PAL Communications

CISSP CCNP/CCDP MCSE/MCITP CCSA SCSP CSA/CNA HCP CIW

EU: +46 733 103233, US: +1 650 862 3657, Internet: +46 8 519 72 332 / +1 650 763 2332

Email: p...@pal.pp.se | Skype: The_Pal 

[Pinball News]

Hi Patrik.

Any news on when the website will be up and when it will be OK to book flights etc.?

You say don't book an early return flight, but sometimes there's no choice due to available flights. :-)

Cheers,

Martin.

[Patrik Pal Bodin]

Hi Martin!

We ran into some IE-related problems with the web site, but we are working on it. It works fine on other browsers, but we want it to work on IE too.

But since we will not cap the number of players, everyone will still be able to register, so the dealy will not cause any problems.

There will not be any changes to the schedule - it will remain as communicated:

Chronological schedule:

Friday 2013-09-13:

1800-0000: Main and classics qualifications

Saturday 2013-09-14:

1000-1900: Classics qualifications

1000-2200: Main qualifications

1300-1600: Team qualifications

1600-1900: Team finals

1900-0000: Classics finals

2200-0000: Main qualifications margin hours

Sunday 2013-09-15:

1000-1800: Main finals

1800-1900: Price ceremony

Regards

/P

-- 

Patrik Pal Bodin | Senior Network Engineer, PAL Communications

CISSP CCNP/CCDP MCSE/MCITP CCSA SCSP CSA/CNA HCP CIW

EU: +46 733 103233, US: +1 650 862 3657, Internet: +46 8 519 72 332 / +1 650 763 2332

Email: p...@pal.pp.se | Skype: The_Pal 

[Pinball News]

OK, thanks Patrik.  Flights booked. :-)

Cheers,

Martin.