Hi, I don't have strong opinions as like Phil I tend to struggle to make the final stages at the top tournaments but it doesn't stop me trying. A few things that are important to consider:
You will never get everyone to agree the "best" tournament format because there are 3 elements to consider:
- What is best for the finalists
- What is best for the There is the best for the qualifiers
- What is best for the public
They are all important but sometimes conflict. As long as all three are taken into consideration I have no problem with the format.
I quite the fact there are different tournaments. For example I really appreciated the fact that in the IFPA competition in the UK that there was a full day of qualification and that we got to play with different players. I also liked the last German EPC because of the
long qualifying session.
I also like the sudden death style finals used in the Welsh Classic because it is really exciting both as a player and watcher (4 finalists play 3 games with the looser dropping out each time).
The only thing I don't like is when your forced to pick from a few modern games with deep rules because I often don't know the rules so feel at a disadvantage-especially as others get to pick from their favourite games. I would much rather that players were "told" which games to play and all played the same games. I notice in the last UK tournament there were some older games in thee which was great.
Maybe one day a 1981 Stern Lightning or Iron Maiden will be in there and then I would be happy.
Best wishes
Eddie
Mole
--- On Sun, 6/3/11, europinba...@googlegroups.com <europinba...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
From: europinba...@googlegroups.com <europinba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Digest for europ...@googlegroups.com - 1 Message in 1 Topic
To: "Digest Recipients" <europinba...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday,
6 March, 2011, 2:47
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/europinball/topics
Phillip Eaton <pjea...@gmail.com> Mar 05 06:46AM -0800
^
> ...so we don't end up what all kind of "not-so-good"
> systems like it was in Switzerland and UK. Which only make
> some people to ignore <CHOP>
Well I'm happy to respond to this, as I helped organise the UK
tournament, was involved in the Swiss EPC as a referee (I live in
Zürich), and will be helping out just a little at the French EPC (with
my French wife).
Without wishing to bestow undue credit to your post, I can see the
merit in your Utopian ideal.
But before I discuss that, I looked at the DPO2010 qualifying rules
that you quoted, and it says:
"Each player will choose 6 machines and play one game on each of those
[out of 20 machines]. The scores will be taken by a referee. Each
player can also play one of his/her chosen machines again and try to
improve his/her score."
That sounds virtually identical to the UK qualifying system
(especially the single game replay that the UK introduced) and the
French system for this year.
But let's ignore that, there is certainly a difference in the format
of the IFPA tournament and a 6-game qualifier like in the UK 2009 and
France this year.
There are reasons for this - mostly based around the resources
available, machines, space, people, but also experience of the team
and the aim of the event. In the UK, our 2009 EPC was at a pinball
show, open to the public, and over 1000 people attended, like every
year. We don't have a specific tournament event with no public access.
Machines are provided by pinball enthusiasts and to pay for their
support, the venue charges the general public to come in and they get
to play the machines all day on free-play. That means that the
tournaments have a limited pool of machines to use. Additionally,
there are a limited number of people willing to referee a tournament
(or series of tournaments) over a weekend, and we spend *months* of
effort beforehand to prepare, so we can do it all as efficiently as
possible on the day.
Another thing is that a poor to average player (i.e. most competitors,
like me) don't ever get past the qualifiers, so if the tournament goes
on for ages, great...but what am I supposed to do for the rest of the
event? If the event is a show, I can go and play all sorts of machines
on freeplay, with my friends, and have a beer :-)
The Swiss event was a different mix of resources and circumstances.
When I saw the qualifying format and I didn't think it'd work, and I
told them so. They listened to what I said, but didn't change it and I
still signed up to help out anyway. I'm glad they didn't change it,
because I think it worked really well. As someone who never qualifies,
I got over 3 hours of tournament time, instead of 30 minutes or so,
which was all we could offer in the UK - result! Some of my pinball
friends disliked it so much, they decided not to come...that's sad,
because I think they missed a great event.
So, whilst I think your standard format sounds good on paper, the
reality is that right now, not every country could host the event, or
would want to host it like that. From my viewpoint, pinball is a
social event, I meet up with friends from all over Europe (and USA
when I've been there), make new friends, discuss machines, learn some
new foreign words, and play a bit of pinball, hopefully improving on
my performance last time.
In the UK, we get over a 1000 people at our event, our EPC tournament
was over-subscribed in under 3 days and our pinball leagues are
growing every year, so we must be doing something right. The French
tournaments, like the UK, could have reached over 200 entries, if
there was room to take them.
But we're not standing still, we're always looking to change things
and improve. This year at the UK Pinball Party, I'm hoping we can
include elements of the Swiss EPC2010 qualifying, where people get
some time playing as part of their entry instead of a set number of
games, I think that gives better value to more people and, as we saw
in Switzerland, the better players still go through. Maybe the changes
will stop people coming to our UK event...but I doubt it.
One last thing, if I had a Euro for every time someone complained
about our UK tournament format in the UK, I'd have...1 Euro. If I had
a Euro for each person that came up to me and said it worked pretty
good and they enjoyed it, I could buy lots of new rubbers for my RBION
and a set of new balls.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Phillip
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