Yeah I'll whip something up and make sure it's in the 'welcome packet email' for all the State Reps.

Correct!

I would take those people and list them as 'tied for as low as possible' at the moment they left.

So if after round 1, 2 people lose their first match, say F-this, and leave . . . they would be tied for 15th/16th.

It was done . . . and will be analyzed in depth after SCS registration is done to determine the impact it had on qualifying. Your time will come Taylor . . . NOT YET

.......ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

You're welcome by the way

hat tip not coming your way bryan

Thinking about this more last night, you should definitely reseed top to bottom for every 'new consolation bracket'.

That way as people decide to quit and leave, the benefit of those bye rounds goes to the highest seeded players left in that pod. It also eliminates the possibility of both participants of a match quitting and neither advancing (becomes a bit of a cluster for the remaining players).

Before you start any new consolation bracket, wipe away anyone who has decided to quit, put them in last place of that pod, and then bracket up the remaining players to play their matches.

Alrighty. Looking forward to re-acquainting myself with that info via my welcome packet.

Seems that ties will be possible only in the final round -- unless there are 4 walkaways in the semis, I guess.

Also, to clarify: Is the reseeding based on original seed or something else?

It'll be original seed, which is your "State Rank" going into the tournament.

One down . . . wayyyyy too many to go!

Virginia randomly happened to be on top of the plaque pile. Taylor's ears must be burning

IMG_3175_(resized).JPG

any chance we can buy a smaller version of the top part? actually 15 more of the smaller versions...

Would be cool to make up similar but smaller trophies for 2-15 in the state.

Unfortunately they aren't available. I'm able to get one of our Raw Thrills vendors to do us a favor by running these for us, and I'm tapped out of favors with these guys

If you want a high res version of the logo I can definitely send that your way. You can then do with it as you please.

that would be great! not sure what I can some up with but I will try. Would be cool to have something similar in style to the 1st place trophy for the other folks.

SCS_Bracket.jpg

also, there is the bracket I just made up.

Small but you get the point

that bracket seems unnecessarily complicated. Should just have 3 separate brackets. 1 winners bracket, one for first 8 eliminated, another for next four eliminated.

sorry. just trying to help. It is really not all that complicated and thought some may like the bracket. It fits on a single sheet and even you can figure it out

Technically, the way I drew it up is correct.

It is not merely 3 separate brackets. As you W or L you filter out to your final position. L in first round and you will finish 9-16. W then L second round and you will finish 5-8

My mistake you are correct. This is going to take forever.

I dont think it will be too long.

If people insist on waiting for every single game then it could, but most people are very reasonable about game selection and not going to all wait on a single game for a super long time. Winner bracket is best of 7, but loser is only best of 3.

Set tilts tight, open the outlanes (or remove them), ball save off, and EBs obviously off, and it should move along as a reasonable pace. As a TD you should have a decent amount of control of how tough the games are.

We should have 12-15 games to choose from so hopefully that helps. If a place only has 7 games then the forced loser bracket could be rough for timing/delays.

States like IL are a whole different story when you have multiple top 10 players duking it out and some of them like to pause for 2min between each flip.

" whole different story when you have multiple top 10 players duking it out and some of them like to pause for 2min between each flip." Good one

Last year I think we finished close to 2am with an insane 7 game final between Zach and Henderson that lasted 3+ hours.

Fortunately this year I'm hosting at my place, so if that happens again I can just go upstairs and go to bed

well just one that I know of that is extremely patient in his play style. He is also accurate and is impressive to watch play, but it gets boring to watch him sometimes.

(he also has a knack for clogging toilets but that is a whole nother story)

Someone needs to take a water break between shots

image_(resized).jpg

How difficult were the games setup and was LOTR a game in the tournament?

Games were way too easy, and yes LOTR was in it (that game alone took over an hour - I believe Zach lost with something like 130mil)

At least this year if I clog a toilet I can just blame my 4 year old!

LOTR, TSPP, ST, FG, Shrek, BK2K and the right sling out of commision...

lol

FYG & Shrek.

I should ask Dave A if I can bring his F14 with the back legs on bricks to the SCS. Games will only last a few minutes.

Watch out for Double Deckers Josh.

My games are set extremely hard but it kind of sucks to make games so hard that players can't really play them.

I only have 10 games so may have to reconsider hosting. Having 4 brackets running simultaneously is certainly going to make for some long wait times on a smaller collection.

Since there are not 70 people trying to qualify for 16 slots in 2 tourneys over the course of 20 hours, there is no need to make games play extremely hard. Factory settings, perhaps with no extra balls on modern pins, should suffice.

The SCS tourney represents (for most players) a year's worth of work. The games should be playable to have exciting matches. Some long matches are going to be inevitable, after all, these are the best players in each state. If the TDs in each SCS choose wicked-playing games and/or set the games to punish people, then the players could all save the time and effort and just draw a lottery to see who is going to Nationals from each state.

Best of skill to everyone

Last event of the year in Ohio was today, this is what our bracket will likely be looking like after today's results go in - http://challonge.com/2015ohioscs

TaylorVA: the 'extra' brackets are nothing more and nothing less taxing than running a four-round swiss tournament--except that players with at least one loss only play bo3.

I would be very surprised if the consolation brackets made any significant difference to the running time of the event. If there's That One Game that everyone wants to pick all the time, then sure, but otherwise it only extends time if there's a loser's game going on on a machine AND that holds up a winner's bracket match AND that match's winner's opponent is finished first (and that match's, and so on).

@ifpapinball: I'd've suggested 4 rounds of swiss pairings if I'd seen the format earlier. Bo3 if there's at least one loss, etc. Lets people that lose early still play for as high as 3rd place, putting less undue weight on that first round.

Usually, the losers, or constellation bracket, runs on open games for the most part. Players know they are not going for the gold and like to move along.

Best player would still win even with brutal set ups,
I'm in in mo and i hope they toughen up the games.
Competition is no fun on easy playing machines

I agree that the best player should win regardless of game setup...within reason. I think some of the seasoned pros would say that there comes a point in altering a game where it is reduced to a luck box, rather than a game to showcase skills.

BTW nice Skeletonwitch avatar

altering a game or the environment changes the skillset required to play.

simple thing like tight tilts means a player needs to focus on making accurate shots and remaining in control.
loose tilts and people will need to focus on nudging.

reality is that any and every game can be altered to dramatically change the skillset required.

This does open up the larger questions regarding what is the 'best' game set up for each particular game you are playing on. I know that given the forced consolation bracket format, I will be making games slightly tougher than they normally are with an eye on ball time and leveling ball/game time among the line up. Typically long playing games like KISS and ST (most Sterns) will have slings made more sensitive and outlanes opened as well as tilts made tighter. You dont want to go overboard, but you are also working with a player base that is the best in the state s adjusting games as appropriate is a good idea unless you want to be still playing at 4am the following day.

Turning each game on tournament settings and EBs off will obviously also help.

There will be a total of 30-45 2-player games used to decide tie-breakers. During that time there will be between 28-48 2-player games played by the winners. So yes, if the tie-breakers can all be played at the same time the winners are playing, then there wouldn't be a significant slow down. But we all know this isn't going to be the case. In regards to winners having choice over the losers bracket, that doesn't really solve the problem. Let's say winners group finishes a game, makes their choice for next game and it is already being played by a tie-breaker group. Waiting is inevitable....

Technical question. After the first round we are going to reseed the 8 who lost . Then after they play their second round we will have a 4 winners and 4 losers. We then reseed these positions again for top4 and bottom 4 to play out . For those winners going into places 9 and 10 losers play for 11-12 . Then we have bottom 4 play out for 13-14 and 15-16 . Am I correct to reseed again for the 4winners and 4 losers?

That's exactly what I'm doing, being fully prepared to have to deal with people saying "Fuck this I'm outta here. I'm not spending another hour playing for 12th or 13th."

IMO those bye benefits should always go to the highest seed in those situations.

Ok will do

curious what would be the reason to reseed vs not reseed?

My thought was if you lose, you just continue down the pre arranged pod similar to if you win?

Better match ups. I liked it when the NHL used to reseed round to round.

Reseed to limit the potential of people leaving really messing things up.

It always gives the highest seed the benefit if any player quits and leaves, which I can imagine will be probable. I anticipate after someone loses their first two matches, and is left playing for 13th-16th place, you may get some level of disinterest.

OK. Since we are hopefully doing trophies all the way to 16 then I am thinking most will play it out. We are also running an event immediately following the SCS so thinking most will stick around to play in that? We shall see. I guess it is easy enough to reseed on the fly if needed.

LOL You didn't like that news I told you eh?

Nope

We did trophies for all 16 last year out of my pocket and somehow I caught flack from some for doing something nice. Hopefully you have better luck! Just top 4 this year for us.

Why would people give you flack for making a trophy for all? Were the people complaining the ones at the top who felt only they were entitled to a trophy?

why? because people are dumbasses.

Called it participation trophies. I took it as qualifying in the top 16 for the state championship deserving of a trophy. We have just over 300 players clocked into Connecticut.

As someone with zero pinball trophies, if someone brings me a participation trophy to the NC SCS I won't get mad at them.