40k Elimination Tournament

[wittdooley]

Hypothetical:

An elimination-based 40k tournament is being run. It begins as a 64-man tournament. The losers of the first round are out of the main tournament, but are entered in a losers swiss-style tournament. From the round of 32 on, it is double elimination, meaning, lose once, you're dropped to the losers bracket, lose once you're in the losers bracket, you're done.

In the Winner's bracket, the undefeated winner takes home $1000. The 1st Loser takes home $500.

In the Loser's bracket, the 3rd Place gets $300.

In the Swiss-Style 1st Round Losers tourney, GW prize Support is given to the top 3 (figure $100 of product to 1st, $50 in product to 2nd, $25 in product to 3rd).

The tournament would be a one day marathon, with every player being guaranteed at least 3 games, the Champion playing 6 matches, and the 3rd place playing 8 matches. Estimated play time total for tournament would be around 16 hours, breaks included.

Questions based on this:

Would you be willing to play in a tournament like this? If no, why not?

How far would you be willing to go to play in a tournament like this?

What "extras" could make this a better tournament?

Any other suggestions/ideas/random thoughts?

[DrLove42]

Sounds good...

My comment is on time. If the most games a player is going to have is 8, and you want to fit it all into 16 hours...figuring hour half- 2hours a game (at 1500..move it up to 2000 or higher and you look over 2 and closer to 3 hours per), that guy is gonna be rushed crazy. When you factor in the time to compute who faces who next game, move tables, lunches, toilet breaks etc....i don't think its possible in 16 hours. I'm also not sure anyone can play 8 good games in one day. And remember...16 hours means starting at 9am...finishing at midnight. You'd be better off splitting it into 2 days.

Also...if you exoect people to pay to enter (I don't know if thats the plan) then folks need more games. Cos if i pay x bucks and get 3 games, but someone else pays the same and gets 8 games...i'm not gonna be impressed. Theres a limit to how long you can stand around and watch other folk.

[DarkLink]

Right, presuming this is a 1750-2000pt tournament you're not going to have enough time. You need roughly 2.5 hours per game to be fair, and you're going to need an hour or two of breaks somewhere in there for food and other anatomical needs. That means a 17 hour day for 6 games, minimum.

[wittdooley]

Adepticon ran 2 hours for 2000 points. 2 Hours for 1850 is what we presently have it figured at. And yes, it would put it at a 16 hour day with breaks included.

[DrLove42]

It might be possible to do it in that time.

But all the tournements ive been too...never do you finish a game and be on the next tbale instantly. Even if you're playing back to back, it takes 10 minutes to pack up, shuffle round the room, find the right table and get sorted to set up. And then you're talking about people eating and drinking during the game over the table. And as a Judge for a serious money tournement, you'd probably spend most your time standing over tables keeping an eye on the other guy while one goes to the loo.

With such a serious prize people are gonna play hardball. And by the the last game...you'll have been playing for 14 hours already. Not sure anyone can say they were playing their best after that long. Short of knocking back a lot of ProPlus or Red Bull no one is awake enough to play well at that time surely?

I said 2 days cos thats based on my experiences. My experience is 3-5 games a day, with 2 hours a game at 1500. Yes you rarely got to the end of the time limit. But every game someone usually does....usually a horde army.

I remember one tournement there were 2 ork hordes at 1500 points. After having time called at the end of 2 hours, they'd only just finished turn 2

[DarkLink]

You need to take some time for check-in and registration at the beggining of the tournament, too. You're going to need to tell people to show up an hour or so early.

Plus, where are people staying? If someone has to drive an hour, play for 16+ hours with no food breaks, then drive an hour home, that's a long day.

[Lerra]

Most people have a limit of 4 tournament games per day before their brain turns to mush. At Adepticon, the top-tier players who were in the final 16 were starting to drag by the third and fourth games on day 2.

Personally, I wouldn't play in a tournament like that, but I don't play for prizes really (I play for honor, bragging rights, and to meet new people). Here's what I'd prefer: Everyone starts out in a Swiss-style tournament. After a certain number of rounds, the top N players leave the swiss-style system and go do their own single-elimination tournament. Everyone else is still guaranteed to play 3-4 games. Then you have prizes for the top players in single-elimination and for the top players in the swiss system.

[Denzark]

Not in one day.

[GM Rex Nihilo]

Would you be willing to play in a tournament like this? If no, why not?

No, I like the elimination part but 16 hours!! Too long to be in one room with tired hungry smelly gaming geeks


How far would you be willing to go to play in a tournament like this?

2 hours IF over two days



What "extras" could make this a better tournament?

Hobby stuff, Painting, conversion, and Army display contests etc.

[Charistoph]

It may be possible if the points list was drastically reduced to say Kill Team, Combat Patrol, or just 1 HQ model.

[Bean]

I think it's a good idea, but as's been said, trying to squeeze a 64 person elimination tournament into one day is a bad idea. No-one actually wants to play eight games of 40k in a row, and the presumption that each game takes two hours, thus 8 games takes 18 hours is laughable, as's been pointed out: you need time between rounds to figure pairings for the next round, for people to hit the bathroom and get a snack, to move their stuff from one table to another. You'll need a lunch break.

Here's a better idea:

Two day tournament.

Day one: everyone gets randomly assigned to a pod of four players. During the first day, each player plays each other player in his or her pod one time. That's three games for each player, and you score them as in a swiss tournament (one point for a draw, two for a win, say)

Day two: the winner of each pod (64 four-man pods is 16 pods, which leaves you with 16 winners advancing to day two) play in a single elimination tournament. Now that you're down to sixteen players, you only need four rounds to come up with a winner, which you can pretty easily fit into one ten-hour day of play.

The idea of playing a big 40k tournament properly organized for competition and with a fairly substantial prize seems reasonable, but trying to do it in one day is not. Plus, this way you get a swiss-style environment on the first day where everyone gets to play three games--without having to resort to a double-elimination system. When you move on to the second day, only the top fourth of the players have to show up, and everyone else (who wants to do so) can go home having already gotten a nice three-round swiss tournament for their money.

A big convention (like Gen Con) would be a good place to run an event like this, though getting 64 people to show up might be a challenge, even at an event like this. What you can do to account for fewer people is make the scoring system for the first day somewhat more elaborate so that you have a bigger spread by which to seed people into the brackets for the second day (you may want to do this anyway) then just by-out as many top-seeded people as necessary in the first round of the second day in order to end up with a proper power-of-two scheme starting in the second round.