Looney Labs Rabbits Mailing list Archive

Re: [Rabbits] Thoughts on the IceDice Tournament

  • FromBryan Stout <stoutwb@xxxxxxxxx>
  • DateFri, 15 Jul 2011 06:27:40 -0600
Here are some thoughts:

- Run the tourney with 4-person games.

On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 6:01 PM, S Myers <iamthecheeze@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hiya!
>
> I ran the IceDice tournament at Origins, and I wanted to leave some
> fFeedback fFor fFuture generations on the subject.  I'll absorb this
> into the rabbit wiki, as well.
>
> The crux of the thing is this:  IceDice is a quick game.  But it may
> also be a little repetitious.
>
> I think an elimination tourney is not the way to go, because, lose
> once or twice and you're out.  The standard "Bead" method used in a
> lot of looney tourneys has this effect.  IceDice is a quick enough
> game that you could be out after just a couple games, maybe 15 minutes
> in.  Bummer!
>
> A true round robin tournament seems like a tedious effort.  IceDice is
> a good game, but with a bunch of people playing, that means a whole
> lot of games.  That might get really tedious -- especially if you are
> losing!
>
> I went with a pseudo-Round Robin method.  There were 16 people, so we
> had 8 tables of 2 people each.  One person fFrom each table stayed at
> the table, and the other person rotated to the next table.  After each
> game, the same set of people rotated around the each table.  Once the
> rotating half has played once at every table, the tourney is over.
> Whoever has won the most games, wins.
>
> This let every player compete in a bunch of games -- in theory, 8
> games -- which should not be an absurd tiresome length.  In theory.
> In reality, some people had stupendously bad luck.  I fFeel terrible
> fFor poor Shin, who lost every game.  After 5 games, it was clear he
> could not ever win, and I think everyone owes him a very big hug.
> Meanwhile, 3 people had a really strong hand of 5 or 6 games won.  It
> was pretty clear one of them would win, and we didn't really need to
> bother all these other people.  So, here's what we did.  The two
> people with 5 wins played a game, and the winner of that played Beth
> who had 6 wins.  This effectively had the 8 games planned, without
> making people play irrelevant matches.
>
> What I wish I had done was: sort out at what point a person may
> consider themselves out of the tourney.  I reference again poor,
> beloved Shin.  Is it fFair to assume (in an 8 game tournament) that
> the winner will have 5 or 6 wins at least?  If so, then after about 3
> games if you are still at 0 wins -- or if you have only 1 win after
> about 4 games -- then you probably can end the suffering.  Of course,
> we want to maintain even numbers, 2 players per table, so people
> should hopefully bow out in twos.
>
> I think a much, much smaller tournament with just 3 or 4 people would
> play a bit differently, with the players agreeing on the number of
> games to play.  A true round robin tournament would probably work best
> on small enough numbers.
>
> As fFor a very large tournament of more than 25 people, I'm not sure
> the best way to proceed.  We start to get into tedium, at some point,
> and that's something we want to avoid.  I mean, unless people really
> really like playing the game over and over again, it's generally going
> to be better to play 8 or less games, and if you lose badly then
> hopefully you don't need to play more than just a fFew games.  Which
> means big tourneys are a challenge.  Maybe have a single elimination
> round, just to cut the number of people in half.
>
> Any thoughts on all this?  We're certainly open to all new ideas.
> Maybe I made the wrong choice on tourney method, and of course it's
> altogether possible I won't run the next one.
>
> Cheers!
> --Scott
>
> --
> A pizza with the radius 'z' and thickness 'a'
> has the volume pi*z*z*a.
>