[cherdano]

broze, on 2017-February-11, 18:05, said:

Set 3: broze 7 cherdano 9

Will finish set 4 shortly.

EDIT: Also 9-7 to cherdano in final set. Well done and thanks for the game

And here is the link for the last set: http://webutil.bridg...5596&u=cherdano

Thanks for the match, good game.

[Phil]

cherdano, on 2017-February-11, 18:37, said:

I admit I'd rather have the tournament go a little slower, instead of losing mkgnao and others from the tournament.
I know you put in a lot of effort - appreciated! But if we all play more quickly, you do have pretty much the same amount of work in a shorter time frame!

Dont agree. It takes around 45 mins to play a segment so it doesnt take that much time to play four.

Perhaps overlapping brackets would make both camps happy.

[Mkgnao]

4th set: crazy4hoop-Mkgnao 8-8

http://webutil.bridg...832498&u=Mkgnao

Congratulations Christopher.

[crazy4hoop]

Mkgnao, on 2017-February-12, 13:28, said:

4th set: crazy4hoop-Mkgnao 8-8

http://webutil.bridg...832498&u=Mkgnao

Congratulations Christopher.

Thank you for the match. There were several interesting hands, especially the last 3 (I came close to doubling 4H as you did on 14, got greedy on 15 instead of winning in dummy and finessing the spade, and decided not to double on 16 after much thought). Take care and maybe we'll meet again in a future event.

[cherdano]

cherdano - zzmiy Round of 16:
Match 1 10.5-5.5 (65.63%) http://webutil.bridg...2103&u=cherdano

[frank0]

cherdano, on 2017-February-12, 17:44, said:

cherdano - zzmiy Round of 16:
Match 1 10.5-5.5 (65.63%) http://webutil.bridg...2103&u=cherdano

You're already in R8 (QF)

[phoenix214]

For time issues - simple solution:
If you put up 2 weeks for the finishing the group stage - then finish it in 3 days - do not complain that other people play it slower. The situation is pretty silly when you put up how much was 14 days for RR, then most people finished playing quite fast although some decided to use time allocated more freely - as a organizer you cannot keep anything against them for that, expect just checking on things is moving forwards.
Now if the best solution is to make a BBF private event just because time allocation is wrong, that is just silly.


Id suggest have something along the lines of:
Two formats - one a longer format, where a person is expected to play ~1 challange a day, which seems reasonable, or say a knockout over 5 days.

And a turbo format which is say some 8 man knockout which lasts just one weekend/week or whatever slower time format you want to keep In that case you get best of both worlds.

[stoppiello]

round of 8

stoppiello 8.5 toast1 7.5

http://webutil.bridg...30&u=stoppiello

[barmar]

phoenix214, on 2017-February-13, 11:50, said:

Id suggest have something along the lines of:
Two formats - one a longer format, where a person is expected to play ~1 challange a day, which seems reasonable, or say a knockout over 5 days.

And a turbo format which is say some 8 man knockout which lasts just one weekend/week or whatever slower time format you want to keep In that case you get best of both worlds.

Most of this discussion about this should probably be in the thread about future event format.

[ovncylmz]

smerriman, on 2017-February-11, 18:57, said:

I believe the issue isn't the amount of admin work, but the fact that the faster players have to wait weeks to play again, when they could have finished entire extra tournaments in the same amount of time.

Unfortunately I contacted 10+ people multiple times and literally made them finish their matches. People must finish their games in a fast or regular speed, having 5 games 2 days before the deadline is not acceptable - and unfortunately for running the tournament and being fair in the rankings etc, I don't want to go and deal with such players in the future.

[ovncylmz]

phoenix214, on 2017-February-13, 11:50, said:

For time issues - simple solution:
If you put up 2 weeks for the finishing the group stage - then finish it in 3 days - do not complain that other people play it slower. The situation is pretty silly when you put up how much was 14 days for RR, then most people finished playing quite fast although some decided to use time allocated more freely - as a organizer you cannot keep anything against them for that, expect just checking on things is moving forwards.
Now if the best solution is to make a BBF private event just because time allocation is wrong, that is just silly.


Id suggest have something along the lines of:
Two formats - one a longer format, where a person is expected to play ~1 challange a day, which seems reasonable, or say a knockout over 5 days.

And a turbo format which is say some 8 man knockout which lasts just one weekend/week or whatever slower time format you want to keep In that case you get best of both worlds.

Phoenix -

1) Some people are not even aware of being registered, what can we do?

Someone has 5 matches to go two days before the deadline? Their opponents say that the guy does not accept the match invite. The guy says that he will finish soon. How can we understand that who says the truth? Do you want us to ask for screenshots and stuff? What should we do?

YOU MUST PLAY IN A GOOD PACE - HAVING 3 GAMES LEFT 2 DAYS BEFORE THE DEADLINE IS NOT FINE. 14 DAYS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU CAN GO AND SEND AN INVITE TO SOMEONE IN LAST DAY AND EXPECT HIM TO PLAY. IT IS A TWO-PEOPLE MATCH, YOU MUST BE AWARE OF THIS. IF YOU SCHEDULE ALL YOUR 10 GAMES FOR THE LAST DAY, IT IS FINE - BUT YOU CANNOT RANDOMLY DECIDE ON THE TOURNAMENT PACE.

2) Nobody is making anything a private event. But if there is one fast and one slow pace event, the fast one will be invitational based on the data - we cannot let everyone in as we did this time.

3) It is extremely silly that you make generalizations based on your own experience but we had like 10+ people with all different reasons for slow play (e.g. not sure how to send a challenge, not being aware of being registered, relative deaths, schedule conflict with opponent etc.).

[frank0]

Where is everyone in R8 (QF)?

[Phil]

I offered challenge, Chris accepted and played but I've been tied up and haven't been able to play.

Valentine's day is not helping.

Chris - please add me as friend - it will help when I issue the next.

[m1cha]

This time the challenge event put some strain on some players' nerves - and organizers' nerves even more so. Responsible were, in my perception:
- 80 % by players who did not know how to play or how to post results or who may not even have been aware that they had registered;
- 10 % long pauses mainly due to a long group phase, this can be improved by having smaller groups;
- 10 % other things that might have gone unnoticed unless accompanied by the others.
The main point is doing something about the 80 % and I believe it can be done.

Let me start with a little story. When I was a university student one of my physics professors put a lot of effort into any announcements he had to make for the students. He wrote them, read them and corrected, re-read them until he found them fool-proof. And you might think he was a nice guy and did it for the students but that is not the point. He was a nice guy indeed, but he did it for himself. Because these announcements were read by 200 or 300 students and it was his experience that if anything CAN be mistaken, it WILL be mistaken by some of them, and these students will sooner or later end up in his office needing his attention and time. He was better off putting effort into the announcements initially so that the students didn't have to come to him later on.

The announcement for Challenge Event #6 violated this rule. It had a very comfortable registration process and all necessary information for the experienced challenge event players, but for the new players it just didn't work well. The event was announced in the news feed and probably got - correct me if I'm wrong - thousands of readers. They found the initial vote just reading "Play?" - well what can it mean - so some of them just clicked "Yes" perhaps before reading the initial post. Then they read the post and found out they didn't understand it because some information for beginners did not come before the middle of the post and some not at all. So they stopped reading and left the forum, leaving "Yes" clicked for whatever reason. Look, if this forum had 1000 visitors and if 10 of them registered by mistake, that's 1 %, not a bad rate at all, I feel. It could have been worse. And I am pretty confident none of these 1 % was aware that they were about to cause trouble.

Now in order to reduce the number of unintentional or uninformed registrants, what can we do? To begin with, if we want to keep the vote, it must make absolutely clear that this is a registration process. Then the first post should start by explaining what a challenge event is. It may have to explain what a challenge is (or link to such an explanation). Then put yourself into the mind of a beginner reading the first lines of this post. What will be their next question? Answer that one and start over. Tell them what they have to do if they take part. Tell them all they have to know in order to decide if they want to take part or not. Then tell them how to register. I tried to set up a post according to this guideline, it's post #15 in the forum on future challenge events. If you want to use it, copy it from there or let me send it to you in a common format.

Another useful tool may be a confirmation of registration. Send a message to all players, sort of:
"This is sent to confirm your registration to challenge event #7. The group assignment will be published soon. From now on you are expected to consult the challenge event forum on a daily basis [link!]. If you cannot take part for whichever reason, please reply to this message NOW."
sent 2 - 3 days before the start from a yellow-label account to convey credibility and urgency. I am aware this is additional work but it can help to detect some remaining non-players. A trial may show if it is necessary or not and how well it works.

While splitting the event may make it more attractive for the dedicated experts, it doesn't solve the main problem: You still do want to make sure to minimize the unintentional or uninformed registrants in the slower event.

I really like this event. For me it's the best BBO has got and it's why I have also put some effort in keeping it running smoothly. My own preference: I could play a little faster but I also get along with the breaks. I would not take part in an event that could force me to play two 16-board challenges on one day more than just occasionally, and that's taking into account that there are days when I cannot play at all.

Thank you to all organizers for making this event possible.

[zzmiy]

QF second segment

ZZmiy 8.5 : 7.5 Cherdano

http://webutil.bridg...aeb4-1486953325

[toast1]

toast1 9.5-6.5 stoppiello, Q2
http://webutil.bridg...009003&u=toast1

[ovncylmz]

m1cha, on 2017-February-14, 20:09, said:

This time the challenge event put some strain on some players' nerves - and organizers' nerves even more so. Responsible were, in my perception:
- 80 % by players who did not know how to play or how to post results or who may not even have been aware that they had registered;
- 10 % long pauses mainly due to a long group phase, this can be improved by having smaller groups;
- 10 % other things that might have gone unnoticed unless accompanied by the others.
The main point is doing something about the 80 % and I believe it can be done.

Let me start with a little story. When I was a university student one of my physics professors put a lot of effort into any announcements he had to make for the students. He wrote them, read them and corrected, re-read them until he found them fool-proof. And you might think he was a nice guy and did it for the students but that is not the point. He was a nice guy indeed, but he did it for himself. Because these announcements were read by 200 or 300 students and it was his experience that if anything CAN be mistaken, it WILL be mistaken by some of them, and these students will sooner or later end up in his office needing his attention and time. He was better off putting effort into the announcements initially so that the students didn't have to come to him later on.

The announcement for Challenge Event #6 violated this rule. It had a very comfortable registration process and all necessary information for the experienced challenge event players, but for the new players it just didn't work well. The event was announced in the news feed and probably got - correct me if I'm wrong - thousands of readers. They found the initial vote just reading "Play?" - well what can it mean - so some of them just clicked "Yes" perhaps before reading the initial post. Then they read the post and found out they didn't understand it because some information for beginners did not come before the middle of the post and some not at all. So they stopped reading and left the forum, leaving "Yes" clicked for whatever reason. Look, if this forum had 1000 visitors and if 10 of them registered by mistake, that's 1 %, not a bad rate at all, I feel. It could have been worse. And I am pretty confident none of these 1 % was aware that they were about to cause trouble.

Now in order to reduce the number of unintentional or uninformed registrants, what can we do? To begin with, if we want to keep the vote, it must make absolutely clear that this is a registration process. Then the first post should start by explaining what a challenge event is. It may have to explain what a challenge is (or link to such an explanation). Then put yourself into the mind of a beginner reading the first lines of this post. What will be their next question? Answer that one and start over. Tell them what they have to do if they take part. Tell them all they have to know in order to decide if they want to take part or not. Then tell them how to register. I tried to set up a post according to this guideline, it's post #15 in the forum on future challenge events. If you want to use it, copy it from there or let me send it to you in a common format.

Another useful tool may be a confirmation of registration. Send a message to all players, sort of:
"This is sent to confirm your registration to challenge event #7. The group assignment will be published soon. From now on you are expected to consult the challenge event forum on a daily basis [link!]. If you cannot take part for whichever reason, please reply to this message NOW."
sent 2 - 3 days before the start from a yellow-label account to convey credibility and urgency. I am aware this is additional work but it can help to detect some remaining non-players. A trial may show if it is necessary or not and how well it works.

While splitting the event may make it more attractive for the dedicated experts, it doesn't solve the main problem: You still do want to make sure to minimize the unintentional or uninformed registrants in the slower event.

I really like this event. For me it's the best BBO has got and it's why I have also put some effort in keeping it running smoothly. My own preference: I could play a little faster but I also get along with the breaks. I would not take part in an event that could force me to play two 16-board challenges on one day more than just occasionally, and that's taking into account that there are days when I cannot play at all.

Thank you to all organizers for making this event possible.

Hey m1cha, good thoughts. The voting was Frank's innocent mistake, he is a wonderful kid but sometimes he forgets about real-world (but it is fine given he is a PhD student in Math). We are not gonna have any voting again. It will be back to old style.

The number of people in the group also got tricky because of the total number of people, starting next tournament, things will be smooth again. Potentially, we will have a slow tournament (potentially Swiss and max 2-3 games per week) and a invitational fast tournament (5-6 games per week, similar to current structure with big group sizes).

Cheers

[Phil]

R8 1Q

Me 11 crazy4hoop 5. Will post link later.

[crazy4hoop]

Phil, on 2017-February-14, 23:54, said:

R8 1Q

Me 11 crazy4hoop 5. Will post link later.

That was exactly my estimate after I played my set! I can post the link here now.
http://webutil.bridg...49&u=crazy4hoop

[crazy4hoop]

QF segment 2 phil vs. crazy4hoop: phil wins the set 8.5-7.5 and has a 19.5-12.5 lead at halftime.
http://webutil.bridg...28&u=crazy4hoop