Style for Ketsui tournament in the 3rd Bay Area shmupmeet

[BER]

For the third Bay Area shmupmeet in California, Dave_K. has approved of a competition that will be similar to INH's 4th Insanity Cup, which you can find more information about here:

http://forum.shmups.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5592

Basically, the competition is head-to-head battles on collecting the most 5-chips in the first stage of Ketsui.

I will be managing this tournament. And I would like to know your preferred style of organizing a tournament. I am considering three different styles (click here for descriptions of these styles) and my suggested variation of each of them:

• Single-elimination
  • Qualifying round for seeding
  • For all matches, best two games of three (best 2/3)
• Double-elimination
  • Qualifying round for seeding
  • For all matches in the losers bracket (including the finals rematch, if necessary) and in the winners bracket until the semifinals, best 1/1
  • For the semifinals in the winners bracket, best 2/3
  • For the finals, best 3/5
• Swiss-style
  • Six preliminary rounds (best 1/1 for all matches)
  • Single-elimination playoff tournament for the top four players (best 2/3 for all matches)

For all tournament styles, I would also like to raise the number of games needed to win a match if time permits as the tournament progresses.

Also, each game could take about four minutes to play. Playing the entire first stage should take about two and a half minutes, and doing other stuff like selecting battle fighters, killing off the fighters in the second stage, and managing the tournament should take about one and a half minutes. This means that we could have about fifteen matches per hour. Furthermore, I would like this tournament to last for three hours, so we could have forty-five matches in all.

How would you like to set up this tournament?

(If you don't care about the tournament style, but would like to compete in this tournament anyway, please post in this thread. I would like to have some idea of the number of competitors that will be participating in this tournament.)

[shariar07]

Those are cool, i'm definitely in.

I was also thinking about some other wacky and fun tournmanet on Ketsui

like Blindfold tournment: where players are blindfolded and play through first level of Ketsui, who ever gets farther or has highest score wins on 1 credit. can use bombs and fire shots. we can offcourse make this 2 players style two. I think it will be fun. we can also try it on other manic shmups particuarlly Mushi with 2 players.

Also if we have time can we do 2 players tournments, that would get more players involved.

[Dave_K.]

Thanks for running this Bernard, of course you can count me in.

I'm a fan of keeping it simple, I vote for single elimination. I don't understand the purpose of qualifying and seeding, why not just random pick? There is only going to be 1 winner. Also I don't think this particular competition should go over 1 hr for such a small group as ourselves...the point here is that everyone is involved, and interested in watching the match progress. Would like to hear what others have to say.

shariar07, a blindfolded ketsui run sounds fun/funny. May not be serious enough to hold people's attention, but I'll try it with you just for kicks.

[BER]

I don't understand the purpose of qualifying and seeding, why not just random pick? There is only going to be 1 winner.

The primary purpose of seeding is to have more exciting matches as the tournament progresses. With seeding, the top two players would most likely be in the final round, which could create an exciting match. If instead we randomly pair players in the first round, then we could have the top player compete against some mediocre player, which might be boring.

The secondary purpose of seeding is to determine byes more fairly. Without seeding, the worst player could be given a bye, which may annoy some people.

I don't mind if we randomly place players in the tournament bracket, though. INH will place players by a lottery, and I don't mind following their model. And the qualifying round eats up time that could be spent better on playing matches if people don't mind the random pairings.

Also I don't think this particular competition should go over 1 hr for such a small group as ourselves...the point here is that everyone is involved, and interested in watching the match progress. Would like to hear what others have to say.

Actually, I don't know how small a group we are. If we have up to six participants, then we can have a single-elimination tournament with each match being best 2/3 or better. Any larger and the preliminary matches would be only best 1/1. I don't like people to be eliminated in just one game. Having three hours would ensure that even the weakest players will have a few tries at this style of playing Ketsui without tiring out everyone.

We could also squeeze in some friendly matches before and after the hour-long tournament, though.

. . .

By the way, I prefer my variation of the Swiss-style tournament but only weakly over the other tournament styles.

[Dave_K.]

By the way, I prefer my variation of the Swiss-style tournament but only weakly over the other tournament styles.

I would favor the swiss style mentioned too, if it was 3-4 preliminary rounds, then one single round elimination final of top 4.

[shariar07]

Thanks for running this Bernard, of course you can count me in.

I'm a fan of keeping it simple, I vote for single elimination. I don't understand the purpose of qualifying and seeding, why not just random pick? There is only going to be 1 winner. Also I don't think this particular competition should go over 1 hr for such a small group as ourselves...the point here is that everyone is involved, and interested in watching the match progress. Would like to hear what others have to say.

shariar07, a blindfolded ketsui run sounds fun/funny. May not be serious enough to hold people's attention, but I'll try it with you just for kicks.

I definitely give it try with you maybe we can pass the 1st stage after we memorize the paths of enemies, i was thinking we can do this at the end of the tournmanet, yeah i'm looking to make it fun. Can you imagine doing that on Mushi.

[IlMrm]

I don't think I'll be in the tournament, since I am too lazy and not motivated to watch the replay to remember the stage one enemy locations and patterns, especially now since I am devoting my time to Tales of Symphonia($19.99, I can't resist.)

But I am sure it'll be great fun.

If there's a Mushi tournament, I am in, enemy locations be damned.

[BER]

I would favor the swiss style mentioned too, if it was 3-4 preliminary rounds, then one single round elimination final of top 4.

Let's assume that each match (in both the prelims and the playoffs) is best 1/1. If we want the tournament to last for at most an hour, then we can have up to eight players for three prelims and six players for four prelims. Otherwise, we'll need more time to run the Swiss-style tournament.

Dave, may I have two hours to run the tournament? I'll try to design the tournament to last for at most an hour. But I would like more time in case any task takes longer than I expected.

[Dave_K.]

BER, sounds good, I'm sure Ketsui will be getting a majority of the playtime over 19XX anyway.

[shariar07]

Hey Dave_K also we should try to have the Lowest Point tournmanet for Ketsui or Mushi, which means not shooting enemies and doging all the bullets up onto the first boss. Offcourse you can shoot when you think there is no way to dodge bullets or even throw a bomb for a fresh start. I think this will be challenging too.
I'll be there early 10am with my Modded PS2(w/taito memories 1&2) and couple PSX shmups and maybe 1 or 2 dojins.

[BER]

When should we start this tournament? I think 1:00 p.m. is the best time to start in order to maximize the number of participants and spectators. What do you guys think?

. . .

Also, I'll propose the rules for this tournament tomorrow (was tonight, but I became lazy). I am thinking about using the Swiss-style tournament, but if you would like me to change my mind, please say so.