Pound 3 Feedback Thread

[UMBC Super Smasher]

As some of you may know, I was the organizer behind the scenes for Pound 3. I made it happen, and I can make it happen again assuming a number of variables fall in place. For one, I would need a head tourney runner since Plairnkk doesn't feel up to it again (unless he changes his mind). I would, of course, need a staff of knowledgeable people to help run it. Any national (or international) event is completely different from a local tourney.

Leave your constructive feedback in this thread. What would you like done differently if there is a Pound 4? Comments, suggestions, etc go here. Discuss!! How can we make Pound 4 even better?

My Feedback:

- Great effort from Plairnkk. He was huge in doing this; without him, there obviously would not have been a Pound 3. He came into UMBC on several occasions to get things done in preparation. Thanks to Chinesahh for lay-out schematic, thoughts, and preview vid. Everyone in TA was helpful. There were others outside that were great too: Plairnkk's girlfriend, Kiwii, and anyone else I haven't mentioned.

- I think 3 rounds of pools for singles was too ambitious. Either one or two rounds of pools and a bigger bracket would have been better.

- We should use Google Checkout instead of Paypal so we don't lose money in fees.

- Perhaps we could look into renting tv's?

- Maybe we could get some sponsors?

[Shmooguy]

I would like it to be closer to where I live.

EDIT: No other complaints.

[takieddine]

Even though many people thought it wouldnt be great, it was by fart the largest, most fun, most difficult tournament to date.

the only things I would suggest are:

1) picking a better date, MLK weekend so even if we run into bracket trouble as we did, we have another day so us OOS'ers can consider going home the next day as opposed to leaving that night, and having school/work that day.

2)I don't think it was the lack of setups, but just the lack of people listening to plank while he was calling out stuff, it was a large tourney. I'm not sure how this could be fixed because many people would still like to get in friendlies too.

3)There were too many things going on for one person to handle IMO, so next time have multiple people in charge of it...

4) Encourage local people to house, because I know for a fact there would have been more people there had there been easier housing around. but overall it wasn't that bad once people split a hotel room.

5) Pool leaders like doyoung said, and possibly making pools more balanced if possible at each round, if it is overwhelmingly evident that it is imbalanced.

Thanks to plank and all who made this tourney possible.

[Warrior of Zarona]

You need staff.

All that was there running the tournament was Plank and his girlfriend. Saturday morning, he had some people like Chinesahh help him out, and had myself help with certain odd things like making announcements on the microphone or helping with tie-breakers in pools. Other than that, a team was really needed to keep things organized. It's hard to do with mainly just two people.

[doyoung2win]

(copy and pasted)

If you remember at FC i think that is something that everyone should follow. They had pool leaders with people in charge of each pool and recorded the results on the sheet. On top of having someone ensuring that people are playing the matches, they set it up not so that it's not just a table sheet for results but that it shows in which order people should play to maximize the time the pool finishes and not have confusion on who plays who first.

Also, only hold enough events that you have time for. Sure we could have finished crews singles and doubles if people had listened, but the reality is people usually tend not to. FC was able to get it done because their event was 3 days long. Crews especially hurt the time because while pools were going on, matches were stalled due to people being involved in the crew battles. Schedules of breaks and strict starting times of pools / matches should also be announced to everyone.

Lastly, you have to ensure that you have enough setups and that it remains that way for the entire tournament. No one can blame plank for not knowing people would take their setups back after the first day, but someone has to enforce those rules.

p.s. Some food variation would not be so bad.

oh another thing. The layout or setup of the tournament should be changed to allow better mobility and speed up the process of doing things. Having an open space in the middle and then having the table stations around the square on the sides have worked very well in determining the location of stations as well as having ease of moving around each station. It helps so that when first comers are trying to find where they play, someone can easily point them the way (large station numbers or signs may also help). This layout has proven very successful at Cataclysm, FC and some others I forget. VLS failed in this aspect because of the divided rooms they had etc.

[UMBC Super Smasher]

Even though many people thought it wouldnt be great, it was by fart the largest, most fun, most difficult tournament to date.

the only things I would suggest are:

1) picking a better date, MLK weekend so even if we run into bracket trouble as we did, we have another day so us OOS'ers can consider going home the next day as opposed to leaving that night, and having school/work that day.

2)I don't think it was the lack of setups, but just the lack of people listening to plank while he was calling out stuff, it was a large tourney. I'm not sure how this could be fixed because many people would still like to get in friendlies too.

3)There were too many things going on for one person to handle IMO, so next time have multiple people in charge of it...

4) Encourage local people to house, because I know for a fact there would have been more people there had there been easier housing around. but overall it wasn't that bad once people split a hotel room.

Thanks to plank and all who made this tourney possible. Thanks, I thought as someone who organized the event but was more of a participant that it was pretty amazing.

1. I couldn't hold it in the University Center Ballroom on a holiday because I need student staff, housekeeping, and the building itself (it's closed) and can't get them on government holidays. Any other non government holiday suggestions for a date?

2. Make one trustworthy person from each pool responsible for getting their pool's matches finished asap.

3. We at least need several announcers.

4. We can't make people house. However, I found a motel < 10 mins away that is a lot cheaper than where everyone stayed. If I got a group discount at this other hotel, then it would be even more affordable to stay in a motel.

We didn't have tables around the perimeter of the room because it would have limited us. We didn't have a square; one side and corner was unusable space. We debated over a perimeter setup versus the setup we used, and I think the setup we used was better.

[pockyD]

2. Make one trustworthy person from each pool responsible for getting their pool's matches finished asap.


doyoung2win already mentioned this (and i mentioned it to him yesterday O_o) but something like what FC had with 3rd-party pool managers (someone who's not actually playing in the pool so they won't be distracted or have a "hold on" moment when a match needs to be scheduled because they're currently playing) would be a much better idea

if you do pools in waves (2 waves of pools, 2 tvs per pool instead of 1 wave, 1 tv per), people get less time between matches (good thing) and you have half of the people present available to help run the pools (of which you'd only need like 16 or so)

[HugS]

LoL this is totally off topic...

But i honestly think that I am one of the most sigged smashers on these boards.

[Maben]

That's cause your awesome HugS! Btw you kicked some *** in MMes at Pound 3.

Edit:
Oh and my suggestions-
1. Try to stick to a strict time schedule for when things start and end. It seemed like it was kinda done on the fly in regards to when things would happen.
2. Definitely need more people helping in regards to getting people to do stuff. I even wouldn't mind helping out next time if need be because sometimes people just straight up didn't want to listen.
3. Yeah probably less rounds of pools. I only stayed for Round 1 of Singles and Round 1 of Doubles and I was there until about 7:00 PM...and the 2nd rounds hadn't even been discussed yet. I'm not sure how long the entire thing actually took but I assume it went for a long time.

[DYC]

Best advice a person can give:

Hire the Kishes to run your tournament.

[xXx-NoobKing-xXx]

Results Please. >.>

[kackamee]

I would've came to make myself known as a new smasher, but I didn't know about it till Feb. the first. So a little more sponsering would be cool

[Ankoku]

Dude, it's Pound 3. Anyone who knows anything about competitive Smash tourneys knew about it. It was stickied in the tournaments discussion forum.

[Hax]

doyoung and hugs ftw!! that is all. :)

[D'oH]

Don't split up singles and teams. You lose your momentum as a team and split your focus. It's dumb.

Too much stuff for two days. Need to start earlier. Regionals needs to either be organized better or scrapped.

[Balloon]

Results Please. >.>

I agree with this man.

This bald, weird haired, ridiculously tall, sexy Ganondorf main of a man.

[UMBC Super Smasher]

Keep checking this thread for Pound 3 results. This is the latest info that is uploaded:

http://tia.nealpro.com/ttournament.aspx?id=386

I don't have the results.

Keep the feedback coming. I've already gotten a good idea of what to change for next time. Even if I don't host the next big(ger) tourney, others can learn from history to create an even more awesome tourney.

[ChiboSempai]

Pound 3 was a great tournament, and I'm glad I attended. I'm especially glad I went to get more experience in running tournaments outside the part of playing smash and watching awesome matches.

This is by far the biggest tourney I've been to, and while I'm pleased with how it was run, I have some feedback:

Pros:
-Water jugs were a good idea. It's small things like these that make a big difference. Sure there was a water fountain in the hallway, but half the people probably didn't know about it, nor did they want to leave the room.
-Paying people to bring stuff. While I think $15 was a bit much to give for TVs, it was a good incentive to bring setups. It really helped make the tournament a bit more affordable. Having it all ready in envelopes worked nicely.
-Friendly staff. While there wasn't much staff (more on that later), they were very kind and a pleasure to see as tourney hosts. I've met a couple of them like Plank briefly at a SPOC tourney, but it was my first time seeing WoZ, who seemed to help out a lot especially on Saturday.
-The location. The room the tourney was held in was perfect, and with a couple smaller rooms we could also use, it couldn't have been better.
-Parking. I'm planning a huge tourney in Philadelphia, but I have no clue what to do about parking. I recently held a tourney for about 40 people and there were complaints about parking... The parking was perfect at UMBC. There was TONS of spots, and all free.
-Brawl being playable. While this was a side thing added at the end, it was a big attraction that a lot of people loved. Good sh1t Dave. Also, it helped clear out the main room so there was more open TVs. Side events are good diversions.

Cons:
-Amount of setups. For a big tournament like this, more setups is really needed. I understand that there was as much effort as possible in getting people to bring setups, I'm sure there was some way you could rent TVs through the school.
-You need more staff. Plank did an amazing job, but as for the organization of the event, he was pretty much the only person doing anything for the most part. WoZ helped with some announcement the first day and getting Brawl players to be more quiet lolz, and Plank's gf helped with various things, but it just wasn't enough. For those who helped, you did an amazing job, but there needs to be more.
-More security. Not in guards, but with stuff being stolen. Perhaps if there were maybe locks setup for systems (which would also prevent them from being knocked off the table which happened to some systems, including Wiis which was cringing to watch). Also, perhaps if there were some lockers in areas people could put jackets or bookbags.
-More projectors. The one main projector was great for the big regional crew battles, but it would have been great to see like 5 (3 for big battles, either finals or regional crews), and two for pools or brackets. They should be rentable through the college.
-The team signups. I never heard once that anyone who signed up for teams should double check at the front desk that was near the door, and my team with GOTM, Andy and the Tuna, ended up not getting placed into a pool correctly and had to be added after they were made. We both signed up online at the same time as correct as we thought we could be, and weren't included. After talking to Plank I think he said everyone had to re-sign up at the event, but I asked Eggm if he had to re-signup that day with Velocity, but he said they just registered online and everything was fine.
-Telling people that they have to leave sooner than they really have to lol. Like if you can get the venue till midnight, tell everyone it ends at 10. This will get people rushing through the tourney to get it done asap, and tourneys always run late.
-More stuff should have been done on Saturday, and pools should have started again much earlier on Sunday.

It was a long post, but I just wanted to offer my feedback on the awesome and amazing Pound 3 lol.

Great tournament Plank. You did an amazing job.

[Pakman]

I think, for a tournament of this magnitude, it might be reasonable to have a round of pools on the Friday before. But like others have said, if 3rd pools was eliminated everything would have went a little faster. 64 man bracket isn't too bad.

I also feel for the final matches, investing on one or two video amplifiers would be nice. I used one for M2K's final two sets and got the matches output to two tv's instead on one.

PS. I will be uploading the vids of those matches soon.

[Banks]

perhaps you could have the pool matches announced and apply the DQ rule to pools matches rather than leaving pools to pool leaders

[UndrDog]

I hate to be the jerk that denies 75% of the turn out more then five tourney matches, but limiting the pool survivors to two would've saved a lot of time.

With more time you could make a designated time for lunch, perhaps even an hour for people to get food one way or the other. I went without simply because the pizza always came during pools. First rounds of pools too, both singles and teams.

But in the end you couldn't expect anything more then what you managed to pull off man.

NOTE: I'll throw my shoutouts in here in a bit.

[Plairnkk]

As far as staff goes - I definitely should've had more help, didn't have nearly enough.

As far as food variation goes, UMBC was gay and denied my food waver, saying their catering company could cover it. They could have (at the price of $5k). The only thing they allowed me to get was pizza. gay.

As far as the setup goes, it was PERFECT for finding tvs and setups, except for the fact people took their tvs after the first day or half way through the tournament.

As far as more setups go, I could rent through rent-a-center or something, and i guess if i decide to do it again i'll HAVE to. Maybe rent like 64 tvs all the same size and get a bulk deal on it, or something. I thought $15 would be enough to get people to bring tvs, i guess i was wrong.

As far as security and things getting stolen, these things HAPPEN at large events. People are scum as a whole, if you have personal supplies you CAN'T leave them lying around. It's quite lame, but it happens.

As far as DQing goes, I should've done more. However, the main problem was i never KNEW people weren't at their pools playing matches. I was never told when people were missing until liek the end of the pool, then that person STILL had to play everyone. It's hard because you expect everyone to work with you when you're doing this, but a lot of people don't think about the good of the tournament and just want to play friendlies or other matches.

With this time restraint, I really should've been more pushy than I was. If i caught someone playing a friendly during the tournament on a pool tv, they should have just been dq'd. If they were out of the the tournament and doing it, they should've just been kicked out of the venue. Having security, I had the authority to do this. However, my conscience got the best of me and I didn't do any of that, leaving the tournament running to an absurd hour. Lesson learned, be more of a ****.

I messed up, i'm glad everyone had a good time nonetheless

[Divinokage]

Well this is has not been mentioned, but Regional crews took WAY too much time IMO. And it seemed many of us came to watch the matches to cheer on, etc. In which then held off playing many of the pool matches.

[Maben]

Undrdog!!! See I do post on the forums!

I agree with basically what ChiboSempai said and I had my own feedback but decided to add:

-Things need to be communicated clearly, and efficiently. If this is done, as soon as someone doesn't listen you can feel no remorse for punishing them it's their own fault. This wasn't a problem for me or a lot of other people but there was definitely some confusion in the room.
-I think teams and singles should be seperated. I'm not sure what is done at most tournaments, but it seems like running singles first and then doubles after (probably just on the second day) would be a better idea. Friendlies can occur throughout, and this allows people who aren't interested in playing one or the other to do other things.

Since all I've really said is criticism, I want to say that it was a GREAT event! I had a lot of fun and it was cool to see a lot of the pros and just to smash with so many people. Definitely a good end to the Melee era.

[UndrDog]

Undrdog!!! See I do post on the forums!

I agree with basically what ChiboSempai said and I had my own feedback but decided to add:

-Things need to be communicated clearly, and efficiently. If this is done, as soon as someone doesn't listen you can feel no remorse for punishing them it's their own fault. This wasn't a problem for me or a lot of other people but there was definitely some confusion in the room.
-I think teams and singles should be seperated. I'm not sure what is done at most tournaments, but it seems like running singles first and then doubles after (probably just on the second day) would be a better idea. Friendlies can occur throughout, and this allows people who aren't interested in playing one or the other to do other things.

Since all I've really said is criticism, I want to say that it was a GREAT event! I had a lot of fun and it was cool to see a lot of the pros and just to smash with so many people. Definitely a good end to the Melee era.

Oooo...! So you DO! lol

[Maben]

Hey how you get to be so green?

Edit: Btw you spelled "throne" wrong in your location.

[UndrDog]

lol I did didn't I? lol I'll fix that. But we shouldn't be spamming this here thread. >_<

[Skler]

This tournament was great, except it ended up running too long and pizza gets boring after a while (I know there was nothing that could be done about it except pay a lot, but it still made me sad).

I had to leave at 7:30 and ended up forfeiting all my bracket matches. I'm aware that leaving early is my fault (I wish this had been on MLK day so I didn't have to), but had crews been held off until later people like me could have stayed for (almost) all of singles/teams.

Great tourny, good **** Plarinkkk.

[aho43]

Jon you did a good job. We were short on staff, and alot more of TA, myself included, should've been helping out with the running of the tournament. I personally would welcome another Pound, however I would insist on a different venue due to the time constraints. I'm sort of dying out of the scene, but we'll see how I feel about that w/ Brawl, hopefully Brawl can manage to be a tourney viable game. I had lots of fun, played lots of people.

For other people who run tournaments, I think the whole convention of team names is awesome, but for the sake of running tournaments, team names should be entered as Player 1 + Player 2. Tracking down who you need to play is a lot easier if that is the case.

This is probably my last big melee tourney. Might be my last melee tourney period. We'll see what happens with brawl.

[phish-it]

Aside from the things peopel already mentioned I'd like to make a comment about DQ's.

While I know they should take place if people fail to play matches, leave the venue etc. they weren't done in the way they should've.

I ended up getting disqualified myself for some reason, and according to Plank someone had claimed that I had left the tourney, even though I didn't leave the venue once during the time 2nd pools were in session and I was playing my matches. Now if any type of Disqualifying needss to be done, it would make sense to call it over the loud speaker beforehand: (So and So you will be disquallified if you don't play your match in 2 minutes) However this wasn't the case, and I was never informed by anyone until after it happened.

[xXx-NoobKing-xXx]

I agree with this man.

This bald, weird haired, ridiculously tall, sexy Ganondorf main of a man.

I use Falcon now too >.>

Aho: Brawl will hardly be "competitive" IMO. >.> I've heard alot from people like SyniKaL and stuff that the game is just WAY less in-depth then melee.

[Cups]

Regional crews were pointless and took up way too much time and weren't even finished. If it wasn't for that, went off without too much of a hitch. Try to start the thing on time tho, we were an hour and a half late the first day and just as late the second. Good **** though.

Darkrain should have won IMO.

[Teczero]

Plank, Woz, and Doyoung basically hit everything IMO.

There should probably have been a much stricter DQ rule as plank says.

A pool leader to get things done making sure people don't leave the pool station until ALL of their pools matches were done. Otherwise they probably should just get DQed and there should be someone in charge of enforcing it. Like Doyoung said.

And a STAFF. Probably and most likely the most important thing that plank was missing. He had random help from like chinesah, his girlfriend, and some others but Chinesah was in tournament and obviously was unable to help all the time. Also two people running a tournament with about 240 entrants is basically not feasible. So i think he needed a staff like what Woz said.

Plank did a great job honestly its the people who didn't cooperate. A lot of people went away from their pools and started to play friendlies elsewhere. It happening 5 times (2 doubles pools/ 3 singles pools) with like 50 + people really hurt the time for the entire tournament.

The tournament was also quite ambitious although I think that if plank had a staff everything he wanted to do might have been able to be done.

Also I know that the date was something that couldn't be helped but, dates are also a pretty big factor. A large scale tourney like pound would have been even MORE amazing on a vacation weekend maybe like before school or in the summer.

I hope plank pulls another huge tournament again he has hosted the BEST and most ENJOYABLE tournaments I ever attended. Believe me I'm a really really cheap person and I spent about 120 dollars for this event and I felt as if it was worth it.

Also people should have left their TVs there. The venue did hold a lot of Tvs but not enough I suppose. There needed to be a few more but I think everyone knows that already >_>.

[Plairnkk]

cups i agree, we were late starting mainly cuz smashboards was sucky so i had to go through the whole teams registration process :/

Tec, thanks so much, i really appreciate that. im thinking about hosting something again, definitely will be better prepared, but it wouldnt be til summer at some point and i wont know til i am positive brawl sux ;p

[Plairnkk]

also, phish it, i really really apologize for what happened. you've been nothing but an awesome dude ever, and have always been good about rules and everything, i was really surprised when MULTIPLE people in ur pool told me you left. I should've confirmed it with you, and i'm SORRY that happened to you, I feel awful for that =(

[Teczero]

cups i agree, we were late starting mainly cuz smashboards was sucky so i had to go through the whole teams registration process :/

Tec, thanks so much, i really appreciate that. im thinking about hosting something again, definitely will be better prepared, but it wouldnt be til summer at some point and i wont know til i am positive brawl sux ;p

Thanks to you to too for hosting these gigantic things LOL.

If you go ahead and make another one you know you can expect me and the Tunes there ;)

[Eggm]

First off plank great job.

I really really enjoyed reigonal crews alot, I want to see that happen again. I also enjoyed the three rounds of pools, ways to make these happen in the time frame.

Start at 10 instead of 11, thats not too hard pretty much everyone can leave early friday morning or is already there being housed. Plenty of time to get a quick breakfast on the way.

Have more setups from rentacenter or something sounds good, MAKE SURE THEY DONT ALL LAG OR HAVE SLIGHT LAG.

At least 2 tv's per pool, even if the pools have to be done in waves. With pool moderators.

Set a date for finding teammates. Any later oh well. This way pools can be ready to go and no switching between teams/singles so much that was corny.

Have teams run first, and when it gets down to a few teams playing long sets, start singles pools.

More staff is obviously useful.

Get a venue with a more reasonable clear out time, like 1 AM.
STARTing the tournament at 10 AM and ending at 1 AM would be plenty of time for Singles/Double/Reigonals. If theres extra time, don't try to squeeze in more events, let everyone play those friendlies everyone wants so bad, or MM's.

I would give at least one shouted out warning before dq's on the loud speaker, for people like phish it, or if some one happened to have to take a dump. I liked that idea about calling out pools matches, then theres no arguing who plays theirs first its whatevers called out, it also just seems more organized that way. The thing you did with saying alright pools is starting everyone to the front stop the friendlies was good, but with more staff you could have more people go out there and inforce it quicker, giving out the warnings or the DQ's and that will save time.

Best tournament ever tho lol, i'd love love love to see another one. :) Brawl's not going to be a competitive game for at least a year IMO, until all stuff is discovered a widely known rule set is accepted and stages are accepted, and the metagame fully evolves tier lists are made etc. its going to take awhile, brawl tournaments before that are smart players from melee just trying to steal the tons of scrubs who are hyped up to play brawl's money lol, and between the good players it will be a gay campfest based off luck, hopefully brawl proves me wrong tho i'd like to play it competitively i guess.

So earlier starting time, a venue with a later clean up time. That'd be best. And more staff. More tv's. Be epic.

On a final note, imagine if we started at 10 AM promptly both days and the venue was open till 1 AM. That woulda added roughly 8 hours total. Despite the lack of setups/staff, plank coulda pulled off everything with an extra 8 hours, so imagine doing those start/end times at a venue that allows us too with 10 extra staff members and 20 rented tv's. Coulda been a very very well run tournament with lots of times for tons of friendlies all of reigonal crews, the three rounds of pools and MM's.

One last idea, put like 10 rented tv's for friendlies aside. Friendlies for the whole time, the rest of the rented tv's and the ones people bring could be for tournament use ONLY. And only times between pools/bracket matches could they be used for friendlies.

[Dazwa]

Set up prizes in a way where you can refund people who at the last minute can't make it due to forces out of their control. While in the end I understand you guys couldn't refund Maine (and don't expect it, either, you warned well ahead of time there weren't going to be any refunds), the fact that you couldn't compensate us at all after we got into a car crash is just ridiculous, IMO.