Worst tournament I have ever been to.
- I brought my setup to the tournament since it seemed like they needed a lot of setups, but my venue fee didn’t get waived since they didn’t need it. I’m not too worried about that, just annoying that I walked with my setup to campus with the intention of them needing setups badly and then not using it for the entire tournament.
Yeah, at the very least it should state that "the first X many people to bring setups get the venue fee waved," where X represents the number of televisions available or something along those lines. Perhaps pair this with a count of the number of people in the thread who volunteer to bring a setup, so that once enough people have volunteered, people will know there will be no benefit to lugging a setup there and back. Maybe request one or two more setups than needed to counteract possible no-shows.
- Entry fee was $5 venue fee, $5 mandatory charity donation, $5 for singles, and $5 for teams. At least the ruleset said that. It was somewhat annoying that the “cover fee” was the same as the entry fee. If I’m paying $10 for the cover fee, I would expect the tournament to be of high quality and, subsequently, have high payouts.
I'm not even sure what the venue fee was for. The room is free for student organizations like OSI, and the beverages were probably a free grant from Coca-Cola. (I'm part of another student organization doing something similar, so I have first-hand experience with that stuff). Maybe the television rentals?
If venue fee goes to charity, and charity donation goes to charity, and half of singles goes to charity, and half of doubles goes to charity, that's 15USD/20USD = 75% of the money going in goes to charity. It's an even higher percentage if you don't enter both singles and doubles. As much as I approve of charity, that's crazy high, and probably ends up hurting more than helping. Personally, I think it'd be better a larger chunk went into the pot to appeal to more people, which bring in more venue/charity fees, which will net a larger total amount of money for charity. It'd be nice to bring in people from out-of-state and what not.
- BigR and I win teams. Ray (the tournament organizer) is announcing the winners over the microphone and says, “In first place in Melee doubles, BigR and his teammate!” Everyone was laughing, and I have a good sense of humor, so I thought it was pretty funny, too. Everybody knows BigR is good/nobody really knows who I am, so it makes sense. Plus people were saying that throughout the tournament: “Yeah, we lost to BigR.” I honestly don’t mind that at all because I’m pretty unknown, at least in the Columbus community. However, Ray did not even say something along the lines of, “Yeah, I’m joking, good job” or something to dismiss his previous statement. He seemed pretty genuine in his statement, and for a tournament organizer to say that? That’s a very amateur thing to do in his “professional” setting, not to mention that statement being false. I think anybody that watched our matches could tell you that I am a pretty competent doubles partner (singles: totally different story).
I talked to Ray about this, as I did feel it was a bit unprofessional as well, and if I remember correctly he said it was because he only remembered your first name. He called me "paradigm" since he forgot my on-the-birth-certificate name. I don't think he meant any harm - he was probably just overwhelmed trying to manage three simultaneous tournaments. Still, that doesn't make it any less unprofessional. He could have:
1) Said "Yeah, I'm joking, good job."
2) Memorized the names of the winners for the whole minute it takes to go through and announce them.
3) Just not done any sort of ceremony.
- A lot of that stuff was just pet peeve stuff, but this is where it starts to get shaky. After BigR and I win teams, we receive our first place envelope. Doing the math in my head, there were 7 teams, so $70 in the pot. I assumed that $42 was going to be in the envelope (assuming they did 60/30/10, which ended up not being the split, as it was like 55/30/15 or something along the lines of that). When we opened the envelope, we revealed $14. We’re like, okay, something has to be wrong here. We talk to Ray and he informs us that half of the doubles money went to charity as well . . . what? If you recall, it was $5 for charity, $5 for singles, and $5 for teams. However, Ray insists that money from both singles AND doubles are going to charity. I bring up the ruleset on a laptop, and I show Ray the ruleset that he posted on there. He’s like, oh, well I mean it’s only $2.50 more per person. Really? You’re calling yourself a professional with that kind of a statement? You have to be kidding me. That’s completely unacceptable. I tell him that he should follow the ruleset, and he just completely ignores me like I’m not saying anything. Great tournament organizer. Very professional.
Yeah, not following the posted rules goes from an excusable maybe-there-was-a-misunderstanding into the shady territory. It's there in black-and-white, with weeks of time to proofreed what was posted and fix it before the tournament started.
- I talk with the other teams, and the payout was $14, $11, and $10, to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively. Okay, now I’m completely confused cause that is nowhere near 55/30/15. I talk with another person working the event (since Ray doesn’t want to listen to my “logic” anymore) and he informs me that there is a statement on the ruleset that says, “(Prize amount subject to change if there are less than 8 teams).” Okay, I can see the prize amount changing . . . but to split the money THAT way? 40/32/28? I would assume (logistically, that is) that “subject to change” means that you are eliminating 3rd place, cause realistically, why would 3rd place get any money in a 7-team event? He informs me that this payout structure is “more likely to keep people around,” that “if they get their money back, they are more likely to come back because they feel successful.” Or something along the lines of that. First of all, I’ve dealt with a multitude of various tournament structures (poker/smash/other video games), and money-back should NEVER exist. You’re not winning anything! You either win or lose in an event. You should not be able to “draw,” per se. If 1st place profits $2 each and 2nd profits $0.50, the tournament organizers are essentially just taking money from everybody. If you could quantify that into a statement, it would be, “The top 3 teams are breaking even, and we are taking all of the money from 4th-7th place.” That is beyond bad for a tournament. I tell him that if that is your logic, that breaking even will make people happy, then I guess you’re keeping them around but you’re clearly not keeping me around.
As someone who just barely made it into money in both singles and doubles, I agree. I feel more like the effort was wasted and there's a net loss irrelevant of if I win or loss; I'd be more inclined to go to another tournament. Achilles, who placed 3rd in teams and 5th in singles - AND brought a setup - still had a net loss.
- I overheard Ray and another person talking about the charity and about how much money was raised from this event. He said that $450 was raised for charity, and I was pretty impressed with that. The girl said to him, “What, so you just donate all this to a foundation or something?” Ray replied with, “Oh, well we don’t donate the money to a foundation. We don’t donate it to something like the Make-a-Wish foundation because they have employees working for that foundation. Well, why would we donate to this charity? We’re essentially paying the employees with our donating, and we don’t believe in that. Our organization is holding onto the money, and we are going to keep growing as we get more and more money. The more money we get, the bigger and better we become, and then the more money we can donate to charity.” I can’t believe I didn’t say anything in person to Ray about this, but I’m sure he would not have listened to me anyway. You’re not donating to a charity because they pay their employees? That’s a completely ridiculous argument. I’m sorry, but businesses rely on their employees to get the job done. The money still goes to a great foundation. I’m sorry you think it’s ludicrous that you’re paying employees. To comment even further, where is this money going? After hearing the conversation that you had, I cannot believe I didn’t ask for my money back. You’re just going to hold onto the money until you do bigger and better things? I don’t think you can call this event “donating to charity” unless you actually do it. Cause you know, that’s probably not legal. What if these Smash events never happen again? What if you never raise another dollar for these “supposed” charities again? Where is this money going to? I’m sorry, but the fact that you’re basically keeping the money “until further notice” makes me very uneasy. How the hell am I supposed to know if you are donating to a charity in the future? That is completely unacceptable, and I am definitely not donating another dollar to your “charity” ever again.
This I agree 100% with. I complained to Ray about it when I first learned about it as well. If I remember correctly, originally the profit from the first OSI was going to Child's Play, which I totally approved of. Now it's going to wherever the OSI people want it to go and those who actually gave the money for charity have no real control or say about it. That's shady as hell. Just let an experienced, established charity organization handle it, so we know where our money goes.
Tl;dr: this tournament was a complete joke. Not following the ruleset whatsoever and being incredibly shady regarding the charity aspect are the two main reasons why I’m never going to be at another one of these tournaments again. If this is the “saving grace” of the Melee community in Columbus, then I’m pretty sure I just lost all motivation I have had recently in continuing to play this game. So thanks for that.
The only reason I go to these is that they're conveniently timed and located. If I had a ride to the Michigan tournament I would have much rathered go there.
I'd rather remedy the issues than simply drop it completely, though. As far as I see it, it could be remedied thusly:
1) A larger percentage of the money in goes into the pot. $5 mandatory charity fee is enough, honestly; let the money going into doubles and the money going into singles stay in those pots. Everyone playing is alreadying giving charity. This will (a) result in happier players who are more likely to return, and (b) bring in more people in general, which will (c) net even larger amounts of money for charity. It's not like this could not scale up and it's necessary to squeeze as much money as possible from the people who attend; I know the Union has much larger rooms available (again, 100% free to student organizations like OSI).
2) Go with an established charity. Child's Play is probably the best choice, as everyone attending these understands the joy that can come from videogames, but if you want to give it to starving people in third world countries or cancer research, I don't really care. Just announce an established charity and stick with it. The current plan is shady as hell.
3) Individually congradulate people who win, or at least do them the honor of remembering their names for the whole time it takes to do the winning ceremony thing. Or just drop the ceremony. As it was done, it was rather insulting.
MMX's points are all valid and much more important, but if I can add a pet peeve of my own: Make the signup name field allow *either* real name *or* alias. Don't make people put their real names if they don't want too. "Name/alias: ________________" on the sign up sheet is fine. There are numerous benefits: (1) People don't have to put their names if they don't want. Someone in this thready already asked for the name be replaced by an alias on the results page. (2) People can recognize each other. I have no clue who 80% of the names in the bracket were, and had to run around yelling people's names to find and match them up. That's an unnecessary pain. No one (including Ray) knew who the hell Daniel T was, but I expect at least half if not more knew Paradigm, and could either recognize my face or the fact I'm the only one there who used Samus. (3) It helps handwriting and aural recognition. "Paradigm" is a unique word, "Dan" could easily be confused with "Dane" or "David" or a whole host of other things. I know I heard someone running around yelling for a "Von Braun" due to a mis-reading of the handwriting; there was no "Von Braun" there. (4) Uniqueness. There is only one "Paradigm" in the smash community, at least in the Ohio one. There were two Erics in my pool. (5) Aliases are *fun*. Someone gets to write their name up as "poop-head-face" and everyone gets to giggle like an idiot when it gets announced that "poop-head-face" took third place.
Letting us put in team names as well would be nice, but admitedly not as important.
and we still need to play chess!!
