T.O. Help- My First Tourney

[OmegaMuffin]

Hey SWF! I'm holding a SSBM tourney at my college soon. I'm kinda nervous as I've never held a legit tournament before. Can anyone give me any advice? I've got the ruleset:


1v1- Only two players playing at a Wii/Gamecube console at any given time. Rounds are best 2 out of 3 while the final round is best 3 out of 5. Battle settings are 4 stocks (lives) with 8 minutes on the clock. In the instance that time runs out and the lives are tied, the player with the least amount of damage (percentage) will be the victor. If the percentages are tied, the victor will be decided in a sudden death match. All items are off.
Players who lose in the first round will be knocked into the “Losers’ bracket”, a bracket separate from the main bracket. The winner of the Losers’ bracket will be allowed back into the main tournament.
Stages:
The first stage is chosen by random. The random select will only choose from these stages:
Yoshi’s Story
Fountain of Dreams
Dreamland 64
Battlefield
Final Destination
The loser of the first match (and of successive matches) chooses the next stage, and then the winner chooses his character, and then the loser chooses his character. Other available stages are:
Pokemon Stadium
Mute City
Brinstar
Kongo Jungle 64
All other stages are banned.

I'll have at least 2 setups and I'm only allowing 32 participants. This is to allow people to hear about the event (I want to do this more often). I've spoken with the higher-ups of the school and they're alright with the tournament happening on campus. Is there any advice you can give to a scrub T.O.?

 

[Kal]

Generally speaking, we don't use random select for the first match anymore. We use the California Stage Strike system. Players play Rock-Paper-Scissors for first strike, and alternate striking stages in a 1-2-1 order, and play on the remaining stage. For example, I could strike Yoshi's Story, you could strike Dreamland 64 and Battlefield, and I could strike Final Destination, forcing us to play on Fountain of Dreams.

If time allows, you can run all sets as best of five, though opinion varies as to whether this is practical (keep in mind, however, that almost every European tournament is run as best of five with little issue).

As far as tournament advice, just try and keep things running on time. Announce matches promptly, and be strict about not allowing players to use tournament setups for friendlies. If it's your first tournament, things will be hectic, and you will likely play worse if you enter (this is dubbed "TO fatigue" by some people). Just do your best to make sure things are being run when they are supposed to: don't sit around waiting unless you've verified that every match that should currently be in progress is actually in progress.

Things will get easier as you run additional tournaments. Let us know how this goes, of course.

 

[CloneHat]

Try using the actual rule set to start out. You'll have to supervise each match at first, but eventually they'll catch on.

 

[OmegaMuffin]

Generally speaking, we don't use random select for the first match anymore. We use the California Stage Strike system. Players play Rock-Paper-Scissors for first strike, and alternate striking stages in a 1-2-1 order, and play on the remaining stage. For example, I could strike Yoshi's Story, you could strike Dreamland 64 and Battlefield, and I could strike Final Destination, forcing us to play on Fountain of Dreams.

I didn't want to over-complicate the rules so that people who don't play often are off-put by the stage select system, but I could give it a shot.

If time allows, you can run all sets as best of five, though opinion varies as to whether this is practical (keep in mind, however, that almost every European tournament is run as best of five with little issue).

I didn't want things to last too long, as we don't have multiple days like a normal tournament.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll make sure to keep an eye out for matches and I'll let you guys know how everything goes. If there's anything else you could suggest to me, please don't hesitate!

 

[Kal]

If your players are not "regular smashers," then it makes perfect sense to just use random select for the first match. Sorry, I'm used to think about a more conventional local scene of regulars, which is why I made the point. Also, for a local event, you don't need more than one day to finish, even with best of five. It's up to you to decide if best of five might run too late, however.

Do you plan on running Doubles?

 

[OmegaMuffin]

Do you plan on running Doubles?

Probably not. If everything goes well I think I'll do that next time.

 

[Kal]

Ok. If you end early enough, I would suggest getting a show of hands to see if there is interest in Doubles, or any secondary event (e.g. low tier, coin Melee). Secondary events can be surprisingly good at pleasing a crowd, especially if they are disappointed with their results in the main event.

 

[Bones0]

When you post your tournament thread, make sure to ask for a volunteer or two to help you run it. Most of the time there are a few smashers who don't mind helping out. Aside from that, check out the Tournament Discussion forum. I know there is a thread with a bunch of tips for TOs (though I wouldn't worry about the more advanced tourney perks like providing food or running side events until after you've done one or two basic ones).

What college is it at? I may come myself. lol

 

[tarheeljks]

Generally speaking, we don't use random select for the first match anymore. We use the California Stage Strike system. Players play Rock-Paper-Scissors for first strike, and alternate striking stages in a 1-2-1 order, and play on the remaining stage. For example, I could strike Yoshi's Story, you could strike Dreamland 64 and Battlefield, and I could strike Final Destination, forcing us to play on Fountain of Dreams.

If time allows, you can run all sets as best of five, though opinion varies as to whether this is practical (keep in mind, however, that almost every European tournament is run as best of five with little issue).

As far as tournament advice, just try and keep things running on time. Announce matches promptly, and be strict about not allowing players to use tournament setups for friendlies. If it's your first tournament, things will be hectic, and you will likely play worse if you enter (this is dubbed "TO fatigue" by some people). Just do your best to make sure things are being run when they are supposed to: don't sit around waiting unless you've verified that every match that should currently be in progress is actually in progress.

Things will get easier as you run additional tournaments. Let us know how this goes, of course.

yeah, don't be afraid to exercise your authority and don't worry too much about hurting people's feelings. don't be a **** or power trip of course, but you may find that some players need to be coerced. also be prepared to repeat yourself. may want to invest in a microphone if the venue has poor acoustics, or if you dislike yelling

 

[OmegaMuffin]

Alright, cool. I never thought of that haha. Maybe I'll get a feedback sheet or something for anyone to make suggestions.

I'm alright with yelling. I can get pretty loud.
Bloomsburg University. It's in Bloomsburg, PA haha. And the prizes are school related, I'm not sure if that's reason enough to come here for that.

 

[Kal]

If you make a thread on here or on reddit you can get good feedback there as well.

 

[Massive]

Don't be afraid to DQ people who are not at the venue or keep stalling instead of playing their matches.

It can really hold up the tournament when a few pools still haven't returned results because a couple of guys left for lunch and bailed on the tourney.

 

[OmegaMuffin]

I'll be sure to keep all of this in mind. Thanks everyone, I hope the tournament is a success. Still open to advice.

 

[Violence]

Mmm... 32 people, 2 TVs... doubs elim is going to take a while.

The #1 thing a tournament needs, imo, is setups, setups, more setups.

You can never have too many.(I assume your setups are on CRT TVs, right?)

PA has a decent scene from what I've heard, you should try to get the word out, they can help bring in setups and TVs. If you want to keep it local, I do recommend getting at least 4 TVs if you expect 32 players. 2 TVs will make things drag out pretty long.(Remember, only CRTs!)

Don't forget Dave's Stupid Rule: If you win on a stage, you cannot choose that stage again if you lose later in the set.

32 man bracket can be thought of as this:

Bracket Matches|Winners|Losers
Round 1|16|0
Round 2|8|8
Round 3|4|8
Round 4|2|4
Round 5|1|4
Round 6|0|2
Round 7|0|2
Round 8|0|1
Round 9|0|1
Round 10|1|0
Round 11|0|1

Round 11 may not happen.
That means that with 2 TV's, you have to have 8 rotations in round 1, 8 again in round 2, 6 in round 3, 3 in round 4, 3 again in round 5, and then 1 each from then on.

That's 33 rotations of best of 3's. Let's assume the average match takes about 4 minutes, and about 1/4th of them go to game 3. That's around 9-10 minutes per rotation. Operating normally, we can expect an overall time of about 330 minutes, or around 5 hours and 30 minutes, which is a pretty hefty time estimation.

Even just adding 1 TV would mean that your rotations are cut down to 25, saving a whopping 80 minutes expected time. Adding another cuts you down to 20, further saving 50 minutes.

If your expected population is higher, or you find that on the day of, you don't have enough TV's, don't be afraid to speak out to the crowd and say that you estimate the timing to exceed 6 hours, and that you'd like to change things to maybe 3 stock, etc. You can recalculate if you think my time estimations are bad, but the point is that you want to make things enjoyable for everyone, and part of that is to make the tournament take a decent amount of time.

 

[Kal]

Nice post Violence. The way he places the tournament into rounds also gives you a good way of managing time. You can, for example, allocate one hour for round 1 to finish, one hour for round 2 to finish, 45 minutes for round 3 to finish, and so on. Once the allotted time for a round has elapsed, any players that have not progressed into the next round can be automatically disqualified.

 

[erbanez]

One thing that you need to be ready for, is uncooperative players. Although this statement is fairly negative, you need to assume everybody will not be helpful or cooperative, until proven helpful or cooperative. That means that you can't give in to any "stupid" things that people say. People naturally try to disrupt the natural flow of the tournament, so you have to stand your ground and be ready to say some things you might not want to say.

In my first tournament that I was running, I was too frantic and got pushed around too much, and in addition, I tried to also play in it, also a mistake.

But I like your enthusiasm and I hope that you take these suggestions to heart and your first tournament goes mostly as planned.

 

[KrIsP!]

If you want to enjoy this, get help. Like people have said, you can post your tourney her eon the site and some people may come from the community, bring set ups, handle results or just plain help. And though they may wipe the floor with some people, most of them are nice and willing to help others improve or help them get acquainted with the community. I don't know, maybe that's just Canada.

 

[OmegaMuffin]

After looking at Violence time frame I've decided to scrap the Loser's bracket. I figured best two out of three should be fine. And I'm not sure if we'd be able to bring another set-up (injuries and all that business) So we'll be stuck to just 2.

 

[LittleBoyLarry]

why are there two House's in this thread?
also you can have assistants to help you out if you want.

 

[Violence]

So you've opted for a 32 man, eh?

A 32 man single elim tournament on 2 TVs should easily finish in under 3 hours.

Let's tackle the downsides of such an endeavor.

There are complaints about having a double elimination bracket only, that people try to address with things like amateur bracket, pools, and swiss. Single elimination compounds these problems, but we do not have the luxury of time, so we're going to go ahead and run it anyways. Let's address these issues:

Less play time: The biggest one. Only the winners keep playing, and the general majority of the people who have come to attend the tournament will most likely play 2 games, get destroyed, and it'll be over for them. They will either leave or become a spectator. I leave it up to you to find a creative way to keep people around and interested in the tournament(if that is important for you). You may want to remark at the beginning of the tournament that due to the lack of TV setups, they will not have any time for friendly games or warmup. You may have some TV's which are not CRT to the side for people to play casually on, this is a good way to have friendlies going while the tournament happens so that people don't feel as bored or dejected that they simply don't get to play anymore.

Friends Playing Friends: You come to a tournament to see how you measure up against people you don't usually play, and end up playing your good buddy who knows exactly how you play and can consistently beat you. Bum deal. I suggest having some kind of system in place to give people the ability to list up to 3 friends, so that you can place them into different quadrants on the 32 man bracket. This prevents friends from playing each other until late in bracket.

Grand Finals Happened Too Soon: I really hope you have at least some clue as to how good people are, because you want to keep the two best people on opposite sides of the bracket, and separate other good people by quadrant, eighth, etc. If you have some time during registration, you can have people play a quick 1 stock match against someone whose skill level you know of, on the stage of their choice, and have him rate the player from 1-5, which you can then use for seeding. Sandbagging would only be to a person's detriment, since being lower rated means harder matches in the beginning. But, this is just how I would do it. Of course, if you don't have the time for this, you need to try and find some way of discerning peoples' skill levels, otherwise the later rounds of the tournament, which are supposed to be exciting, can turn out to be a bit of a disappointment. You don't have to get everyone exactly, but knowing who are the better players in the room is necessary for having an entertaining bracket.

Good luck!

 

[azianraven]

I host tournaments on campus twice a semester and the biggest problem for me is no entry free because people just sign up, but never show up or just not care enough to enter anymore.

Scrapping the Loser's bracket is a good idea as well since it just eats up time and most people who sign up will probably just be casuals and not really care about playing again.

If you have an entry fee, it makes running the tourney tons easier since the player is kind of financially obligated to stick around. If not, be prepared for a fair share of byes in your bracket unless you're repping some sweet prizes.

 

[Kal]

Despite the fact that this is absolutely logically flawed, most people are more likely to stay if they've invested something of their own in the tournament. Usually, this is the tournament fee in the form of "I've already spent $5, I may as well stay and finish." So charging them is probably better than offering prizes.

However, you have to ask how charging an entrance fee will impact attendance as well.

 

[Sephirothxxx]

If you want to enjoy this, get help. Like people have said, you can post your tourney her eon the site and some people may come from the community, bring set ups, handle results or just plain help. And though they may wipe the floor with some people, most of them are nice and willing to help others improve or help them get acquainted with the community. I don't know, maybe that's just Canada.

Definitely consider getting help with the tourney. Like Krisp said, it's a good idea to get some help from the community with your first tourney.

 

[OmegaMuffin]

Hey guys, thanks for all the help. The tourney ran smoothly and only a few people didn't show up. I ended up winning and my "crew" were behind me for the most part.

I asked how often they would like for more tournaments to happen and they said biweekly, so I'm gonna try to have that happen more often. If I make a pot, I think I'll add a Loser's Bracket.

We were originally going to have 3 set ups but we ended up only having 2 so the tournament was run in about 3 hours. Not bad timing considering I had to rearrange some brackets. Thank you all for the suggestions and help. I really appreciate it. I hope the future tournaments are all as great and ran smoothly.