Why "splitting" in tournaments should not be allowed

[JesiahTEG]

Splitting in tournaments really takes away from the overall tournament. The goal of a tournament is to win, and when you get to Grand Finals it's supposed to be the hardest match of the day. You play to win, not to play all the way until the hardest match and just give up and split the money. Like seriously, WTF? I'm not so much referring to the splitting of money, but just the fact that because the money is being split, the 2 players just don't care about the Grand Finals and either don't play or play stupid matches.

There are a lot of reasons why splitting is bad. First, it diminishes the competitive spirit of the community. People are psyched and pumped when Grand Finals happens, ESPECIALLY when it's a huge Grand Finals match like DSF, best on the West Coast, versus Mew2King, best on the East Coast...M2K loses to Ninjalink, DSF beats him, M2K comes back in losers bracket beating Azen and Ninjalink...And then the tournament is over. People on the West Coast are probably bummed. I know I'm bummed because all I get to watch are ****ty vids of Ike vs D3...In a tournament with the best players in the nation, in the FINALS of that tournament. Splitting and not playing the Grand Finals match seriously is just so disrespectful to everyone else, including the tournament organizers. They're basically saying "Thanks for holding this tournament for me to win hundreds of dollars, but the money is really all I care about. Screw the community, I don't care what you want to watch or how excited you are to see this. Screw the TO, your tournament isn't really that important to me and I don't appreciate anything except for the money."

Which brings me to my next point. Is the money really all people care about nowadays? How about winning to be the best, or winning for glory, or winning for pride for yourself or your region. Is that not important anymore? Once you get to the Grand Finals it's just a sigh of relief.

Listen people, that's not how it's supposed to be. When you get to the Grand Finals, you should be the most nervous out of the whole tournament. You should be tense, scared, you should be saying to yourself "Now is when it counts the most. I made it this far, if I can just pull off this win I'll be the champion." You shouldn't be breathing your sigh of relief. That's just stupid and really takes away from competitive gameplay. Another stupid thing I hear is "Well people are tired at the end of tournaments because they've been playing all day." DUH! Tournaments require stamina and endurance. If you don't have it, then you don't deserve to win and don't deserve the money that the is reserved for the winner. Simple as that.

I'm not just referring to M2K and DSF and Ninjalink either. I'm friends with all of them so obviously I wouldn't be singling them out. This happens everywhere and just really takes away from the aspects of competition. What if the Superbowl was just 2 teams messing around. Think about how the fans would feel.

I urge tournament organizers to ban splitting at tournaments, or at least think about it. Seems all people care about nowadays is money. If you're hosting a tournament and you just let the players split just for the money and not play their matches, that's fine, but you can't call yourself a true Smasher or claim to love your community...You're just taking away from it.

 

[Mew2King]

I don't mind not splitting, DSF asked to split with me, and since I was in losers already I was like w/e okay. I usually win vast majority of our MK dittos it's just really really really boring and there would be nothing to play for. I split w/ Azen just cuz I'm friends with him, but it doesn't even mean I want to, and in the long run I've lost hundreds due to splitting just in brawl.

 

[Grunt]

If you know you're going to lose, splitting is playing to win. also, how are you going to enforce no splitting? they leave with their respective money and split it outside.

 

[Barge]

Well if the person offers it I really don't see the big deal. But like if the loser is begging for it..I guess it could be a problem. Otherwise I really don't see why you should be offended by it.

 

[JesiahTEG]

I know M2K. Also, it's not even the money issue. If people split the money but played their matches with the tenacity and vigor that they would have if they weren't splitting the money, then it would be ok. I just don't think it can happen unless splitting the money was banned.

 

[Mew2King]

ya I know, it is stupid, and in the long run would benefit me greatly as I've lost countless to it, but it's hard to enforce.

i was forced to split w/ inui and atomsk 2 weekends ago and I lost like 83 dollars because of it.

 

[Grunt]

how do you force a split?

 

[JesiahTEG]

Dude you're basically just telling me all you care about is the money. The attitude you should have is "Ok, I'll split with you since you're my friend, but let's play out the matches as hard as we can anyways, so we can see who is better and give the community something to watch so they know just how good we are. Maybe they can even learn from us and improve."

Do you see what I"m saying or are you still missing my point?

 

[Barge]

I don't see why caring about the money is a bad thing. With a world run by it, it doesn't seem like it'd be looked down upon.

 

[Xiivi]

Jesse, I understand what you're getting at completely. And I do agree that when the finals are played out in jest or ignored altogether it really does take away from the tournament. However I would never ban splitting myself, as I do believe it's a perfectly fine option when both players agree to it.

It really comes down to a prisoner's dilemma and game theory as well. If either player disagrees to split then they risk losing a lot more money rather than happily settling on the guaranteed split. When it comes to big OoS tournaments, I can see it being a very good thing for someone who spent a lot of money traveling. Why risk the possibility of getting 30 to try to get 70 when you have a guaranteed 50 available if you're in the loser's bracket or already in debt from travel expenses? And heck, this is easier than game theory thanks to circumstances too. lol

 

[JesiahTEG]

I know, you missed my point Xiivi. If players could split the money and play their matches as hard as they would have if splitting the money wasn't allowed, then it would be fine. Both players split themoney cuz they are friends, and the matches are really good, both players playign really hard. That's fine. Unfortunately when people split the money, they just think it's ok to either not play the matches or just goof off in them. It's just throwing it back in peoples faces.

 

[Xiivi]

I know, you missed my point Xiivi.

No, I fully understand what you are saying. I just went off on a tangent.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Don't let it happen again.

 

[Mew2King]

Dude you're basically just telling me all you care about is the money. The attitude you should have is "Ok, I'll split with you since you're my friend, but let's play out the matches as hard as we can anyways, so we can see who is better and give the community something to watch so they know just how good we are. Maybe they can even learn from us and improve."

Do you see what I"m saying or are you still missing my point?

ummm i do have that attitude thats why i split with azen at hobo11. I lost like I think 400 dollars to that.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Ok then, I just assumed you had that mindset since you didn't play vs DSF seriously. I know a lot of people wanted to see that match and just because it's boring doesn't mean you shouldn't play it you know?

 

[Hylian]

I dislike it when players split and tell people.

I split a huge Hobo tournament with Sethlon. But we didn't tell anyone until awhile after. We play 15 matches in tournament, all of them recorded and both of us were playing as hard as we could. I ended up winning, and it was exciting. We split the money later away from everyone.

That's how it should be done. Having stupid matches takes away from the overall experience of a tournament. It's insulting to everyone who entered and paid. They should be offered the chance to see a legitament grand finals.

 

[nice1]

you ain't lyin thats why i was glad reflex didn't split with m2k at fast1

 

[Dastrn]

I dislike it when players split and tell people.

I split a huge Hobo tournament with Sethlon. But we didn't tell anyone until awhile after. We play 15 matches in tournament, all of them recorded and both of us were playing as hard as we could. I ended up winning, and it was exciting. We split the money later away from everyone.

That's how it should be done. Having stupid matches takes away from the overall experience of a tournament. It's insulting to everyone who entered and paid. They should be offered the chance to see a legitament grand finals.

I like that Hylian. At least split in private. Let the public think a grand is on the line. It makes it much more exciting to watch.

In fact, if you are splitting, throw a chair if you lose, so people will be like "aww, he just lost 800 bucks..." and let you throw chairs.

In fact, I think Big C must be secretly splitting before he leaves pools, cause he throws chairs when he loses pools matches. it's hilarious.

 

[GMo]

Splitting is fine in my book assuming that both players give it all they got in the Grand Finals.

If I have to watch a Captain Falcon ditto in a GF of a big tourney because two guys split I'll be disappointed.

 

[lain]

In fact, if you are splitting, throw a chair if you lose, so people will be like "aww, he just lost 800 bucks..." and let you throw chairs.

LOLLLL

i am so gonna do that now. watch for it at the next big tourney i go to

 

[NinjaLink]

well sorry but i wanted to try my hardest but my flu said get the *** home, u aint playin anymore. So thats why i agreed to split.
I played as hard as i could but it hurts to do so in the condition i was in.

 

[Ryan-K]

alternate solution: make it far enough to be in GF and don't split and stop complaining about other people's decisions even though they don't affect you.

 

[Shiri]

I know what you mean, Jesse.

Neil and I played out our finals set in Buffalo a while back and the entire house was roaring, it was awesome.

We split later because he's a lucky <insert bad thing here> and because we're bossom buddies and stuff.

We'd been playing all day, and when you play Brawl all day, you play that **** ALL DAY.

I don't see why it's so hard for people to even pretend like they're playing for real in the finals.

 

[Deleted member]

Stuff

Let's review the 3 main points that you address-

1. Competition
2. Money
3. Prevention

This is my take on all 3. As a summary, I approve of splitting for several reasons, and I have thought this out thoroughly in the past.

1. Competition- While splitting may seem anti-climatic, it serves several competitive functions. First, it unifies the basis of the competitive community. This allows regions to have more friendly interaction that progresses the game further. By removing money from the highest level of competitive play, we are able to bypass its implications and advance the game further.

Let's use M2K (Jason) and DSF (Alex) as examples here. Both are regional top players from their respective areas, and both have helped to improve each other at the game. While splitting did take away from the finals set, it encouraged overall competition in every other set played by both players, as 1.) their communication functions to make each player better for themselves, and 2.) both players are essentially helping each other too, as the shared skill increase helps both players and is not solely autonomous.

For an application, is it realistic to say that DSF would have placed so high in the recent tournament if M2K hadn't taught him vast quantities of information about Metaknight? By teaching DSF to play MK better, M2K can not only improve DSF's tournament placements, but as DSF improves at the character, he can return the favor. This is probably why MK's game play is so advanced at this point, and this is probably a good portion of the success of H2YL in both Melee and Brawl. Would you be as willing to teach others if you knew they would knock you out and take your money? Probably not.

Even if you disregard the skill increase that comes with this, there's also the cost to the community. Rivalries are fun, but they keep the community split and relatively small. A large integrated community encourages national level play (and growth with it) faster than the alternative does.

In both Quality and Quantity, splitting enhances competitive play by increasing the talent of the player in a given community at a faster rate.

2. Money- You talk of the splitting as if it has a cost that is monetary. It doesn't. All we lose from splitting is finals videos, which is a relatively minor cost at that. No money is lost by the players or the tournament organizers. The only person who is cheated out of splitting is the player that would have won 1st place.

If anything, we should admire this. Players are essentially saying "I don't want to deal with money, let's value the fun factor of the game, sportsmanship, and friendship instead." Most top players are friends with each other, and the pot split removes the barrier to friendship in smash that is essentially taking money from your friend if you were to play him in the finals.

Need an example here too? I can think of a professional melee player who rarely if ever split. His name is Ken. Ken had one other professional player as a friend. His name is Isai. They split every tournament they both attended. I can't, however, think of a pro player that split LESS than Ken. Splitting REMOVES money from the picture rather than making it the centerpiece of competition. Remember that an unequal pot distribution (such as 70/20/10) functions to put money as the most important feature of the tournament. If all the players cared about was money, splitting would NEVER happen. I think you have this part backwards.

3. How would you ban it? Even if TO's listened to you 100% of the time (lol), splitting is NOT A TOURNAMENT AFFAIR. It's a private establishment between two players. Despite that splitting makes tournaments better in almost every way, it is not within your power to remove it unless you have some amazing procedure to control the money of two individual people.

Banning splitting reverses the increased improvement rate between players, functions to split the community, and places importance on money rather than the growth of the community. All we get in trade for this is a finals set? Not a fair trade at all.

The best solution to splitting is to encourage it and to reinforce the above effects when they are made apparent.

 

[Vyse]

By removing money from the highest level of competitive play, we are able to bypass its implications and advance the game further.

QFT. Player motivation is one of the greatest factors to consider when it comes to things like regional skill level and character Metagame.

I know Australia for example would be dead smash-wise if everything revolved around money here. Making players play for rank is a much better solution.

If you wanted to really discourage 'meh' finals matches due to splitting, you could try implementing regional and national player rankings where players literally play for points. Kinda like Ankoku's character rankings I guess.

Hmm.
Then again, players might shrug at player rankings too. lol.

 

[CT Chia]

I'm glad someone (especially a mod) finally made this post. I completely agree with Jesiah. The finals of a tournament are supposed to be amazing, and the best matches of the night. At almost every tournament I go to, there's a split, and then the finals are either not played, or are treated as like joke matches. It seems that this only happens to the common smashers here on the board, and it doesn't happen normally. This is one of the reasons why I especially liked the VGXPO this past weekend. There were 3 big brawl tourneys, and the majority of the people weren't from SmashBoards nor huge tourney goers. They expected a real tourney, and they got it. People were pumped to watch the finals, and were glued to the TV cheering people on, gasping at matches going down to the wire, and much more. It was WAY better than say... the finals at Critical Hit 4 (a national tourney).

Unfortunately however, you can't ban the splitting of money. It's their money, and they can do what they want. The only way you can essentially get around this is by paying the winners via check, but no one likes that, and that opens up a whole new world of problems. However what I have been/will be doing is needing a list of all the winners, having them play their play matches, and handing the correct amount of money to the people. Then if they must split, they can deal with it themselves.

Unfortunately I think that smashers practically only care about money nowadays. M2k said it himself, people force him to split with others, like Inui/Atomsk a couple of weeks ago as he mentioned. Should they have split? No. However, they forced him to. It's one thing to care about the money you earn (M2k), while it's another to care about getting more money (people trying to do dirty things to make people split, etc). Personally, I've split once in one tourney. Why did we split? We both got to the finals, we're both from the same crew, we're practically tied in skill level, great friends for 6+ years, etc. However, we still gave everyone one hell of a finals set.

Splitting is stupid. I just want to see some real finals matches. This is a tournament, to see whos best, and award money to the best. We use splits like 65 25 10 for a reason, instead of having something like 40 40 20.

 

[Blad01]

I completely agree with Jesiah and Hylian. If you want to split the money, then play the GF for the honor, to see who is the strongest in an important tournament set.

Also, a way to get around for TO would be to reduce the gap between 1st's and 2nd's cash prizes.

 

[4% APR]

How was M2K forced to split?

 

[Red Arremer]

Unfortunately I think that smashers practically only care about money nowadays. M2k said it himself, people force him to split with others, like Inui/Atomsk a couple of weeks ago as he mentioned. Should they have split? No. However, they forced him to.

One question I have about this part - HOW did they force M2K to split? Just curious.

 

[Mew2King]

mom took me to inuis house, like 40 min away, then KOTC is like an hour from there, but inui didnt wanna take me unless i split with both of them so i didnt have a choice. Then I was charged 20 dollars to be taken back to my house Sunday night >_> which is like 40 min away (times 2)

 

[Jam Stunna]

While I see Umbreon's point, I think that splitting is ultimately anti-competitive as well. When you split, you're essentially giving 1st and 2nd the same prize. What's the incentive to be the best if you get the same thing for being second best? I would hope that we're all mature enough here to understand that the best player wins, and not to get all huffy and upset when we lose. In a competitive setting, we should not have to give peace offerings in order to get people to work together in something we all love.

Splitting has that against it, but you get into different territory when splitting leads to joke sets. It's pretty much throwing a game, which in any other competitive sport is illegal. Now you have false tournament results floating around, and if people don't know the difference, that can cause harm to the community. I remember back at the last major Connecticut Brawl tournament, where Chu Dat beat M2K. Almost immediately the whispers started. "Is Kirby a counter to Metaknight?" Chu Dat also received more points in the now-defunct East Coast Brawl Circuit than M2K did from that event. We come to find out later that M2K threw the set. I'm sure they had their reasons, but how did that arrangement help the community?

 

[Red Arremer]

mom took me to inuis house, like 40 min away, then KOTC is like an hour from there, but inui didnt wanna take me unless i split with both of them so i didnt have a choice. Then I was charged 20 dollars to be taken back to my house Sunday night >_> which is like 40 min away (times 2)

O_o

That's more extortion than splitting, y'know.

 

[slikvik]

definitely extortion

 

[Omni]

This subject has been brought up and discussed before.

The point is that everyone plays the game for different reasons. The tournament scene isn't "made" in a way that forces players to entertain viewers. When you give the director your $10, you're paying to compete for a percentage of a pot. That's it. You don't deserve anything else. You're not entitled any more rights. Everything from that point on is a privilege.

The problem is that players create this fantasy of the gaming world where everything is epic, intense, and overwhelming. That's not reality. For some, being a professional gamer is a hobby. For others its just another source of income.

*edit* yes, i'm saying you're all wrong lol

 

[4% APR]

mom took me to inuis house, like 40 min away, then KOTC is like an hour from there, but inui didnt wanna take me unless i split with both of them so i didnt have a choice. Then I was charged 20 dollars to be taken back to my house Sunday night >_> which is like 40 min away (times 2)

That's Lame.

 

[Dastrn]

LOLLLL

i am so gonna do that now. watch for it at the next big tourney i go to

lain you're awesome.

also, your sig just.....fits.

 

[Shaya]

At most tournaments I go to nowadays the difference between myself and those ahead of me is so minute that it all comes down to who's feeling better on the day, who had the most sleep, who had the best breakfast, who actually didn't have to stress over going through the loser's bracket to GET to the finals, etc etc.

In some, but not all regions, the difference in skill between no.1 and no.2 is often meager, the sets go for the full '5', and each match goes down to the wire. These types of situations are the ones the audience are going WOW, OO LA LA, etc etc over. Splitting is like saying yeah, we're both about as good as eachother, and we're going to try widen the gap another day. Of course the endurance stuff (i.e. the best player has the best endurance) is both true but also generally situational; I run tournaments and by the time the finals come around I'm generally too tired to try and just throw in the towel, the others know I can -often- beat them or go with them evenly, and it means more to them than I to get that "1 - Name". Why is this? Because I don't fight for money in tournaments, I care about getting better and having great matches. And most of the people who are up there in the tournaments I go to I vs on a regular basis anyway.

As Umbreon said, it's the "friend factor" helping eachother become better players, etc etc. and knowing you can have close matches everytime with the competitive players around you.

But it's all human factors; and if a players decide to split and then not give it their all at that current point in time, well yeah, there's a problem...

 

[The Dragon]

mom took me to inuis house, like 40 min away, then KOTC is like an hour from there, but inui didnt wanna take me unless i split with both of them so i didnt have a choice. Then I was charged 20 dollars to be taken back to my house Sunday night >_> which is like 40 min away (times 2)

extortion at its finest....

Anyway I don't believe in said "friend factor" because I play my friends all the time in friendlies... and yah sometimes we goof and and play stupid matches once in a while, but in a tournament setting you are suppose to be doing your best regardless of who your playing, whether it be in a video game, a sport or whatever. Sandbagging a friend in a tournament match is almost disrespectful because your saying to your friend that they aren't worth you playing at your best, that is how i would feel anyway. If you guys are really friends you'd fight out like your suppose to and the money would have never been an issue in the first place. Sadly though once the money is in the possession of the winner there is really nothing you can do about it.

 

[PB&J]

u can't have control over something like this..if they was a stupid rule like no splitting people will split anyway...one person will just lose to someone on purpose and then split the money they won.....and i hate splitting by the way ..there is just no control over it

 

[Cactuar]

Definitely impossible to enforce.

[Insert interesting story about self]

[Insert dramatic final paragraph about how splitting is ultimately the choice of the people who have earned the top placements, not the TO.]

[Insert "I'm Awesome."]