From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Thu Mar 30 17:36:49 2000 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) id RAA02604 for britdisc-outgoing; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 17:35:58 +0100 (BST) Received: from daffodil.csv.warwick.ac.uk (daffodil [137.205.192.30]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA02596 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 17:35:57 +0100 (BST) Received: from hotmail.com (f135.law4.hotmail.com [216.33.149.135]) by daffodil.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA20277 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 17:35:53 +0100 (BST) Received: (qmail 51345 invoked by uid 0); 30 Mar 2000 16:35:13 -0000 Message-ID: <20000330163513.51344.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 195.11.50.206 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 08:35:13 PST X-Originating-IP: [195.11.50.206] From: "Simon Barry" <sibarry@hotmail.com> To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: Nationals At Plymouth Last Weekend Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 08:35:13 PST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk I thought the tournament was very good-spirited and enjoyable and I heartily appreciate the work of Kerry and Chris Hughes in putting it together in less than ideal circumstances. I do however want to mention what I (and it seemed many other people I spoke to over the weekend) thought was the one major error of the weekend and that was the schedule. For those who do not know.... the structure was 2 pools of 8 teams playing 25 minute games from the start; at the end of pool play the top 2 in each pool went straight into semi-finals and a final while everyone else played off once against their opposite number in the other pool. I don't know why the traditional ultimate tournament format was not followed - by making the pool games 20 mins (a perfectly decent length for pool play) there could have been 4th/5th and 3rd/6th crossovers and then top and bottom 8 quarters, semis and finals. There are a couple of reasons why I believe the schedule used was less satisfying then the traditional schedule: Because a team had to finish in the top 2 of a pool of 8 it meant that one bad game effectively eliminated a team from the tournament. The majority of teams present were playing for nothing more than places by halfway thru the first day. A tournament should be open for as long as possible, ie it should be winnable by as many teams as possible for as much of its duration as possible, in order to be attractive as an event for everyone taking part. You have to feel you've got a chance, even if it's a slim one, otherwise why play? The traditional schedule keeps meaningless games down to a minimum. After pool play and crossovers, 8 teams still have a chance of winning and the other 8 have an honourable plate to fight over. Last weekend most teams were playing "for fun" by Saturday afternoon. The schedule, unfortunately, gave the impression that the event was only really about the top few fancied teams, that it was a foregone conclusion that it was only really between them, and that the rest were there just to make up the numbers. It is correct that when you base the results of a tournament largely on league play rather than knock-out play then you usually get a truer result, ie it is a truer way of determining who is the best team overall. (Eg compare Premier champs vs FA Cup champs). But who cares? It's not supposed to be a scientific survey. It depends on what you think is important but IMHO our tournaments should maximise the feeling of competition, involvement, risk and, thru these, enjoyment of participation. If we meet BAF in a quarter-final we know that they are likely to win. But when we line up for the match we also genuinely believe that if we play hard and well enough that we might overturn the form book and defeat them. Without this feeling, and the occasional underdog victory to back it up, the sport's not worth playing. In fact it would hardly be a sport at all. For these reasons I would hope that, in the future, BUF non-Tour events will always use a structure that keeps the event open for as long as possible, and that has a knockout element from at least a quarter-final stage onwards. May I just reiterate that these observations are not criticisms of any person or team. Especially not of CH without whose repeated willingness to go once more unto the breach we would not have half of what we get tournament-wise. I believe that anyone can make a mistake and that a mistake was made with the schedule. If others share my view then the mistake need not be made again - if I'm in a minority, then I accept that too. May I also reiterate that my points have nothing to do with the results of the tournament - I am sure that if the tourny was run in what I have called the traditional way then the results would be the same. It is not the outcome but the "personality" of events that I am commenting on. Thanks Si Barry ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com