This discussion document is about tournament format.

 

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Comment 1 Perhaps the tournament format for smaller tournaments i.e less than 24, needs to be looked at. This current proposal only tinkers with the second round. We have all played in the 'snake' fomat and received both favourable and not so favourable draws. The random nature could result in an imbalanced trophy section with those teams with easier draws getting through with high rankings and potentially crashing out early on the second day. This has happened in the 16 team trophy round.

I am not in favour of the pool play on the second day for a couple reasons. The potential for teams to 'throw' a game to allow another team to progress. It may not have happened yet but the potential is there and with some of the divisions that exist within the petanque fraternity at present I believe it is a real possibility.

My other reason is with the mathematics. Too often in pool play 2 or 3 teams are on the same number of wins and therefore the place in the knockout is determined by points differential which is not always the best indicator. With the random nature of the snake draw and the points differential scenario there is too much left to luck. I am not a knocker. I think the organisers of our tournaments do a great job and thank them for the work they do. Dirk.

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Comment 2 My previous post was not about tournament organisers or the work that they do. Yes they do a great job (as do all the helpers in the background), but it was about how a tournament with fewer than 24 teams could be run differently, than what is currently the case.

 

Hate to point this out, but along with all the skills you may possess as a player - there is an incredible amount of luck involved with petanque regardless. We all know the "if only" feeling when a shot goes awry that then turns the game in favour of the opposition.

 

Also - what do you define as an "easy draw"? That's something else that's changed over the past couple of years. I don't think any team can be considered an "easy draw". This was clear at Wairarapa triples last week when a number teams (and combinations mind you) proved they were far from easy beats and gave experienced teams a run for their money.

 

As for your comment about an "imbalanced trophy section" with teams getting knocked out early on day two - well thats the game. Anything can happen and usually does.

 

On the mathematics side - I personally don't have a problem with a wins/differential situation. And yes there will be an odd spanner in the works. I don't however agree with a format that only guarantees two games on the second day, one of which could be 2 or more hours after the first. This drags things out unnecessarily and if I'm driving on the second day, I would prefer to get things out of the way quickly, rather than hang around just to play 2 games. With a return to pool play, there are at least 3 games and the tournament can be expected to finish at a reasonable time.

 

On the matter of only taking 8 teams in the trophy for the second day - what do you really think?

 

-Margret

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Comment 3 What a great topic of discussion and it will be very helpful for tournament organisers to get some good feedback to help with future planning. It is quite discouraging to have people come up to you during a tournament to complain about the format. Not only is it discouraging but I think it is down right bloddy rude! It has happened to me twice now since being club captain at Masterton.

 

I go back to the original triples tournament in Auckland many many years ago ( we came third incidentlyl) so I have attended many tournaments - and helped to arrange a few too. I have experienced all sorts of delays in play from waiting for 6 hours with two lives to play in a final, lose the 1st final and then have to play another final to win and in another tournament qualify in the 1st game in the morning, wait three hours, lose the next and be knocked out. At the Masterton WBS tournament this year, we played the 1st game of the second round on the first day to speed things up but we still took 10 hours to play 5 games on the 2nd day. It is pretty tough to play 2 ten hour days and then have to drive home but I don't really know how to make it any easier other than putting a time limit on games but there would be too much opposition to that.

 

This following idea is purely to invoke discussion. What if we had three tournaments running along side each other . A trophy, a plate and a bowl. Being realistic and not wanting to offend anyone, there are some teams that will never reach a final of a trophy . What if teams had a choise to enter a trophy, plate or bowl tournamet. Entry fees could be say $60, $40 and $20 per team. Each division has its own qualifying round on the 1st day and on the 2nd day play elimination and consolation elimination so everyone gets games on the 2nd day. Each division has its own tournament manager. Worth considering?

 

Would it save time? I don't know. Every best intention in the world will not help if games are slow and I suspect some games are deliberately slow. How often do you see someone have a great discussion as to where to throw the coch, step out say 9 metres for someone to throw the coch, then they step out 9 metres back, then the coch thrower steps it out and finally a boule is thrown. maybe we need to be more vigilant about time wasting and deduct points for deliberate, constant time wasting. In an ideal world we should be playing a final around 2 in the afternoon with everyone still there watching. If someone can come up with a solution, I would love to hear it.

-Graeme Burnard.

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Comment 4 TomVanBodegraven: We all agree that short of a double round-robin, any system is going to have its drawbacks. Even a full double-round robin may need the points differential to find a winner.

I do agree it is difficult to guarantee to any extent that “weaker” teams do not end up in the trophy on day-one because of “favourable” draws. But do we really get “weaker” teams turning up to tournaments today? NZ Petanque has witnessed a settling in period. We now see a clear demarcation between tournament players (competitive) and casual players (social). The Kapiti club is a good example. With over 150 paid-up members they have (comparatively speaking) a small number of “tournament” players (maybe only around 20 to 30).

 

Margret’s proposal (as outlined at the top of this page) should be given a go. A post tournament survey done at the end (same day) of the event would provide the all important feedback of what it is people want. (Masterton has made a first attempt to instigate tournament feedback on our Wiki. You can see this here.) This could simply mean a short questionnaire for each participant. One thing in my opinion is for sure, we must not send people packing on day two because their team lost the first two games. At the very least, entry forms should clearly state what format will be used during any particular event. It is no good telling players on the day. They may have travelled hundreds of kilometres and forked out good money for accommodation. I predict that players throughout NZ are going to be more and more selective about the events they enter. I am actually not predicting anything – it’s already happening.

 

With regards to “divisions that exist within the petanque fraternity” ("comment 1") I sincerely hope these are no more than healthy divisions of opinion, not strong enough to expect the “throwing of games” in order to let a team of a favoured faction to go through. I have witnessed the suspected throwing of a game during a chess tournament in Melbourne where prize money was just over AUS$10.000. Deals are struck, and cuts are taken. We have not reached that sort of money in NZ Petanque. It is an absurd suggestion that a philosophical difference of opinion (on whatever topic) could be an incentive to “game throwing” between teams - as stated in comment 1. -Tom van B.

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Comment 5 Wow, this Wiki thingy is kool! I'm with Graham re the time limit thing. People often take too looong. It should become a standard thing, once it has been determined who is the closest, the other team has one minute to get on with it. That includes throwing the cosh. The rule and the solution already exists, lets all be brave enough to enforce and abide by it. If we find as a result of people abiding by the rule that the one minute rule still doesn't work, then and only then should we find another creative way. I feel the answer is staring us in the face, we just have to have the proverbials to use it. -Maurice.

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Comment 6 I have organised many tournaments, and appreciate that tournament formats are difficult to get right. The needs of all players entered have to be considered (or balanced) not just a few.

Players have to get enough games to feel they get enough of a tournament, or some value for their entry fee.

But not too many games, that the day or days are too long or drawn out.

It should move at a fair pace, and organisers need to make the best use of available terrains.

Players should be able to understand the system easily, so progress through the tournament is clear.

To address the original idea, a tournament with less than 24 teams, well I think it should all be dealt with in 1 day. I can't see why a 24 team or less tournament should be played over 2 days.

The 5 or 6 games at random format, now widely used for day 1 is OK but is designed for a `random' group of teams, where quality is unknown. With a more `known' group - perhaps regionally or at a club, I prefer a pool system with seeding.

As a 1 day format I would suggest 8 seeded pools of 3 teams, 2 qualify (16 teams) then knockout. 7 games total.

As a 2 day format I would suggest 4 seeded pools of 6 teams on day 1, 2 qualify (2 each into trophy, plate, bowl)and on day 2, 2 pools of 4 (barrage) then semi and final. This is 5 games day 1 for each team. Day 2 is 3 to 5 games per team. 5 games is plenty in a day, you can start a bit later, or everyone goes home earlier.

I chose barrage because I really like to get progress based solely on winning or losing games. Delays don't worry me at all, if you know there's only 5 games to get through. If you get a long break - relax, don't eat a big lunch, and do a good warm up before your game.

There's a few thoughts to chew on..

Michael E

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