TOWERS TOURNAMENT - Sunday, Sept. 17, 2000

Winner - grandia_leader

Summary:  The tournament was a little rough at first, but overall, I felt it was a surprising success.  I hope everyone enjoyed it.  The premade bracket worked out okay, somewhat less fair to the few people who actually had to play first-round games.  Almost all of the really good players showed up, so just about everyone had a shot.  As far as the finals went, erupti0n (who prefers "maul") kept telling everyone he'd have to go soon, but I don't know if anyone was expecting him to leave right in the middle of the finals.  I really liked having the ladders players included; they seemed well-matched against the regulars from the top 20 list.  We finished by about 4:45 pacific time, which was impressive (<2 hrs), and I'm encouraged about the prospects of better tournaments in the future.  The major problems included the geocities server breaking and refusing to load my pages, the entire Towers site shutting down for several minutes right before the tournament began, and allegations of someone declining an invite right in the middle of someone else's game to sabotage it (thankfully that game didn't affect the results).  Play fair, you guys...

I have to sincerely apologize to unfadeablez_gamballerz, because I accidentally left him out of the bracket and he thought he wasn't invited - I did the same thing with chronic_azzkicka, but he came anyway so I was able to sneak him in as an alternate.  Sorry I didn't catch that in time.  Here's the results:

FINALS: grandia_leader def. towers_knockout_erupti0n (1-1, towers_knockout_erupti0n retired).

Rules:

Sunday September 17, 3pm PT (6pm ET) to whenever. 

Games take place in OLYMPIA CENTRE.  Games will be unrated unless both players agree to rate them.

This tournament will be single elimination.  A match between two players will be a best-of-seven event; first to 4 wins moves on.

My guess is, rounds should take ~ 30 min (maybe more at first), so the whole thing should take ~3hrs.

I chose Sunday because it was the most popular day among the players; the time of 3pm was also decided by compromise.  I still want to know if you can't make it on the 17th, so please be kind enough to let me know at towers_top20@yahoo.com.

If someone has to go to the bathroom or something, we can wait a few minutes for their match, but we can't postpone the whole thing if one person doesn't show up, so I just want to announce that not being there is fair grounds for being disqualified from a match.

Because so many people requested it, the games can be unrated if you like, and the tables will be moderated so that people don't lie about who won.  However, I feel that if you have any guts, you'll play rated.

Since everyone's going to be there anyway, this meeting should be a fun way to play against lots of people you don't normally see, once you're eliminated from the tournament.  By the same token, though, try to stay free if you're still in the tournament so we can get through it reasonably fast.

Think of this as a first-effort tournament; we can fine-tune the rules for later ones.  If you have good suggestions about the way future tournaments should be run, you can email them to me.  Right now it looks like the next tournament will be in 2 weeks' time, at 1pm on a Sunday, and will feature several divisions where you play each player; divisional winners will advance to the championship round and play each other; two finalists will be chosen for an extended 1v1 match to decide the winner..