From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Wed Sep 1 21:35:00 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA22512 for footbag-outgoing; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 21:35:00 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (srv1.reelwest.bc.ca [207.194.197.99]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id JAA07869 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 09:46:14 -0700 Received: from 207.194.197.137 (unverified [207.194.197.137]) by srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 09:45:20 -0700 Message-ID: <37A2C5EE.6CA2@intouch.bc.ca> Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 09:46:39 +0000 From: "Juliet Pendray" X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] James and the Qualifying Bracket System References: <199908302207.SAA17482@rac3.wam.umd.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antirelay: Good relay from local net2 207.194.197.0/24 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hi ya Folks, Over all, I thought Jake and Andy's system worked really well. (Sorry Steve) I was at the Sunset Grill as they "Labored" for weeks to try and get this system ironed out. Believe me, Jake lives at the Sunset Grill. Have you seen their waitresses? I applaud them for seeing a problem and addresses it. Okay, I've never run a bracket system at a tournament. However, Jake and Andy have and I listened to all the explantions they made and I understand. Anybody got a better idea? What problem? 1. Tournament directors pulling out there hair wondering why they didn't bring flood lights for finals. This system saved us "Hours" each day. 2. Open singles players getting the "Kenny thing." Or- not playing singles. Why? They are so tired at the end of "a weekend" from playing so many matches that they fear injury. I believe that fatigue is the root of all injuries. Again, tournament directors pulling out their hair, asking why top level players are not in finals. Is this fair for spectators? And impresses potential, what no sponcors? 3. Being that this was the first tournament that I advanced out of my pool, I might be prejudice. I believe this system was more fair for people to advance and prove or push their seed. 4. Bored tourney directors. Here's a new system to try and get working in your tournament. So there were a few problems with the Qualifying Bracket System: Well we tried to get somone from a major tennis tournament to advise us on how to implement a system that tennis has been using for years. Have you heard, "This player is a qualifier."? However, they were all going to Long Island for some reason. Back to the Sunset Grill. Hi Jake, Hi Andy, can I take your order? Beer me..... Here we are with Jake and Andy figuring out "The System." This system works with a certain number of players. For every number in between this number, there is a change in how to create pools. They thought they had it all worked out but..... Believe me they "laboured" at the numbers. Footnote-Once worked out, this system is easy to implement into a tournament. Thus the double bye for Yo and Peter came to be. Andy and Jake resolved this, hind sight is 20/20. This did cause a ripple and I thought it was the only real problem with how brackets ran. Run properly, lesser players have a chance to warm up to their matches with top level players. This with only the pressure to advance from qualifying. Meanwhile top level players are warming up in mixed double matches and or amongst themselves. The only other reason I think someone might not like the system, is the person who ends up 3rd in a pool of thre. They Don't get to play the best players, and only gets two matches and there out. Well, in a tournament with 31-32 open level players of 50 entrants, something needs to be worked out to balance this "One" event in relation to all the events of a tournament. See ya, James From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Wed Sep 1 23:51:54 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA22604 for footbag-outgoing; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 23:51:54 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from ripcity.com (IDENT:xzccID5Isgpf2F9dNPwHJRD+h6FLADBx@blazer1.ripcity.com [199.2.204.10]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA13051 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 14:46:47 -0700 Received: by ripcity.com (Smail-3.2.0.102 1998-Aug-2 #4) id ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 14:46:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from post.ripcity.com(192.168.7.236) via SMTP by blaznet.ripcity.com, id smtpdAAA0BN87g; Wed Sep 1 14:46:37 1999 Received: by post.ripcity.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 14:46:36 -0700 Message-ID: <5A255F90CA1AD211BA1400104B93712EF1FB91@post.ripcity.com> From: Steve Dusablon To: "'footbag@footbag.org'" Subject: [footbag] Re- Rebuttal Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 14:46:35 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org James and all concerned, Howdy all! Wimpy whiner here to hold court again. James I have a better idea, how about implementing this system in the mixed doubles side of a tourney. Same amount of time saved right? How about we play games to 7 in pool play, saves time and nobody has to get the shaft. According to the personal e-mails that I have recieved from Andy, if a player IS a top player, they should have no problem getting to finals. After all, the pools are just a "formality" to the big guns, right? As far as sponsors go, no one wants to see this sport explode more than I do. The facts at present, however, have the players footing the lions share of any tourney bill. Players like me pay that money to get on the court with these big guns. I may be crazy but I want to play against the likes of Randy, Kenny, Danny, and Sebastian, in this system I can only meet them in quarter finals or finals. This would be their 3rd match of the day (I think) and somewhere around my 5th or 6th (I have to admit here that I may be confused), does ANYONE else see how this is unfair. Does Randy Mulder need this advantage over me? Do I need this disadvantage? Nope. Bored tournament directors are not doing it right. There has never been such a thing as a bored tournament director has there? I know that it was an error to have the double byes and that it can be fixed in the future. I hope so anyway cause it pretty much sucked. As far as warming up for playing one of the top seeds, I don't see this happening. It is sort of tough warming up to play against the Frustrator by serving 11 serves to a rookie. Maybe you will break a sweat shagging his or her shanks. I also want to point out that it isn't only the 3rd seed in a pool of 3 who only gets 2 matches. It is also the top players. I believe that fully qualified "showcase" players like Yo Kelly and Dave Bernard only played 2 matches in the singles event at Vancouver. I am suprised that there aren't more complaints from that end of the player spectrum. In closing I want to say again that I don't want to come off as insulting. I know that Jake and Andy worked hard on this system and again I will say that it has it's advantages, but I have to put my 2 cents in because I think it could be harmful to the sports newer players who could find paying to enter a tourney fruitless because they could stay home and play rookies for free. Kick on y'all Steve From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 01:36:37 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA22760 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 01:36:37 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f From: Jim Cobb Received: from imo26.mx.aol.com (imo26.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.70]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA16931 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 17:34:06 -0700 Received: from JCobbjim@aol.com by imo26.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id 2INSa03769 (4534); Wed, 1 Sep 1999 20:33:12 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 20:33:11 EDT Subject: Re: [footbag] Re- Rebuttal To: steve.dusablon@rosequarter.com, footbag@footbag.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 21 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hi all, I've been holding my tongue here, though it won't surprise anyone to know that I have some opinions (and being in the nine to sixteen group and usually having to beat a higher seed in the bracket then play an entry into the quarter finals while my opponent there has had a bye (have I ever been to the semis?) its not hard to guess my position. Still I'd like to hold my tongue more until I finally get to hear what the system is: who plays what when etc.. Jim (James Calvin Cobb, Seattle WA) ps anyone is too tired from playing mixed, I'd be glad to take your spot. From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 05:57:06 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA23136 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 05:57:06 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from hotmail.com (f263.hotmail.com [207.82.251.154]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id TAA18330 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 19:33:43 -0700 Received: (qmail 21485 invoked by uid 0); 2 Sep 1999 02:33:13 -0000 Message-ID: <19990902023313.21484.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 206.172.241.154 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Wed, 01 Sep 1999 19:33:12 PDT X-Originating-IP: [206.172.241.154] From: "Yves Archambault" To: aloe@intouch.bc.ca Cc: footbag@footbag.org Subject: Re: [footbag] James and the Qualifying Bracket System Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 19:33:12 PDT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org These "so called top players" would not be so tired if they didn't party so hard and train properly. I was in top 5 at world's for a couple of years and top 10 many times ( counting this year at 40) and I have no problem with 2 days tournaments either. Cutting golf and the other crappy events would be the solution to gain time. You have to realize that the seeding in our sport is still very subjective. Let's cut the bull and whining about being prone to injury because of the playing factor, we all know how it goes in the tournaments, "libations" you said. This year at World's I've never seen so many injured players, the level of the game is getting higher and the party aspect stays the same. At one point we might have to make a choice. I personnally like to play a lot and especially for the very good players, the first round matches are not supposed to be so demanding. Yevez Nuts'n'Bolts From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 05:59:38 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA23152 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 05:59:38 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from lh2.rdc1.bc.home.com (ioracle@ha2.rdc1.bc.wave.home.com [24.2.10.67]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA19694 for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 21:09:07 -0700 Received: from cr1003236-a.crdva1.bc.wave.home.com ([24.113.51.39]) by lh2.rdc1.bc.home.com (InterMail v4.01.01.00 201-229-111) with SMTP id <19990902040906.YKRN789.lh2.rdc1.bc.home.com@cr1003236-a.crdva1.bc.wave.home.com> for ; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 21:09:06 -0700 Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Andy Ronald" To: footbag@footbag.org Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 21:09:09 -800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [footbag] Qualification system Reply-to: mongooze@home.com X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.53/R1) Message-Id: <19990902040906.YKRN789.lh2.rdc1.bc.home.com@cr1003236-a.crdva1.bc.wave.home.com> Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Ok folks it sounds like the discussion is finally heating up a bit. Actually the finally part is probably more to the one actually positive comment on how things went down. (Thanks James). There have been comments on the (un)fairness of it all. But first some of the problems we were attempting to address. One was the problem of trying to fit 3 events into a 2 day tourney. Already most 2 day events are running well into the twilight hours with the semi finals and often the quarter finals being played in "unfair" conditions. Also the 2 events that get played on Sat. are always singles and mixed doubles. Now I know that those of you men out there who don't play mixed, for whatever reasons, probably don't feel much sympathy for those who do being tired or overworked. I believe that mixed is an extremely valuable event for the continued health and growth of our sport. I would rather cater to its support than not. It is the players that are "wasting" time, running well into the afternoon advancing along the mixed doubles bracket that invariably keep the entire singles tourney waiting and behind schedule. And when they are finally finished with their mixed for the day they have to play three or four singles matches right away to catch up to the rest of the field. Most often this is not accomplished in one day so they are forced to play Sunday morning as well before doubles begins, throwing off the schedule for day two before it even begins. So with that out of the way we attempted to solve both these problems at once. We made the assumption that it was the top singles players who were most likely to advance the furthest in mixed. This assumption was based not on their actual abilities to excel at mixed but rather their reputation and ability to attract a top woman partner for the event. So instead of wasting the time of the day on one event we felt that we could arrange for the mixed and singles to run concurrently save time for the stressed out tourney directors and not overly exhaust our best and presumably showcase attractions. Here is the Invitational/Qualification system that we used. In an event of 20 or more entrants seed only the top 8. (In a tournament of more than 40 entrants do the same with the top 16.) Place these 8 players in a standard 32 player bracket. The proper bracket positions for the top 8 players is well documented in the IFAB books. INSTEAD of further seeding the rest of the individuals we group them in levels of relative ability. Rather than having players seeded 9 - 16 we group these players together. They are the pool captains in the qualifying round.The next grouping (what would be 17-24) are grouped together also as "pool seconds". Each second is randomly assigned to a pool captain. Everyone else is considered a "pool third". Pool thirds are also randomly assigned to pool captains until you have pools of three. any leftover players are now randomly assigned to pool captains to create pools of four. The result of this method of seeding and randomizing is that now everyone is on equal footing. So if you are a new player that nobody knows anything about you are not doomed to the pool with Randy Mulder with zero chance of advancing. Also the ability to seed one player 13 and another 14 is just an arbitrary assignment by a seeding director (who might not even know your name) and always leads to time consuming and disheartening complaints of "I'm better than he is"(or vice versa). The arbitrary part of this decision has little effect on the player except who he is playing against and what side of the bracket he is on. You can speculate all you like on who is the better player but in this system all POOL CAPTAINS are EQUAL to each other, all POOL SECONDS are EQUAL to each other and all POOL THIRDS are EQUAL to each other. So nobody can complain about it. Pools of three are the best possible way to run this round (or any pool round for that matter) A pool of three only requires one net to complete and runs just as quickly as a pool of 4 does on 2 nets. Plus there are no meaningless games in a pool of three. Also the tournament at large plays 24 fewer matches that the 8 seeds would have played if they were in the pools. Once all pool play is complete you will have a number of pool winners and pool qualifiers. That should give you 16 qualifiers and 24 players total. So each pool is now RANDOMLY assigned a letter. This is done after all pool results are in to insure that nobody can purposefully throw a match to get onto one side of the bracket or another. The letters A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 etc. correspond to slots on your 32 player bracket sheet. Since you at this point have 24 players left the top 8 are byed to the next round. The winner and second in each pool must be on opposite sides of the bracket to ensure no repeats. A pool winner has the advantage of playing a pool second from another pool in the round of 32. the winner of this round now meets a top 8 seeded player in the round of 16. The bracket from here on is a standard single elim. This is where the complaints come in of unfairness. However I would suggest that we are simply transferring some of the unfairness that is already integral to the system we use now away from the top players. If the seeding is correct than everyone should play a similar number of matches. The lower players get to fight amongst their peers for the chance to match up against the top guns. Vince and Steve complain that they have played too much before this happens and are unfairly disadvantaged by the time they meet a top seed, essentially removing any chance that they might win at all. However I am sure that if they were to run up against a top seed who had just finished 5 gruelling rounds of mixed doubles and an accelerated pool of singles play they wouldn't complain too much. Also I think that it would be somewhat of an advantage to get to play against someone who hasn't competed yet when you are already warm and in the swing of things, they should have at least enough nervousness to cancel out their fresher legs. As for the lowest seeds who get demolished in the pools and demoralized in general this system offers them a realistic chance of advancing out of their pool and also the intense learning of important matches. Even if you lose your first match of the day you are not relegated to a meaningless round of fodderdom to complete your competition. A pool of three takes only one net to complete and offers more value to the games that are played, even if you lose in two and are out you still had a chance to fight for it. I agree that the lions share of work falls on the shoulders of the pool captains who may be good enough beat the seeds above them but the argument that this is an unduly and unfair share would be more convincing to me if singles were the only event at the tournament. Overall the system ran well although not without some snags and it did have us finishing on schedule for the first time in a decade. If anyone has specific questions on how things were run from a directors point of view please contact me directly. As for the general players discussion on the pros and cons LET THE GAMES BEGIN Thank you for your time ANDY ps : to those of you who received flaming rejoinders from me privately I apologize. Since most of the postings here have been somewhat negative I felt initially defensive. Please don't take it personally. From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 18:49:53 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA23827 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:49:53 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (srv1.reelwest.bc.ca [207.194.197.99]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id JAA01024 for ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 09:52:49 -0700 Received: from 207.194.197.201 (unverified [207.194.197.201]) by srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Thu, 02 Sep 1999 09:48:19 -0700 Message-ID: <37CE4820.57B0@intouch.bc.ca> Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 09:49:37 +0000 From: James Holkko X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] James and the *BIG* response Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antirelay: Good relay from local net2 207.194.197.0/24 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hi ya again Folks, I wasn't expecting so much response to a simple opinion. Well Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve. I am So sorry that you feel shafted by the tournament format. I am. As a smaller tournament, facing certain problems, we tried something different. Sort of a grass roots thing. Your understanding of this kind of system is reflected in your comment that we try this in mixed doubles. How many teams of mixed doubles did we have? Can one run this system with that many teams? No (-; In this system, as I understand it, everyone plays about 2-3 matches. Unless one breaks there seed. In a "normal" bracket system everyone plays 3-4 matches, then advancing players compete up to 3-4 more matches. The brunt of matches falls on the advancing players. In this system it falls on the 9-16 group. This system reduced the number of courts, pools of 5, needing two courts and reduced something like 12 matches from the tournament. Bored tournament directors was a joke. I live with a tournament director and I know. Hi Yves, It's been a long time, hope all is well. In response to your e-mail- I really admire your dedication to the sport. I have heard tale of your relentless pursuit to raise the footbag level of play. Your recruiting. Hell, 8-9 years ago, you basically recruited me when I was in Montreal. Or at least introduced me to the sport. But here we are now and I am not the sandal net kicking guy I used to be. Okay, to the respose. Your average footbagger goes to the 9-5 crunch and comes home and is supposed to work out for a couple hours? Your average footbagger can't afford a world class trainer. Basically, has just about enough time to keep up with family and maybe enough time to try and keep up their net/freestyle skills. We don't all have the luxury of getting sponsorship to get to tournaments. Most are worried about how to have enough money to retire when their older. Some are committed enough to blow off their "real" life and play and train relentlessly. I hold these people with the utmost respect. Because there is no sight of added support to ensure making money at the sport. And these are people trying to get a wonderful sport to a greater level of compitition. Next, can you imagine how many injuries a sport like tennis would have if all matches were 3 sets and pushed into just a weekend? This sport is much lower impact sport than footbag. Look at the U.S. open. Two of the top 4 seeds left because of injury. We can only run one tournament a year that is a week long. People can't afford to take a week off for every tournament. This injury thing is evident with many top level players skipping singles in tournaments. And the drinking thing. Our tournament had free beer. I saw no one leaving stupid drunk. Most people had a couple beers, sitting around appreciating the wonderful company. If anything, people were drinking to relax from a long day. As I explained earlier, in the normal bracket system, to get the finals, one has to play 7-8 matches to reach finals. That's alot more than 3-4. This reduction in matches may just get top level players in all catagories in the finals matches. This system was an experiment to address -certain- problems. As for golf. I was apart of the golf directorship and this event did not slow the tournament down in any way. If anything, it got people there at 8 a.m. sun. for double golf. And we started matches at 9:00 a.m. as scheduled. Hope to see you folks at worlds, here next year. As for the personal e-mails, I believe I've answered your questions in this letter. Except the fact that it would be good to hear IFAB members and if you have time, Steve Goldberg. Seeing as though you were at the tournament, and may have an opinion on how things went. I would also like to thank Crass for being such a great and determined tounament director of this years Van. Open. Things, outside of this issue went really smooth. Until the next response, James From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 18:51:39 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA23834 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:51:39 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from ep-notes3.wlcmail.com ([12.2.49.5]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA01652 for ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 10:36:37 -0700 Received: by ep-notes3.wlcmail.com(Lotus SMTP MTA Internal build v4.6.2 (651.2 6-10-1998)) id 862567E0.0060F8E9 ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 12:39:11 -0500 X-Lotus-FromDomain: WILSON LEARNING From: "Edwin Veltman" To: footbag@footbag.org Message-ID: <862567E0.0060F7CE.00@ep-notes3.wlcmail.com> Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 10:34:25 -0700 Subject: Re: [footbag] Qualification system Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Thanks, Andy, for your great description of the new pool play system (are we calling it "Invitational"?). I applaud your and others' accomplishment in not only figuring out the complexities but also getting it to actually work the first time in a tournament without too many hassles. Everyone agrees that the present system has not been working well enough, and as a 'lower seed', I look forward to playing in a tournament which uses the new system. I played in a tournament earlier this year in which I didn't expect to make it out of singles pool play. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to play, because we waited so long for the mixed doubles to end, and I had to leave for an engagement in the LATE afternoon. I've been to too many tournaments where competitors had to do a lot of waiting and the play went on far too late in the day or into the next day. Andy wrote: >>Also the ability to seed one player 13 and another 14 is just an arbitrary assignment by a seeding director (who might not even know your name) and always leads to time consuming and disheartening complaints of "I'm better than he is"(or vice versa). The arbitrary part of this decision has little effect on the player except who he is playing against and what side of the bracket he is on. You can speculate all you like on who is the better player but in this system all POOL CAPTAINS are EQUAL to each other, all POOL SECONDS are EQUAL to each other and all POOL THIRDS are EQUAL to each other. So nobody can complain about it.<< I think you may hear some complaints about this, considering that some players simply would like to know their numeric seeding. I personally could live with just knowing if I ended up a pool second rather that a pool captain, but I don't see why you couldn't tell someone "You're pool captain", and tell them the seeding number you got, from your calculations, only if they ask for it. Or does this system eliminate the need to come up with actual absolute seeding numbers? Thanks, -edwin (who's itching to play again, now that his back injury is healed - woohoo!) From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 21:36:22 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA24018 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:36:22 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from level1.level1.com (level1.level1.com [204.160.84.10]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA02499 for ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:19:55 -0700 Received: from sentinel2 ([204.160.84.2] helo=sentinel2.level1.com) by level1.level1.com with smtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 11MbNU-0004M4-00 for footbag@footbag.org; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:14:28 -0700 Received: from level6.level1.com by sentinel2.level1.com via smtpd (for level1.level1.com [204.160.84.10]) with SMTP; 2 Sep 1999 18:19:54 UT Received: from warder.level1.com ([192.168.30.100]) by mailgw.level1.com with esmtp (Exim 2.10 #1) id 11MbSp-0000Jc-00 for footbag@footbag.org; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:19:59 -0700 Received: by warder.level1.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:07:15 -0700 Message-ID: <287D75C00B5DD31180A5009027991A7C03F98C@itchy.sftelecom.level1.com> From: "Greg Durrett" To: "'footbag@footbag.org'" Subject: [footbag] Two Cents Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:17:30 -0700 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Greetings All, It's good to see a healthy dialog happening here. As for what's been going on 'behind the scenes', I hope it's been more constructive than confrontational. With all due respect to the participants in this discussion thus far, here's my humble opinion: I thought it was great! I am a flailing singles player. I'd never made it out of my pool until Vancouver '99. If this was due to a change in competitive format, so be it! I could give a whit about my ranking at this stage in my footbag career, so the impact of this format on players in the next skill level above me is of only theoretical interest. Point is, I felt some sense of progress for the first time, howsoever artificial that might have been. I'm sure others out there share my opinion. If so, speak up! Greg "10-way tie" Durrett From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 21:36:26 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA24023 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:36:26 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from majordomo2.umd.edu (majordomo2.umd.edu [128.8.10.7]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA02746 for ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:26:56 -0700 Received: from rac5.wam.umd.edu (root@rac5.wam.umd.edu [128.8.10.145]) by majordomo2.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA28437; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 14:26:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Vince Bradley Received: from rac5.wam.umd.edu (sendmail@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rac5.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id OAA21412; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 14:26:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rvbpaco@localhost) by rac5.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA21405; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 14:26:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 14:26:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199909021826.OAA21405@rac5.wam.umd.edu> To: footbag@footbag.org, mongooze@home.com Subject: Re: [footbag] Qualification system Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hey hey a few questions- -what time did the tournament ( first event ) start each day? -what time was it scheduled to start? -coudl it start earlier? i realize this last question pretty much is a joke. as an experienced tournament director and competitor, its always possible that a tournament could start earlier, but it might not have any players. I think Andys solution to Vancouver's problems worked out well. If I had been at Vancouver, though, i might have scratched from singles. My 'complaint's about the system wasn't simply about having to play higher seeds after playing any or many matches. And in truth i had no intention of 'complaining.' My intent was to scrutinize the new system to see how i think it will affect competitors efforts in future tournaments. To see how it will hold up to any system of values for the sport of footbag as a whole. Semantics aside, i would have considered scratching for a number of reasons. If i had entered, i am estimating i would have ended up seeded between 10th and 16th. I am basing this on the list of players as a whole. I can see 9 players who certainly have a better record than me, and 14 who certainly do not, in singles. This being the case, i am a victim to a past based on seeding systems, as Andy has pointed out. I expect my performance, and matches, to be based on my past accomplishments. And i unconciously expect this because I don't want to end up 'getting screwed' by a bad seed, and end up getting knocked out of title contention early in an 'unfair' manner. This being the case, before I even would have started playing in the Vancouver Open, my seeding would have been discarded. And as i said, i value the rank that i feel i have earned. My rank, no matter how high or low it was, would be changed to equal 7 other players at 9th ( or 7th, actually), but just as equivalently 16th(14th). And I would be placed at the top of a pool, with my pool opponents determined randomly, composed of individuals ranked lower than i. Comparing this with the system i have grown used to, as a player ranked as in the second best group, i should be very very happy. the chances of me playing someone ranked lower than i would play in the older system gets higher for each player lower in this group. conversely, if i were the top seed in the next lower group, my placement in this lower group severely affects my chances to get out of the pools. Lets say 7-14 are lumped as top of the pools and 15-22 are rated second in the pools. any player that could have ended up ranked 15 is not only arbitrarily determined to not be worthy of rank 14, they also are placed in a system where they are likely to end up playing someone much higher than they would in the old system to make it out of the pools. At rank fifteen in the older system, the player would have to play rank 14 and win to be number one in their pool. In the new system, this player may have to face a player ranked closer to 7. The problem in a 'fair' 'random' seed doesn't end there. This same 15th ranked player could end up with the 23rd ranked player trying to beat him to get out instead of the older systems putting him against rank 30. I could go on, might try and continue later, but what seems apparent to me is that neither system is fair to the other. They each have their problems with bias, and they each have benefits. The older systems habit of giving easier games to higher players actually comes from it trying to offset the problematical nature of close seeded players. Where players are closely ranked at points that determine advancement, the old system is designed to ensure that the close, questionable rankings end up determining a better rank by keeping them closer together. Giving them a better chance to remove the questionable nature of their seeds by playing head to head, or playing similar levels of play. This new system removes the tendency to let the better players have what seems an easier path to success ( outside of the top eight) but it doesn't do anything to actually aid in discriminating close ranks for future tournament seeding purposes. Fixing the problem of the old system is a matter of time and organization. and results. especially reported results. To support the old system it'd be particularly great to have complete results- have all ties resolved through consolation matches. It would also help if the players kept track of their own records, but this probably would only lead to mass hysteria, the greenhouse effect, and Jim Caveney finally flipping out and deciding he needs to pursue that long lost basketball career he has forsaken. Anyway, i think it boils down to saiving time or taking the time necessary to have results that contribute to the old system. I don't think the problems between the two systems are resolvable. great thread. l8r vince From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 2 21:36:33 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA24028 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:36:33 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from smtp.email.msn.com (cpimssmtpu03.email.msn.com [207.46.181.19]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA02757 for ; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:27:10 -0700 Received: from default - 63.11.187.96 by email.msn.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 08:02:39 -0700 Message-ID: <001601bef556$3b726d60$60bb0b3f@default> From: "Tina Lewis" To: , Subject: Re: [footbag] Qualification system Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 10:17:10 -0500 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Andy, Thanks for sharing the details, I was reserving comment til I read them. I think ya'll have come up with a nice solution to a problem at big tournaments. Mixed is important to the sport of footbag. Anyone who watched the mixed finals and semi finals at Worlds has to agree. Having the top 8 get double byes on the assumption that they are playing mixed is only relevant or important from the standpoint of the availability of nets and waiting for those players to get out of singles before the mixed bracket (or the open doubles can start). What do you do if number 9 has a mixed partner (the 9th or 10th female entrant) that he has worked with? It would seem to limit the number of men who would play mixed (imagine that!). We have more than 8 women at Worlds, Westerns and maybe at Phoenix (?). I personally dislike pools for many of the reasons pointed out on this list and it simply isn't necessary for the women's events until we have more women in them. BUT pools are the only realistic way to handle a large tournament- which is what we want! I don't like to run after dark at my tournaments either. My only solutions have been shortening the finals matches to 3 games to 11 and constantly pushing players to get on those empty courts. It works for small tournaments only. Its good to explore all the options and come up with new ideas and I'm excited that people are trying new things - this kind of discussion is necessary when new things are tried. Even if you don't like it, we all recognize the benefit and may be able to eventually get to something we are all happy with. Most directors/staff are also competitors and its difficult to deal with unexpected rules and formatting when you go to a tournament. That's one of the issues involved in sanctioning tournaments and getting some agreement on seedings/rankings. Sometimes just implementing a change is the best and only way we can try new things and save the sanity of all of the people who work so hard for this sport we love. You take some heat, you give some back :-) and our sport and our tournaments get better and better because of it. Thanks Andy and Jake for sending out the details. Tina. From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Sat Sep 4 00:02:30 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id AAA25461 for footbag-outgoing; Sat, 4 Sep 1999 00:02:30 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: (qmail 9698 invoked from network); 3 Sep 1999 23:02:43 -0000 Received: from pop.thegrid.net (209.162.1.5) by smtp.thegrid.net with SMTP; 3 Sep 1999 23:02:43 -0000 Received: from fpgcswgi (lax-ts3-h1-44-22.ispmodems.net [209.162.44.22]) by pop.thegrid.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id QAA24844 for ; Fri, 3 Sep 1999 16:02:37 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: From: "Scott Cleere" To: "footbag" Subject: [footbag] What If? Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 16:06:36 -0700 Message-ID: <000001bef660$f8dbcbc0$162ca2d1@fpgcswgi> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Importance: Normal Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Great to see all the interest in improving the tournament experience. Here are some questions that we might consider asking ourselves, away from all the discussion about formats, fairness, and other matters of technical nature... not that such things aren't important, they are. Maybe we need to consider options outside of the box, think laterally. What if something had to go? One or more events had to be cut from the tournament, singles, doubles, mixed, freestyle... What if we ran events that allowed us to focus on singles, or mixed, or freestyle and not stress out over (will we ever finish before dark, make my flight, etc). I know this is happening in some cases already, and guess what, it works, shhhhh, don't tell, it might catch on. Two precious days to spend playing (play, what a great word). What if we went to an event and knew that we would be playing lots all day long. At first most of us in formal competition and as the day worn on fewer of us. I can't resist this one technical suggestion, consolation rounds. I have spent more time then I can say over the past 15 years on the premise, "we have to have all events, to be fair to all players". As Andy and Jake (and countless others, myself included) have attempted to solve the problem of fitting ten gallons of water into a five gallon container I wonder if maybe we need to approach the problem from another angle. I'll never forget watching Kenny play Mag in 1984 (I think)singles finals in Boulder, first they played the advanced finals (three kick) outside into the dark, two matches to complete the double elimination format, then they went into the gym to finish the ultra finals (two kick - no knees), we finished around midnight. What If We Had To Choose, isn't there an "old" song? Set you, Scott From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Sun Sep 5 01:45:05 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA26811 for footbag-outgoing; Sun, 5 Sep 1999 01:45:05 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (srv1.reelwest.bc.ca [207.194.197.99]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA21544 for ; Sat, 4 Sep 1999 16:33:46 -0700 Received: from 207.194.197.134 (unverified [207.194.197.134]) by srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Sat, 04 Sep 1999 16:32:16 -0700 Message-ID: <377F8CCB.5581@intouch.bc.ca> Date: Sun, 04 Sep 1999 16:33:23 +0000 From: Juliet Pendray X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: Re: [footbag] Qualification system Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antirelay: Good relay from local net2 207.194.197.0/24 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Greetings All! It's been mentioned to me that my small post earlier on this subject was possessed of a rather lame aroma and a distinct pass-the-buck'ish flavour. Ok, so I therefore rip open this closet door to state: Yes! I thought this "eight-bye" arrangement worked very well, and I praise Jake and Andy for putting so much work into its creation and implementation. I'd like to throw in a few words (a.k.a. hold forth at length) about how we seed players in footbag sports, to address the specific concerns posted about how players were "seeded" using this 8-bye system for open level singles net at the '99 Vancouver Open. (Apologies for reiterating points already discussed - can't be helped :-) AHEM... Footbag as a sport is in the interesting position of being so very much newer than the sports that we often compare ourselves with. With respect to brackets/seeding systems, there are certain obvious but important differences between footbag and more (hundreds-of-years-old) established competition sports: Our active competitor pool is relatively small. Also, individual players do not have the sponsored funds allowing them free choice whether to attend "qualifying" tournaments in order to better their seeding. Thus, for footbag, consistent seeding methods are very difficult: - Some of our very top players attend very few tournaments in a given year, while others attend most of the major tournaments. Event directors thus are often forced to weight a players seeding based on reputation rather than solely upon yearly event ranking, in order to try to prevent obvious upsets. - Rarely is there pre-registration for tournaments. If it were possible, required advance registration would allow organizers to research the ranking of those players *known* to be attending, rather than unnecessarily wasting time attempting to research the rank of all the *potential* attendees. - Many tournament organizers do not publish results beyond third or fourth place, making it impossible to establish ranking for the vast majority of players. - Again due to the comparatively small number of active footbag competitors, we have few skill level categories in our tournaments. A category such as "open singles net" contains an enormous range of skill levels. Larger sports have the luxury of dividing these open players amongst many more categories. We simply can't... yet. It has been stated that the eight-bye system ignored players current seeding/ranking, and further, penalized ranked players by sending them as a lump into, for example the "seed 9 - 16" group. I disagree, as I don't find that most players currently *have* an actual rank that event directors can use with anything resembling accuracy - due mainly to the above-mentioned elements. I feel that these factors create a situation that inhibits the growth of footbag sports: Picture a singles net competitor who has achieved the "open" or "pro" skill level, and who has competed in open singles at a few events. As we all know, in order to get to this point, that person has devoted years of dedication to footbag; from first managing to kick the hackysack more than once before it drops, to drilling serves and sets and spikes, honing court strategy, and climbing up from novice cannon-fodder to finally being recognized as a worthy competitor on the "open" court. At present, given the factors that affect seeding that i just described, this person typically still achieves no recognition in results and ranking. Despite the truly incredible skills this person now possesses, they are often unlikely to even emerge from their pool (or, in double elimination, they get knocked out after two matches). Although this person is sometimes reminded of what an excellent kicker they are when they step into a hack circle, or when they get the oohs and ahhs from non-kicker spectators. But, our tournaments do not offer any ranking or recognition for open-level cannon-fodder competitors. While I don't think we "lose" people from footbag sports due to the difficulty of learning such a precision kicking sport (either yer stoked from the get-go or yer not) ... I *do* think we lose potentially excellent players due to the unusually difficult road it is in footbag competitions to rise in, or establish, rank. The love of playing footbag *is* the main thing ... but to know your rank helps you to assess your abilities, gives you concrete goals to focus upon, and rewards you with a sense of achievement and recognition. MY POINT BEING ... The "eight-bye" system at the VanOpen "qualified" and removed the top eight players from the open singles pools. The rest of the players, who would normally be (unranked and/or unrank-able) casually dubbed the last two seeds in a pool, were given a rank within these pools, and had the opportunity to compete against a group of players who were much closer in skill level. SEVERAL CONCLUSIONS I feel that this system allowed the greater majority of players to better compare their abilities against other players, to play more matches at a tournament (that likely required a significant personal expense in time and money to attend), and to emerge from the event with an actual rank. Much of the growth of footbag sports is in bringing in new players, and in supporting the efforts of present players to better their skills and abilities. Our current systems are generally weighted heavily in favour of the very top players. I have to say, that I really don't think they need this advantage: They are amazing and phenomenally excellent athletes, and they *will* reach the top places at events regardless of the system used. There is no practical need to "qualify" them over and over, especially by pitting them against players who have significantly less advanced skills and experience. Again the (surprisingly few) problems-in-practice that emerged at the Vancouver Open, I feel were inevitable aspects of experimenting with something untried. As with experiments in general, I find that what doesn't work can sometimes teach you as much as what does. One illustration being that the criticisms put forward in the email discussion so far have been both thoughtful and thought provoking. I am sure that it took years of time and concern to create, hone and globally promote the use of the current accepted seeding/brackets systems. However, as our numbers of players increase, I hope that we keep our minds open to considering and exploring the merits of any proposals that have potential to benefit the game-we-love. With respect, Juliet Pendray Kicker Post-script: As Vancouver is hosting Worlds 2000, I feel it might be important to remind folks that the seeding/brackets system used at World Championships is governed by IFAB/IFC. Plus this whole experiment we are discussing was geared to a specific local tournament situation. If any of the Vancouver Worlds organizers have any proposals to make in this area, they would of course make them to the IFAB/IFC. That should of course be obvious, but I did catch a sort of "omigosh are they wild-eyed radicals?" tone to some of the replies I rec'd earlier From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Tue Sep 7 03:07:00 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id DAA29175 for footbag-outgoing; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 03:07:00 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (srv1.reelwest.bc.ca [207.194.197.99]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id LAA28221 for ; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 11:47:37 -0700 Received: from 207.194.197.144 (unverified [207.194.197.144]) by srv1.reelwest.bc.ca (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Mon, 06 Sep 1999 11:46:44 -0700 Message-ID: <37D3A9E9.4519@intouch.bc.ca> Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 11:47:59 +0000 From: Juliet Pendray X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] Re: Qualification System Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antirelay: Good relay from local net2 207.194.197.0/24 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Greetings All! Zoicks! Looks like I might have unintentionally come off as angry or defensive on the subject of seeding/brackets/etc in my posts to the list! Please know that I am most definitely not - and quite the opposite: I have been enjoying the discussion tremendously, enjoy adding to it, and look forward to being flamed/praised/whatever (hopefully not ignored ) ... I like this forum and I like the fact that people have strong opinions: Folks generally have strong opinions about stuff they care about 'n all. Anyhoo - sorry if i threw anything that sounded harsh out there! Establishing emotional tone in email is difficult I find. The more I learn about the subject of seeding/brackets systems lately, the more I am learning about the possible implications/effects of them. I don't have much of a sports background before footbag, and I (*gasp*) don't follow hockey/tennis/football/whatever, so I am even that much more stoked to hear opinions on the subject from folks who have been thinking about this longer than I have and/or have more experience with the general subject. Jooooliet From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Tue Sep 7 09:39:46 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA29867 for footbag-outgoing; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 09:39:46 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from dept.english.upenn.edu (sunilj@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU [130.91.75.246]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA05057 for ; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 20:44:00 -0700 Received: (from sunilj@localhost) by dept.english.upenn.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3/SAS.05) id XAA09038 for footbag@footbag.org; Mon, 6 Sep 1999 23:43:55 -0400 (EDT) From: sunilj@dept.english.upenn.edu (Sunil Jani) Message-Id: <199909070343.XAA09038@dept.english.upenn.edu> Subject: [footbag] ESPN footbag.... To: footbag@footbag.org Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 23:43:55 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23-upenn3.3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hey All: It wasn't the X-games, but I saw footbag on ESPN tonight (Sept 6 @ 11 PM EDT). IN the intro to sports center they showed a circle of hackers. The kickers were members of the LA Dodgers and they were kicking on field (in uniform) before the game. Pretty neat, I guess, but I would much rather they show the highlights from Funtastik. Thanks again Brenda and Joe for throwing another wonderful tourney. -Tsunami From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Tue Sep 7 20:44:12 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA30368 for footbag-outgoing; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 20:44:12 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f From: Ted Huff Received: from imo19.mx.aol.com (imo19.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.9]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA14722; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 06:25:27 -0700 Received: from Thehuff1@aol.com by imo19.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id uGUAa06249 (4316); Tue, 7 Sep 1999 09:24:48 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <1d45f7a1.25066c20@aol.com> Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 09:24:48 EDT Subject: Re: [footbag] What If? To: scott@creativeathletics.com CC: footbag@footbag.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 21 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Great thoughts !! But this whole pool controversy really drives me crazy, so I am really wondering why it ever started. Why can't a simple double elimination bracket be used, so other than needed, earned seeding, it is all fair--- no 3 or 4 matches just to get out of a pool , then.........POW," real play"! So what if someone comes 3000 miles to play 2 matches & they are out, as long as that's the same for everyone. At least in this type of tournament play, no one is ever out of chances until they lose a second time! Somehow, many sports are able to use this, and no one complains, in fact many use single, heaven forbid a bad draw, elimination, & they seem to survive just fine. Hey, what if in "major" tournaments of footbag, the "intermediate" class was used for those that lost 2 matches in "open" competition, so those players had 1 more chance to "win". Based on how far they got in "open" play , that's how they would be seeded in Intermediate. Or this "elimination" tournament could be called something else, BUT the point is those players who wanted more of a taste of competition could keep playing in another "pool" . And that's just 1 event !! Hey, what if players had to chose their events, as Scott says !! What if the "the big time" open players really thought the men's overall title at worlds meant something again ???!!!!! Gee, what if no one was bothered by pools, and could just concentrate on being the best they could be ??? Right, Steve ?? What if players had to raise $250 to $500 dollars in sponsorship support per tournament JUST TO PLAY IN OPEN COMPETITION, and 1/2 went into a prize pool & 1/2 went to a tournament committee's favorite charity??!!! Gee, what if the local community , with a charity's ability to get publicity, actually came out to watch a BIG footbag tournament? How would the players deal with all that attention?? What if by raising sponsorship support, a little more each tournament, a player, OR TEAM, OR CLUB, could really be proud to raise key sponsors for their sport, instead of whining about a lack of money provided by tournament directors??!!! What if is right !! I'm proud to see the fantastic play that is part of every tournament now. It's what I dreamed of when I helped Johnny Stalberger start this whole Hacky Sack / Footbag game & sport 26 years ago. But, it's a crying shame that players have to worry about fairness in pools/tournament play. This should always be the first priority. But they also don't seem to think about what it takes to make a tournament & their sport successful. It takes their efforts to raise sponsors, to raise awareness of this game as a sport, to make national , or international sponsors interested. It can't be just the responsibility of the tournament director, and the tournament committee !!! And, Steve Goldberg shouldn't have to put the money up, AND then get no thanks and recognition, either !!! That's a real shame, that players don't seem to understand that THEY are the reason for tournaments, BUT they are also the reason for a lack of sponsor support & why more tournaments are losing support, not gaining. As I hear & see it. What if the players took charge of their own sponsorships, then what if they could just play ????????? What if somebody or group or committee took control of the sport, and actually "marketed" the sport's tournaments natioanlly/internationally? What if IFAB took a position in all this controversy ?? From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Tue Sep 7 20:44:15 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA30377 for footbag-outgoing; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 20:44:15 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from smtp.email.msn.com (cpimssmtpu09.email.msn.com [207.46.181.31]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA15391 for ; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 07:29:40 -0700 Received: from default - 63.11.187.107 by email.msn.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 07:28:20 -0700 Message-ID: <000801bef93f$591421a0$6bbb0b3f@default> From: "Tina Lewis" To: "Juliet Pendray" , Subject: Re: [footbag] Re: Qualification System Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 09:43:26 -0500 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Here's what I see in the discussion so far - The qualifying system seems to make sense for large tournaments that run multiple events. The main problem is that it puts a large emphasis on seeding and the big breaks at seed 8 and 9 etc. We have the seeding problem no matter what format we use and we need to work on the seeding system (report those results! get sanctioned!). IFC is working on this (see later discussion). What drives the chosen format or the seeding system is the emphasis that we put on a variety of factors/values (hey this sounds like a freestyle discussion). Here are some factors that have been identified: 1) Having fun and playing the best footbag net we can under any given circumstance. 2) Growth of the sport. (What is the best way to accomplish that?) 3) Best matches for finals, publicity and recognition of the sport. 4) Attract the best players to tournaments (Do the top players prefer this format? - more variety of events and less matches in those events-pros don't have to work as hard for prize money???.) 5) Encourage new players to challenge the top 8. (Do we want to make it harder or easier for someone to break through that barrier? Does this system accomplish that?) 6) Consistent or Better seeding and stats on the sport. (Who has the time or the money to accomplish all this?) Each "factor" or "value" creates its own set of questions and it overlaps quite a bit. 7) Making it easier to have tournaments. (Should we eliminate singles net at some tournaments? Will top players come?) 8) Making it easier for players to go to tournaments. Please add to the list and the questions if you are so inclined. Tina. From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Tue Sep 7 20:44:15 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA30378 for footbag-outgoing; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 20:44:15 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f From: Ted Huff Received: from imo12.mx.aol.com (imo12.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.2]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA15131 for ; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 07:01:59 -0700 Received: from Thehuff1@aol.com by imo12.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id 1ZAKa05147 (4316); Tue, 7 Sep 1999 10:01:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 10:01:03 EDT Subject: Re: [footbag] Qualification system To: aloe@intouch.bc.ca CC: footbag@footbag.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 21 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Juliet, I think I understand, but the only "fair" method, I can see, is to go to double elimination brackets, & no pools. If a player gets a seed, or bye, hopefully, they earned it, then let the play take care of itself !! If a player gets a "bad " draw, well hopefully they can now concentrate on other events, and gain their pride back that way !! I also believe that the players have got to become involved in raising their own sponsorship funds, or maybe it becomes a team or club effort, BUT not all burden is placed on the tournament committee. IF players, teams, or clubs went about teaching and demonstration of the greatness of this game & sport better, the general public would not still think of footbag as a street corner/hallway/ "hippie" park game !, and become shocked by happening upon a real footbag tournament !! WOW!! It doesn't matter how a person's dressed, or their size, or their background to play this great game, and that's what needs to be demonstrated better !! But, if no one takes charge of doing the things needed to gain support for their play, then they will suffer from lack of ability to go to tournaments & play. Who's fault is that? Is it the WFA's? No. IFAB's ? Maybe. Tournament director's? Maybe. Depends on if anyone is willing to step up to all this controversy and whining & take charge of setting standards for the sport to grow from where it is now. What if each player, and/or team had to enter a tournament with a specific minimum, per tournament's base, entrance/sponsorship amount, and at least 1/2 went to the prize pool, and another part went to offset costs of the tournament committee, and a part went to a local charity of choice?? I mean , how tough would it be for each player to have to raise $100 minimum, or $200 in entrance fee's/sponsorship funds, then have the sponsors listed in the tournament program ??!! What if, oh, let's say they actually wore uniforms (of their choice) in competition, and the uniforms advertised their sponsors ??!!! Gee, what if the sponsors, and public liked that??!!! What if..........................the sport gained broader recognition ??!!! What if the 2000 World's had a prize "pool" of $50,000 ??!! Or more !! What if the "regionals" in 2000 had a $5000 minimum "pool", just to qualify as a regional ??!!!! What if a marketing company took over running the major tournaments, and brought in "big time" sponsors & media coverage? What if............................ From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:42:39 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01017 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:42:39 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from po3.wam.umd.edu (po3.wam.umd.edu [128.8.10.165]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA09568; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 07:01:44 -0700 Received: from rac9.wam.umd.edu (root@rac9.wam.umd.edu [128.8.10.149]) by po3.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA23202; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:01:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Vince Bradley Received: from rac9.wam.umd.edu (sendmail@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rac9.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA13861; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rvbpaco@localhost) by rac9.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA13856; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199909081401.KAA13856@rac9.wam.umd.edu> To: Thehuff1@aol.com, scott@creativeathletics.com Cc: footbag@footbag.org Subject: Re: [footbag] What If? Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org What If Vancouver has instead required the open players to choose between mixed or open doubles? Wouldn't this then potentially give more open players a chance at playing mixed, an event usually only played by the top players? Why is this valued less than giving hte low seeded open players a better chance to prove themselves against the top seeds in the tournament? Tina said the qualification system seems to be an acceptable form. I would not agree. It may qualify as a last resort for saving time, but i do not see it as having ANY other advantages. Several players have spoken up to say it gave them more games. This is completely wrong. The Qualification system gives more games to players before they are eliminated from a chance at being the champion. But no matter what format is used in any event, consolation matches to determine full rankings of the players can always be played. Just ask the directors for the space and set up the brackets. its easy. In conoslation matches, players end up playing for top seed in groups of players at a similar level. In this manner the standard pool format accomplishes everything the Qualification round is getting a popular vote from. And it actually adds to the pool of information that may eventually lead to more proper seedings at events. As it stands, ( this is ALOT like the frestyle discussions ) many people are making statements that the old system is poor, but no one has really given any indication as to how it is bad. The seeds of the players are criticized for being inaccurate, but they seem to be relatively effective. Upsets do not often if ever occur in open rankings for more than 3 positions of rank. This seems quite normal. It has been said that the seeds are self-fulfilling prophecies, creating an easier road for better players to keep their seeds as they are initially established. But no one has really shown how this is the case. And if you analyze the system you will see that while it does give the easier matches to the pros initially, this same system keeps similarly seeded players in groups where they will eventually play each other to determine more proper seedings by head to head matches. Beyond the top two players this has to be done in consolation matches. But the system makes it possible. Using these playoff matches to more accurately seed players would enable players to prove themselves by climbing the ranks, step by step. Using any random seed premise without also having playoffs for all ranks contributes nothing to the overall issue of how to seed people. Two eight way ties leaves 16 people relatively unseeded, as completely unlikely to be recoginzed for their efforts in the next event as they were when they came into the event. The tournament for these 16 has only given 8 of them a chance to prove they are not in the bottom 8. As far as double elimination goes, the real issue between it and pool play is the resources. A double elimination system is problematic in time because it is an inefficient user of courts. In double elim, the loser bracket inevitably gets held up by matches in the winners bracket, adn the actual number of games that can be played at the same time is much smaller than can be played in a pool format. a pool system quite simply is more capable of using all available courts. And, for most numbers, also requires less matches to complete. The most commonly perceived problem with the double elim. format is the fact that the Final Match, isn't always the final match. Frequently the 'finals' ends up being two matches. which could be confusing for spectators. but this is basically just poor thinking. The format is easily explained, and can be explained before the first potentially final match starts. What If the players took their sport seriously enough to simply play it? Play it well, hard, with devotion? What if the players actually knew how to help their events run, and how to get the most out of playing in and paying for a tournament? If they actually enjoyed playing off positions 5-32, instead of preferring to quit once having lost their chance to fight for 1st place? What if the directors of tournaments took their sport seriously enough to direct it- to make demands of it while structuring it exclusively for the play of the athletes? What if the players learned to value the fight for every rank instead of just the ones that get paid or prizes? The spectators would find it more interesting. It would be a thing all its own. From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:42:33 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01012 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:42:33 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: (qmail 22218 invoked from network); 9 Sep 1999 00:17:39 -0000 Received: from pop.thegrid.net (209.162.1.5) by smtp.thegrid.net with SMTP; 9 Sep 1999 00:17:39 -0000 Received: from fpgcswgi (lax-ts2-h2-42-223.ispmodems.net [209.162.42.223]) by pop.thegrid.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id RAA23897 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 17:17:37 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: From: "Scott Cleere" To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] Where's the beef? Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 17:21:39 -0700 Message-ID: <000101befa59$48c29e60$df2aa2d1@fpgcswgi> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org I am again delighted to see more discussion on how to improve the tournament experience. Gotta say, it awesome whether it's pools or brackets. Here's my beef and possible solution.... Finishing on time, before dark. In tournaments with large mens open singles brackets (24 or more), I think limiting players to two net events would allow play to process and finish before dark. So, mens pro would have to make the choice between singles or mixed. Isn't this where the gridlock happens? It's the case at Western Regionals, OPPS! and most events I've run. Two things happen. Open Singles and mixed run concurrently Sat a.m. and more people get to be in finals matches. Worlds and West Reg(three day weekend) may have the luxury of allowing for a player to compete in all three events without the time crunch, but a weekend event does not. Something has to give in the time/event area or we will continue to finish in the dark. This is not a dis to mixed, no doubt some people will take it that way. It's a kind of like that exercise where someone has to get thrown out of the boat if we are to survive (or finish before dark). The difference is that the one thrown out gets it's own raft. Michael row your boat ashore aleah loooou ya. Scott From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:42:28 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01007 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:42:28 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from vortex.more.net (vortex.more.net [198.209.253.70]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA25359 for ; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 15:29:17 -0700 Received: from mlerf.org (mail.mlerf.org [207.160.128.29]) by vortex.more.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA02395 for ; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 17:29:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [footbag] Pools vs Double-Elim vs Bye's Message-Id: <000000210253019588157@mlerf.org> From: dfogle@mlerf.org (Derrick Fogle) Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 17:29:17 -0500 Organization: MLERF X-Mailer: CommuniGate 3.1 Reply-To: dfogle@mlerf.org (Derrick Fogle, MLERF) To: footbag@footbag.org Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Sorry to change the subject line, but the subject line needs changing every once in awhile. First, my own opinion: being the best means starting at the same place everyone else does and reaching the end first. The only time top-level players should be privvy to a bye is if the tournament spans multiple days with time for the lower players to recover and play the higher seeded players on a 'fresh-equality' basis. Conditioning is an undeniable facet of player quality, and to pit a 'fresh' player against one that has played several matches already without the chance to fully recover is completely unfair to the player that has depleted some of thier body's resources and not had a chance to recharge them. Now, Ted Huff brought up the 'old' double-elimination (DE) brackets that are rarely used anymore. Pool-based competition cuts the pool in half after the first 3 matches, and cuts it in half again after every match after that. On the whole, if you've got more than 8 players, pool bracketing is faster than DE bracketing. The 'pool/bracket fodder' players get 3 matches instead of two, and generally get at least one other player in the bracket closer to thier own level than in DE brackets. The top players actually end up playing less overall. I was skeptical of pools at first, but have learned to like them. The DE bracket alternative takes two matches to cut the pool in half each time. Ample application has proved that the three pool matches generally don't take much longer than the initial DE 2-match before elimination. After that, DE brackets take much longer. Lesser players get less play, top level players have to play more; the intermediate players get the most experience out of the situation. Pooled brackets are a legitimate tournament execution tool. I think they are far better and more effective than some other sports' tournament tools. There are problems with it, of course, like my experience at Worlds: I was beaten from the top seed in my pool by another player. Coming out of the pools, I had to play the person that beat me in the first single-elimination match. This time, I beat that person, advancing in the pool although our records were no better than even. It seems like the Pool-to-Bracket transition needs rethought because it too often pits pool adversaries against one another right away in the single-elimination brackets. But pools are still a decent tournament tool. Its the seeding that ends up biting people. The 'On-the-Fly' seeding that TD's do is generally far better and more accurate than the results of any formulated seeding done so far. Usually several people get together and work out the relative playing level of the players, and firsthand experience wins out. We need more/better tournament results. We need the time to assess them. We need, we need, we need. And I'm sorry but I don't have the answers to that. We have trouble getting the exposure we need to get sponsorships. This is true for both players and TD's. Footbag has virtually no spectators and very little casual player base. And the casual player base we do have isn't a potential revenue stream. They buy a guat knockoff for $4 once a year. No shoes, no outfits, no net sets, nothing. Even bowling has huge leagues and only a couple out of every 20 or so league players actually bowls in tournaments. Yet all those league players spend hundreds of dollars per year on bowling balls, shoes, bags, wrist supports, etc. Compared to just about every other sport/ game out there, we're pathetic and the media and the sponsors know that. So we get no chicken (exept for me) and we get no egg. I suppose I do have an 'answer' to our problems, but I don't see how to make the answer a reality. The single most effective investment footbag could make would be to scrape up enough money to pay Steve Goldberg a full-time salary to work for us (he would have to want to - an unknown proposition). If I had the money to bet, I'd bet he could more than pay for himself by drumming up sponsorship and exposure for all of us. But I can't guarantee 5 years of salary for him, and I think that's a minimum to classify something like that as an offer instead of a joke. Its an entirely different level than the IFC has ever operated on. ______________________________________ Derrick Fogle - the "Computer Guy" Missouri Lions Eye Research Foundation Heartland Lions Eye Banks dfogle@mlerf.org - www.mlerf.org From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:44:56 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01022 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:44:56 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.120.62]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA24831 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 20:02:50 -0700 Received: from ul2ju (pool0801.cvx14-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net [209.179.41.36]) by snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id UAA21937 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 20:02:48 -0700 (PDT) From: "Mike Stoler" To: Subject: Re: [footbag] What If? Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 20:08:12 -0700 Message-ID: <000101befa70$8f9c5120$f4b1b2d1@ul2ju> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Well, I must say this discussion is certainly interesting. Ted asks: > What if players had to raise $250 to $500 dollars in sponsorship > support per tournament JUST TO PLAY IN OPEN COMPETITION, and 1/2 > went into a prize pool & 1/2 went to a tournament committee's > favorite charity??!!! What if I could fly to the moon? I've tried both, and frankly, I've come closer to the moon. Ted if you know of sponsors ready to give money to players in a fringe, niche sport, please let me know. I've been looking for a while now, and I haven't found anything useful yet. The players are working as hard as they can just to make it to these events. Many are just scraping by. And the tournament directors are doing their best to draw whatever support they can from their local clubs. At least, this has been my experience. The players already work very hard to keep the sport alive. Scottie asks: What if we had to choose between events? We already do. Our tournament has been forced to choose between holding Ruler of the Court or Singles Net. Last year we played singles net for the first time. I liked it, but then again, I like singles. Since then, I've heard opinions on both sides from players. But we made a choice. If we were to choose to completely skip freestyle or net events, we would lose the critical mass we need to hold a tournament. It has been suggested that we try to schedule mixed doubles at a better time, but I don't think that those who suggest that would want to skip singles or doubles net so we could play mixed. Yes, it's hard, and yes, it's like trying to fit 10 gallons of shtuff into a 5 gallon hat, but we've shown that it can be done if everybody works hard and keeps to on schedule as best they can. Our tournament draws about 50-60 paying players for the last few years. We break even. What if we are already doing the best we can? What if choosing fewer events would hurt us, not help us? What if we adjust to the fact that this is a niche sport and most people won't understand you when you tell them what you're into? What if we enjoy the closeness of our small community, with all it's cwazy cwazy characters and truly warm people? What if we appreciate all the ways that footbag players really *do* make a difference in the sport. With respect, Rex From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:45:27 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01032 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:45:27 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f From: Jim Cobb Received: from imo12.mx.aol.com (imo12.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.2]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA05119 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 09:12:30 -0700 Received: from JCobbjim@aol.com by imo12.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id zTBHa05159 (4537) for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:11:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <8a4dfe97.25093639@aol.com> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:11:37 EDT Subject: [footbag] Qualification System To: footbag@footbag.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 21 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hi all, I'd like to commend Jake and Andy for a good system for dealing with the Mixed doubles problem. It indeed seems to reduce the time needed to complete a tournament. I think we need more creative thinking like that to continue to build (or try to start rebuilding) the foundation for our sport. There was a lot of it in the posting- thanks from me and other readers for the thought provoking dialog. The system should be discarded because it is (except for the women- women are as, but not more important than the men) not inclusive to players. In this system a significant number of players play only two matches. I remember being disappointed when we moved to four man pools instead of the usual 5 or 6. We should want to play all day, and the tournament should help us do that -- all of us. Two matches for the lower open players is not enough. I don't know double elim protocols, but I am thinking there are more two and outs in this new system than in double elim, or at least the same. Consolation rounds are a good idea, but maybe we should expand the advanced division, dropping some people to intermediate, and beginners are just that. Jim (James Calvin Cobb) From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:45:26 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01030 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:45:26 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from haaga.com (www.wwclark.com [209.210.29.48] (may be forged)) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA23791 for ; Tue, 7 Sep 1999 14:05:40 -0700 Received: from djcutts [209.210.29.130] by haaga.com (SMTPD32-5.04) id A051A9027C; Tue, 07 Sep 1999 15:14:57 MDT Message-ID: <002801bef974$ba1f7960$821dd2d1@djcutts> From: "Jon Cutts" To: "Ted Huff" Cc: References: <1d45f7a1.25066c20@aol.com> Subject: [footbag] Give 1/2 to charity... Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 15:05:32 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hello, I like the idea of giving a large amount of winnings/money to a charity after a tournament -- and I think most hackey sacker's charity of choice would be NORML!! At least, mine is... :) Jon From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:47:31 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01052 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:47:31 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from wasecaps.waseca.k12.mn.us ([206.145.32.1]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA07014 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 10:59:27 -0700 Received: from WASECAPS([206.145.37.144]) by WASECAPS.WASECA.K12.MN.US (IBM OS/400 SMTP V04R02M00) with TCP; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:57:40 -0600 Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.19990909125904.007a6a30@waseca.k12.mn.us> X-Sender: skagleon@waseca.k12.mn.us X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 12:59:04 -0500 To: footbag@footbag.org From: Leo Skagerberg Subject: [footbag] In need of some help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Well, here I am, back in school and trying once again to get a league going on, some new ideas have come to mind and we're trying our hardest here in MN to keep everything together. Hopefully by spring we'll have some form of organized hack going on through a few schools, but we're in need of some help. what i'd like is for anyone who is still in high school w/ a decent GPA or is out of school w/ a respectable job to e-mail me and we'll discuss a video. the video will be used to show that this sport isn't just kicking a ball around and that it's not just slackers that play it. so anyone that is interested please e-mail me, and if your interested in starting this league up in your own state, we'll hook you up w/ a packet asap. peace, leo From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Thu Sep 9 21:47:29 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA01047 for footbag-outgoing; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 21:47:29 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f From: Jim Cobb Received: from imo26.mx.aol.com (imo26.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.70]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA05585 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 09:43:13 -0700 Received: from JCobbjim@aol.com by imo26.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id zPPMa03769 (4537) for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:42:30 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:42:29 EDT Subject: [footbag] Qualification System "Fairness" To: footbag@footbag.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 21 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org OK, I never said I was trying to win a popularity contest so..... I'm sure there was no intention from Jake and Andy to do this, but the system must be discarded (for all its well intentioned and positive outcomes) because it is elitist (bordering on the Rand-ian (small shiver from the cold draft of evil that snakes through the room)). I have heard rumors of a player who said it didn't really matter if the top seeds play in the pools because they could never lose. I personally was talking to a player about the issue of fatigue for the top players who play mixed. I said I or other third tier players could play mixed, or players who skipped singles could play mixed. He said the women should have a chance to play with real players. Actual quote. Four top eight players in a thirty-two person field will play at most only two matches. If that is their desire then they prefer to play only two matches to having to play meaningless matches against lower seeds. In my experience it is the higher (top eight) seeds who are concerned with seeding. Rightfully so. Seeding already favors higher seeds, as it should. We double encrypted our pools in Seattle this year, and it worked pretty well (seriously). Perhaps we should drop some significant portion of the field to advanced, let people who come out year after year once a year play intermediate, and beginners are just beginning. That way the center court crowd can play on center court all day (but not enough to get tired out) and the rest of us can flail around in our own (bigger) field. I'm grabbing my fire extinguisher, Jim From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Fri Sep 10 01:38:45 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA01797 for footbag-outgoing; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 01:38:45 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from atlrel1.hp.com (atlrel1.hp.com [156.153.255.210]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA15123 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 16:06:06 -0700 Received: from ssc126e.cup.hp.com (ssc126e.cup.hp.com [15.13.174.165]) by atlrel1.hp.com (8.8.6 (PHNE_17135)/8.8.5tis) with ESMTP id TAA02098 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 19:05:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from jsymons@localhost) by ssc126e.cup.hp.com (8.7.1/8.7.3 TIS Messaging 5.0) id QAA29830 for footbag@footbag.org; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 16:05:53 -0700 (PDT) From: jsymons@cup.hp.com (Julie Symons) Message-Id: <990909160553.ZM29828@ssc126e.cup.hp.com> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 16:05:53 -0700 X-Mailer: Z-Mail (5.0.0 30July97) To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] tournament time MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hi all, I've finally been provoked to throw my two cents into the ring. I think there may be some merit to advancing some top seeded players, but it sounds like at the V.Open they got lots of advancement. I also think there's lots of opportunity to optimize time during a 2 (or even 3-day) tournament. Maybe we could try this before we start making players pick between mixed and singles. And btw, what does this do for women's singles. There really aren't enough women to have two simultaneous events. One time improvement I've been thinking of since Regionals last May is get started earlier on the first day. If we could close registration on one event, say Mixed, on Friday night, and then start the event at 9am (or even earlier) on Saturday. How many tournaments have you been to that got off to an early start? For those that want to play all day, matches begin at 9am. For those that don't, well, they can choose not to play that event. You could have the main player's meeting after the first event wraps up the pools or plays down to semi's or whatever. Just get play started early Saturday morning. I think this would help for Western Regionals (hint, hint). -julie From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Fri Sep 10 01:40:55 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA01816 for footbag-outgoing; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 01:40:55 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from www0p.netaddress.usa.net (www0p.netaddress.usa.net [204.68.24.45]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id FAA08640 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 05:23:44 -0700 Received: (qmail 23962 invoked by uid 60001); 8 Sep 1999 12:23:39 -0000 Message-ID: <19990908122339.23961.qmail@www0p.netaddress.usa.net> Received: from 204.68.24.45 by www0p via web-mailer(M3.2.0.61) on Wed Sep 8 12:23:39 GMT 1999 Date: 8 Sep 99 14:23:39 MET DST From: Jan Zimmermann To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] European Masters 2000 X-Mailer: USANET web-mailer (M3.2.0.61) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by email.footbag.org id NAA31595 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hello People! This is Jan from Berlin, if you remember I'm one of the organizers of the european footbag masters 1999. If I'm not mistaken we never got to decide who will host next years event (since we didn't have time for an official players meeting)... So this is a call out to anybody interested in hosting the EUROPEAN FOOTBAG MASTERS 2000. Organization should be starting now if you want sponsors. We in Berlin are willing to help those organizing and supply them with media material to help the search for sponsors, e-mail lists of most players that participated last time, and general good advice...only we don't know who will do it! If you are interested, please send me a mail with a short description of where, who, when, why, how you are planning to host this thing. If nobody minds I will then get in contact with the big organizations in europe and check out which location, date, etc. will suit the majority of the players best. Keep in mind, that the date should not be too fixed yet because we (or at least I) don't know the date of next years worlds and our contest shouldn't be at the same time. keep kickin' Jan Zimmermann (FC Footstar Berlin e.V.) From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Fri Sep 10 19:41:49 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id TAA03201 for footbag-outgoing; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:41:49 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: (qmail 21447 invoked from network); 10 Sep 1999 18:35:10 -0000 Received: from pop.thegrid.net (209.162.1.5) by smtp.thegrid.net with SMTP; 10 Sep 1999 18:35:10 -0000 Received: from fpgcswgi (lax-ts5-h2-47-250.ispmodems.net [209.162.47.250]) by pop.thegrid.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id LAA05593 for ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:35:08 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: From: "Scott Cleere" To: Subject: [footbag] RE: footbag-digest V1 #263 Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:39:10 -0700 Message-ID: <000001befbbb$c59fe880$fa2fa2d1@fpgcswgi> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <199909102329.QAA02848@email.footbag.org> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org > From: "Mike Stoler" > Subject: Re: [footbag] What If? > Scottie asks: > > What if we had to choose between events? > > We already do. More choices and decisions about what events to offer may be required. How do you (TD and staff) want to feel at the end of the weekend. I have heard more than one tournament director say "I'm never doing this again" on Sunday evening. Is is possible to not be fried mentally and emotionally, I think so. > Yes, it's hard, and yes, it's like trying to fit 10 gallons of shtuff > into a 5 gallon hat, but we've shown that it can be done if everybody > works hard and keeps to on schedule as best they can. I guess it's the "works hard" and play part that I'm weary of. More isn't always better, IMO. Sometimes less is more. With respect and gratitude, Scott From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Fri Sep 10 19:41:47 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id TAA03196 for footbag-outgoing; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:41:47 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from ripcity.com (IDENT:/LKyWOACqztiw8t1mbhyu/uN54kco4gJ@blazer1.ripcity.com [199.2.204.10]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA11616 for ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:34:41 -0700 Received: by ripcity.com (Smail-3.2.0.102 1998-Aug-2 #4) id ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:34:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from post.ripcity.com(192.168.7.236) via SMTP by blaznet.ripcity.com, id smtpdAAA0ZxDz0; Fri Sep 10 11:34:27 1999 Received: by post.ripcity.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:34:27 -0700 Message-ID: <5A255F90CA1AD211BA1400104B93712EF1FBAE@post.ripcity.com> From: Steve Dusablon To: "'footbag@footbag.org'" Subject: [footbag] Mr. Controversy Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:34:26 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hi Y'all !!! Nice to be back in this stream. A few things before I start. First I would like to say thanks to all the good folks who contributed to this discussion. There were some intelligent and articulate (not to mention enthusiastic) replies on both sides of the coin. I love it when we can all get together on something like this (special shout out to Goldberg) and it warms my heart to see how passionate we all are about our beloved game. I saved and printed out all the replies and I now have a small book of opinions to refer to. My original plan for this response was to go through them all and take all the points that I thought were important on either side and compile them. I may do this still, but right now I am winging it. First off I would like to thank Andy and Jake (where is the Shlonged one in all this?) for coming up with a brilliant system for shortening singles into a one day package. It addresses a much needed issue as far as time goes and I was there to witness it in action. There can be no doubt of its effectiveness. My main problem with it was that it seemed unfair for the lower seeds to enter games with higher seeds with a couple extra matches under their belt. I have a suggestion to this end that may seem sort of silly at first, but it would work. Actually I have two suggestions to try to be fair to all players using Andy and Jake's system. I know Vince Bradley is going to freak out about it but here goes. Suggestion one is that you randomly seed all players INCLUDING the top eight. Radical, I know, but think about it. If there is a random seeding, then even a few of the lowest ranked players have a shot at getting the first round bye and a couple of the top 8 will have to play in the opening rounds. This assures fair treatment to all players involved in the system and no specific player (like me) can whine about being treated unfairly. I know that this will negate the seedings that you have fought for all season but it will do it to ALL players, not just the two secondary groups. Other than that, the system will work the same and the time and nets will still be saved. There is also a chance that top eight players will take each other out early, but they will only meet the cream of the second two groups. My other suggestion is that (still using the new system) you give the bottom eight players a bye. That would be fair too. In fact it would lean things in their favor a bit. The bottom eight will be stoked to be playing the top players that they paid to play and the top players will get an easy second match if they earn it. Once again, hats off to the Vancouver boys for a solution to these problems. Talk soon Dusablock From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Sat Sep 11 03:06:39 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id DAA03832 for footbag-outgoing; Sat, 11 Sep 1999 03:06:39 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from jsisfomg1.jsishipping.com (jsishipping.com [207.33.33.34]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA18849 for ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 18:59:05 -0700 Received: from jsisfo22.jsishipping.com ([207.33.33.89]) by jsisfomg1.jsishipping.com (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-14027) with SMTP id AAA121 for ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 18:59:04 -0700 From: "Eric Wulff" To: "'freestyle'" Subject: [footbag] Re: [freestyle] shred contest at worlds Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 18:59:07 -0700 Message-ID: <001101befbf9$3c6da640$592121cf@jsisfo22.jsishipping.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Dave Reid, you are so "right on" I could kiss you. In other words, I like what you had to say and agree with you completely. I could copy and paste portions of your original post to reply to but I agree with the whole thing so I copy it again below. Educate the fans.. they are not stupid! One problem is that we are all trying to present a professional event when in reality it is a completely 100% volunteer effort. But until we actually present the highest of quality events, we will be volunteers. Not a bad thing.. just a fact. I was at the X-Games this year and I didn't like their presentation at all but it worked in many ways. A 100% made for T.V. event. The crowd was constantly being worked into frenzies like it was a damn Springer show. The fans treated like idiots in my opinion. Sell, sell, sell. The scoring for the events I saw was instant but also BASELESS. I also, didn't see a single upset. The Tony Hawks always won. The athletes were awesome but the crowds wouldn't have been nearly as interested if it weren't for the DJ's and MC's. Anyway, I think we can have the presentation of the X-games but with substance. We've got the athletes and we've got the scoring systems. We've just got to streamline some things and educate the fans whenever possible. All spectators should be given pamphlets about what is going on in front of them. How events are scored, players to watch etc. Spectators need someone to relate to and something to keep track of what's going on by. Who is who, from where, how old, history of comp, etc. We need commentators talking to the crowd constantly.. always... not bullshit.. tell them what is or isn't happening and why... Who's up next, interviews, demonstrations, explanations... etc., etc., etc., etc., eric wulff From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Wed Sep 15 09:06:22 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA09083 for footbag-outgoing; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:06:22 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from log.on.ca (IDENT:root@intra.log.on.ca [205.207.183.29]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA22286 for ; Fri, 10 Sep 1999 22:08:31 -0700 Received: from rainydaze (ppp0124.log.on.ca [207.236.31.97]) by log.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id BAA21716 for ; Sat, 11 Sep 1999 01:07:55 -0400 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990911011212.00974ea0@log.on.ca> X-Sender: angelab@log.on.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 01:12:12 -0400 To: footbag@footbag.org From: Angela Barsotti Subject: Re: [footbag] What If? In-Reply-To: <199909081401.KAA13856@rac9.wam.umd.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Oh my lord I think I'm de-lurking Wow Wow WOW! An actual discussion on this mailing list... This is wonderful... anyways, I have 2 cents to toss in the pot. I just spent the last two weeks glued to the television because the US Open was on television. Interestingly enough, I assume you all know that I mean tennis and not footbag. Anyway, I saw a lot of great tennis...(yes this is relevant to footbag, bear with me...) I also saw a lot of great tennis players lose their shots at the rest of the tournament because of one match. Single elimination. And these folks can win hundreds of thousands of dollars. So every round, half the players are GONE. And you better believe, if you're seeded 122 in the world, noone's paying for you to go to the US Open, the French Open, Wimbledon etc... the only diff is, their top 50 can actually afford to play tennis Now obviously these players are seeded a LOT more accurately than we can in footbag... or are they? I guess what I'm saying is this. We have a WFA, we have an IFAB, and we have a Director of Seeding (hiya Vince). So seed. Tournament directors have to report the results all the way down as far as they have them. So you get an 8 way tie? Get random then. But give everyone a number to start from. I frankly don't think it matters if it's accurate at first. You know damm well that within a year it will be. Suddenly, even though Susie lost her chance to play in the finals she's gonna want to play Annie to get placement cause Annie is seeded ten higher than her.... (I really tried to pick names of no footbag player I know... so if you kick and that's your name, I ain't talking about you ) So why don't we start simple. Every tournament director from this year, send your results to Vince. Vince make up seedings. Everyone, sit back and watch the fur fly Although, in my not very humble opinion, you didn't volunteer for the job? Then don't hastle the guy that did! One more thing. If Annie went to ten tournaments and made the semis in all ten and Susie went to one and won it... what do we do? Frankly, maybe we should designate "qualifier" tournaments. If you don't go, you aren't seeded for the "major" tournament. Now because we're little you can still play, but you aren't gonne be ranked in the top ten at the beginning ... but if you want a seed, earn it. Then we have a qualifier system in place when we need it. Assuming that we will someday... I know this sounds harsh, especially coming from someone who hasn't played a game of net in over a year, but I think we in this sport are victims of the oh-so Canadian "gotta please everyone" mentality. Face it folks, we can't... So maybe if you ONLY show up at Worlds and nowhere else and your name is Kenny Shults you don't get seeded first for a change. You get seeded 19th. Or whatever. Cause having won worlds last year counts for something, but you didn't go to Regionals and well... create a system and use it... but forgive it it's bugs for the first little while... Hey Juliet, Andy, Jake... every other pool maker in the sport... Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had a ranking and you didn't have to figure it out?? How much time would that save? Angela B From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Mon Sep 20 06:21:30 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA17001 for footbag-outgoing; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 06:21:30 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from pop.scriptics.com (pop.scriptics.com [209.24.201.136]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA06431 for ; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 00:45:08 -0700 Received: from pop.scriptics.com (weasel.scriptics.com [209.24.201.170]) by pop.scriptics.com (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA25056 for ; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 00:46:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199909190746.AAA25056@pop.scriptics.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.3 9/28/98 To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] Oct 2 in Mountain View X-URL: http://www.scriptics.com/people/brent.welch/ X-Face: "HxE|?EnC9fVMV8f70H83&{fgLE.|FZ^$>@Q(yb#N,Eh~N]e&]=> r5~UnRml1:4EglY{9B+ :'wJq$@c_C!l8@<$t,{YUr4K,QJGHSvS~U]H`<+L*x?eGzSk>XH\W:AK\j?@?c1o Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Please join us in Mountain View on October 2nd for some Footbag Net in Eagle Park, Shoreline near El Camino Real. Then adjorn to the Welches at 2540 Dell Ave, Mountain View, for a party Saturday night. Come one, come all. Be at the field by 11:00 if you want to participate in a doubles pool/bracket. The fun will likey continue on Sunday in Golden Gate Park. This is completely informal, but we should amass a great pool of players. The other rumor is that Chris Ott's Santa Rosa Tournament will be Oct 23. -- Brent Welch http://www.scriptics.com Scriptics: The Tcl Platform Company From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Mon Sep 20 06:21:08 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA16963 for footbag-outgoing; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 06:21:08 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f From: Jim Cobb Received: from imo27.mx.aol.com (imo27.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.71]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA10426 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:57:44 -0700 Received: from JCobbjim@aol.com by imo27.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v22.4.) id 2ZZBa22124 (3950); Fri, 17 Sep 1999 13:57:02 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <724b67b1.2513daee@aol.com> Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 13:57:02 EDT Subject: Re: [footbag] Mr. Controversy To: steve.dusablon@rosequarter.com, footbag@footbag.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 26 Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hey, I would like to also make a stand in favor of random seeding. I don't actually suggest that we randomly seed the top eight. They have (usually) earned their seeds and are due them. They might get a harder draw anyway- if for example they get three decent two seeds in their pool. For everyone else though, it would be a bonus. There would be potential benefit to a three seed who usually languishes in the pools. There would be benefit to a four seed who gets another four seed in his or her pool. I think we should give this serious thought. I say this as a two or high three seed who usually gets into the bracket. I have nothing to gain by this suggestion. I just think that it would open things up a bit. Also, the pool draw would become an event in itself: random (no arguments with directors), exciting (who will I play this time?) and defining -instead of seeding and directors and personalities determining the draw, the moment would. FUN! As a side note, I don't favor the top eight in the random draw because they should indeed get their bye into the second round. (if one is required to get to a power of two number of players in the bracket) power to the people, Jim From owner-footbag@email.footbag.org Mon Sep 20 06:21:17 1999 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by email.footbag.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA16996 for footbag-outgoing; Mon, 20 Sep 1999 06:21:17 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: email.footbag.org: majordom set sender to owner-footbag@footbag.org using -f Received: from po3.wam.umd.edu (po3.wam.umd.edu [128.8.10.165]) by Market.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA04087 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 07:04:46 -0700 Received: from rac3.wam.umd.edu (root@rac3.wam.umd.edu [128.8.10.143]) by po3.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA28718 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:04:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Vince Bradley Received: from rac3.wam.umd.edu (sendmail@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rac3.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA14300 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:04:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rvbpaco@localhost) by rac3.wam.umd.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA14296 for footbag@footbag.org; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:04:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 10:04:35 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199909171404.KAA14296@rac3.wam.umd.edu> To: footbag@footbag.org Subject: [footbag] Tournament directors- contribute to Worlds Seeding Processes Sender: owner-footbag@footbag.org Hey hey the discussion on the list has been fantastic. But it hasn't seemed to reach any conclusions. >From my vantage point I have reached one conclusion. Tournaments need to run in a manner that contributes to the seeding information available for future tournaments. This doesn't only mean getting the results published or sent to whomever ( yes, that would be me ) will be 'in charge' of future seeding issues. It also means playing consolation matches. Determinig the most accurate placement for every player. Seeding the players as they end a tournament, based on how they actually did compared to everyone else, so we know them better before they start playing in another one. Immediately, in light of recent discussion, the problem that comes to mind is time. It really shouldn't be. The biggest factors in determining how net events run seem to be 1)getting the greatest number of games in for all players, and 2)finishing on time. Obviously prioritizing the first causes problems for the last. At Vancouver, an additional problem came up- how to utilize time better when players are in two events running at the same time. Vancouvers solution worked well for all these problems- they gave more games to the lower seed players, gave a bye to the players involved in mixed doubles, and finished, at a guess, well ahead of schedule. It is well worth much praise. My only problem with Vancouver's proceedings is its contribution to seed information for future events. Only the top 5 actually placed with any accuracy. Also, the random seeding process combined with the long day the lower seeds had to endure i think contributed to little or no consolation matches being played for positions 6 through 16. >From the results, it looks like some of the players seeded in the bottom portion of this group when they went into the event never upset any players of higher rank in the group in order to get better results. Players lost what seeds they had without being given, or taking, the chance to defend them. Even in a random seed system this shouldn't happen- playoff matches should be played in order to determine where people are in the randomized clusters of players. Prioritizing the number of games played by each player early in an event takes the wind out of the players before they actually