Topic:
Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney -AKA- Bring your B game - 2010 Tourney
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Last Post:
Oct 1, 2010, 1:56 AM
by:
happyj0
Re: Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney
Posted:
Jun 25, 2010, 8:14 AM
It probably looks like i'm not paying this much attention, but I have intended to write something almost every day. I do very much want to play, the only question has been whether I can commit the time, even though this event is just for fun.
However, due to all the recent nice postings and efforts, especially with Zoey pushing back the start date by a month, I'll go ahead and commit now as a "yes." I just hope that I don't find myself unexpectedly submerged in a new project at that time. At the moment I think this can work.
Thanks KarlW for the nice words and helpful information of the tournament structure. I hope we get paired together.
Does the eventual 'play-off' between the winners of each section mean only the top one winner from each, or is it the top two winners from each section, or top three?
Could someone please give me the Reader's Digest on how to sign up?
What would be most helpful for me is to know who my specific opponents will be so that I might at least do some preparation? Perhaps I could be committed as seed #16, in section 1, which might at least give me some idea who my opponents will be? Any info along these lines will be much appreciated.
Of course, all of this is predicated on richardiii also joining in, and watsu not dropping out again
then you tell us your new user name, i assume it will be rollietesh... the user name will be case sensitive, so if you use capitol letters then let me know.
once that has happened i will send you a invite. you will be able to retrieve your invite by checking your message box while logged in at brainking.com
from there you just click the link supplied to you and sign up.
how many players will go forward to round 2 from each section? it all depends on "Ties". if multiple players in a section tie then multiple players advance to round 2 and so on. there is some phenomenon about SB point breaking ties on rare occasion and i have absolutely no clue how that works, im sure karlw would love to enlighten us there.
as far as predicting who you will face, keep in mind that i invited like 60 players, and any one of them might be planning to join the tourney at the last second as a surprise tactic to prevent study time of them.
so you just wont know until the battle begins. but you can make guess's based on richard signing up and watsu not dropping out. theres a good chance that will be the final line up,.. but i wouldnt hold my breath on that.
thanks for signing up rollie! good luck, and see you on the battle field.
zoeyk
Ps. Rich,.. time to sign up. or me and rollie are goina hound you! thanks in advance rich!
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney
Posted:
Jun 25, 2010, 9:05 AM
The S-B system is used to break ties in Brainking tournaments. If two or more players top a section with the same number of wins, the player with the highest S-B rating advances (if players tie for the highest S-B rating, they all advance). S-B rating is only used to break ties for 1st; if a player records 8 wins, he will not advance over a player with 9, even if his S-B is higher.
The S-B rating is calculated by adding up the number of wins scored by the players you have beaten. If you split a set with a player who ends up with 3 wins, you get 3 points. If you sweep him or her, you get 6. If you get swept, you get zero. Do this for all opponents and add up the values to get your S-B rating, which is a measure of your win percentage weighted according to the strength of the opponents you beat.
The final "play-off" (a first-to-3-wins match with color alternating; the higher seed gets first p1) only happens if the number of remaining players is reduced to exactly two. If more than two players advance to round 2, there is another round robin section, the winner of that section winning the tournament (if there is a two-way tie it goes to play-off, and if more than two tie it goes to round-robin again).
Also, I just noticed that the section size maximum for zoey's tournament is 7, meaning if there are 16 players, there will actually be 3 sections with 6,5,5, arranged something like this (I'm not sure exactly how seeding works with an odd number):
This means there will definitely be a round 2 with 3 or more players competing round-robin to determine the winner, with a tie moving it to a likely decisive round 3.
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
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Re: Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney
Posted:
Jun 25, 2010, 9:07 AM
im goina predict something way in advance here.
i predict the following player will time out when the toruney begins.
chicphoenix
he hasnt logged into either site for a month. and before that he hadnt logged in for over a year.
so we will be lucky if he remembers in the next 30 days to check in. we'll see.
and actually, since he didnt even know i moved the time forward,.. if he doesnt log in at least a week before start time i might kick him from the tourney, maybe. ill think about it.
z
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney
Posted:
Jun 26, 2010, 2:01 AM
I have several comments, directed at different folks.
watsu,
Glad to see that you are signed up again. I hope it stays that way. Remember to bring your "b" game.
rollie,
Nice to see that you plunged in and signed up. Here is a link to a tourney that is in progress if you want to see how things work in a BK tourney. In round 1 the players in yellow advanced to round 2. Sometimes it was only one player, sometimes it was two players (as in my own section), and once it was three players.
Keep in mind that the ratings listed are the current ratings of the players in the brackets, not their starting ratings. There are 9 sections in that tourney in round 1, and something like 18 of them were unrated at the tourney's start. Sometimes the unrated players are much stronger than beginner level, noting that some were surprised by my performance since I was seeded as an unrated player.
I suggest going to the beginning of this thread (here at pente.org) and checking out the alternate names of the players, such as "sirius", who is a seriously strong player, one of the very best online at the moment.
If you want to play some casual games (usually rated) against strangers at BK to get used to the look and feel of the software, try the following link,
and scrolling down to pente. Karl has already offered to play you if you are in the mood, and you can challenge him or other players by going to the "new game" link on the top left of the website at BK and filling in the blanks. You can find players to invite by going to the "ratings" link at the left of the BK screen and scrolling to pente.
As far as seedings are concerned, my understanding is they work as follows. Imagine 21 players in the tourney. As it is structured now Zoey has it as 7-player max sections (don't switch it again zoey, it is a good number). The seedings go down, then back up again. For example, the numbers after the colon represent the highest seed as number 1, then 2, etc. :
Thus it is awful hard to predict who you will play against in advance because you have no idea how many players will sign up, and what their ratings will be. I also don't know how they do the seedings for unrated players. Are they alphabetical, or perhaps in the order they signed up?
Finally Rollie, BK issues you vacation days and weekend days. You are a "brain pawn", just like me. This means that if you want to use one of your 10 vacations days, you need to schedule it before your time runs out for your next move. Every player also gets two "weekend days" each, which can be on any two days that the player chooses. Any time your time remaining for your next move crosses over into your "weekend", you get an 24 hours to play for each weekend day that is crossed. Most have them on Saturday and Sunday, which I believe is the default at BK. I switched mine to Tuesday and Thursday so as to extend my time available per move during the week. I don't mind playing on Saturday or Sunday....
Zoey,
It is possible to check out BK without logging in. As such, perhaps it is the case that chicphoenix is waiting until July 4/5 to log in and start playing, noting that (s)he has no games in progress anyway to play at the moment.
None of us really wants someone to forfeit all of his games right out of the starting gate. At the same time, no one wants to be booted from a tourney that he thinks has enrolled in, only to find out at the last minute that he is no longer enrolled in after all. I suggest taking advantage of the new starting date, hope he looks at the website on July 4 or 5, and you should boot chicphoenix right now, and giving him (her?) an "email" (or whatever it is called intra-site) both here and at BK informing him of why, and telling him he can receive a new invitation if he wants, all he has to do is let you know that he is ready, willing and able to play at the end of July. This gives him almost a whole month to realize that it is not too late, he can still play, if only he logs in. I also suggest amending the "Bring Your B Game" webpage to post an alert to chicphoenix there explaining what is going on, giving him yet another chance to sign up to play.
Finally, I promise to play so long as nosovs promises to bring his "b" game, and play while he is full of vodka, and only move when he is "distracted" by beautiful Russian women.
I might (ok, almost certainly will) play anyway, even if nosovs doesn't agree to those conditions....
My own fearless prediction is that the US plays Brazil in the semi's of the World Cup....
Everyone,
It *is* whether you win or lose, *and* it is how you play the game. Play to have fun....
Message was edited by: happyj0 at Jun 25, 2010 8:03 PM
Re: Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney
Posted:
Jun 28, 2010, 6:57 AM
Hi karlw,
Thanks for all the additional info, and I appreciate your invite (and Zoey's) to play a few skittles games at brainking so that I can become familiar with the interface.
It looks like I will finally have some free time beginning on Wednesday. Let me know a good time and the next step that I should take.
BTW, during skittles I'll let you know now that I will not be trying to win, at least not any any familiar openings. I don't yet have much arsenal in my 'preparation bag' left to expose
Re: Elite Pente Masters 2010 Tourney
Posted:
Jun 28, 2010, 7:04 AM
Hi happyj0,
Good stuff, lots of helpful info, thanks. I'm sorry that we did not get to play yet.
The 3-tiered pairings that you predict looks even better to me. Less players to play at one time and to prepare for. And it is broken down such that either section will be just as interesting. Putting ties aside for a moment, I'm assuming that it will be the winner of each section going into a 3-way play-off?
I will likely use most of my vacation time during the first couple of moves in each game. The openings are all somewhat new to me again. Much forgotten.
so the roster update; rollietesh and richardiii have been added. and spifster has been removed until he can notify me that he is still interested. and im still waiting to hear from s3v3n and dmitriking if they are in or not.
i will email tom braunlich to see if he is interested too.
and maybe gary gabrel? that would be fun.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
I also have an alternate BK account which zoeyk wasn't aware of when he sent the invite. At the time of the invitation, I preferred to accept using the watsu account due to lack of personal identification associated with it. However, since I'll be creating a personal "public" internet presence soon anyway, I'll go ahead and post that account here as well... all games from it are several years old, so there may not be too much to learn of my current game by studying them, but... http://brainking.com/en/Profile?u=4427
Now, the only question is- which account should I play in the tourney with, the rated or unrated? I guess I'll let zoeyk decide.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
the rankings shown are those of the actual names signed up. this is to show the correct seeding arrangement. i think most players know who novatis is. and for those who don't, they have his aka name posted to easily check is novatis rank at both brainking.com, pente.org, and pente.net. novatis is ranked currently at 2337, and yes he is that good.
keep in mind a rank does not verify skill level. a correct rank assumes that the name was from when they first started playing the game as a newbie, and they worked their butt off to climb to the top. many players high ranking names are not their first name, or even if it was, they might have had 20 years OTB experience before hand.
take mike321 for example. hes not a red. and he does use hard to use white second moves. but don't let that fool you. his actual skill level is up in the red zone.
and shedermann as another example. now i might be wrong, and i don't mean to offend him. he is a good player and all. but i feel from reviewing his play that his rank is much higher than his actual skill level. close to 2100? at this rank i have a very high expectaion when i review their play. i just havn't seen a consistent 2100 play from him. again i can be wrong perhaps. just my opinion.
to determine a player's skill level you should always ignore rank, and only look at other Criteria that brings a more accurate and logical finding.
how many strong players have they swept? how many strong players swept them? what is the ratio of opponents they play of strong vs mid vs weak players? what are the quality of his/her moves?
these are just a few basic examples.
z
Message was edited by: zoeyk at Jul 1, 2010 12:59 AM
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
a new player named "Pentak" from poland has requested to join this tourney. hes ranked in the 1800s at brainking. he has not played alot of games at BK, and although he has a positive ratio, the majority of opponents he has faced have been newbies. hes friends with, s3v3n, dein, spavacs, karol G, aruu, kala13, and Mieszko. so pretty much all of the ILP group from poland. and hes from the kurnik.pl site, so theres a strong possibility he might be good.
he is also known as "dobrychemik" at BrainKing and Kurnik.pl
From a results point of view, and speaking selfishly in that regard, and looking at the groups as fearlessly (foolishly?!) predicted by zoey earlier in this thread, I'd like to see enough extra players so that I am not in the group of death with those two unrated ringers, noting that there won't be any easy group.
From a bring my b game, let's have some fun here perspective, and realizing I probably won't advance to round two no matter what group I am in, I welcome as many ringers as possible in my group, and so I'd be quite happy to see invitations closed. More fun bashing my brains out trying to beat tesh and novatis, and more of an excuse for when I don't advance. :o
On a more serious (or is that sirius?) note, anyone who is genuinely on the bubble of getting invited due to real or perceived strength needs to realize they stand a good chance of getting pummeled. Think of the BK ratings (which are a bit different than here at pente.org like this:
Group 1 (Under 1800 or so): erratic pente ability, realistically capable of missing chances to make an open ended tessera in a move or two too often, and losing as P1 too often due to giving away P1's edge by doing things like defending captures instead of creating and blocking triangles.
Group 2 (1800ish-2100ish): Should be able to win virtually all of games as P1 vs Group 1 players, win most of the time as P2 vs group 1 players, be hard to beat when playing as P1 against group 2 players, and be a realistic threat (but hardly a probability of any sort) to beat Group 2 players when playing as P2.
Group 3 (2100ish-2300ish): Should be able to win pretty much always as P1 vs Group 2 players, win most of the time as P2 vs group 2 players, be hard to beat when playing as P1 against Group 3 players, and be a realistic threat (but hardly a probability of any sort) to beat Group 3 players when playing as P2.
Group 4 (2300+): A rarefied group, probably only 3 active players are rated this high full time. Hardly ever loses as P1 vs anyone of any strength. Shows an uncanny ability to win as P2 vs Group 3 players despite the fact that those players have a good enough understanding of the game to rarely give up the advantage of being P1.
To sum up, anyone whose BK rating strength (regardless of actual rating) is struggling to stay above 1800 is going to be in trouble if they play in this tourney. But perhaps a wake up call is what they need. On the other hand, someone who is 1800ish may be improving at a rapid clip and may surprise some people and actually be underrated.
Anyone who used to be scary good but who is massively rusty should still have a good (possibly fabulous) showing, especially if he takes his time with his first few critical moves, after which he will probably usually be in positions that virtually play themselves most of the time.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. Don't discount the "nobody wants to be the person who finishes last in his section" factor, and maybe you (zoey) shouldn't be too afraid to let in some bubble players who might save three of us from that fate. :;
(Edit) P.S. I don't mean to imply that watsu is not also a ringer, he is. He's just not in the group with me according to zoey's prediction, which is based on no more entries I believe.
Message was edited by: happyj0 at Jul 1, 2010 6:32 PM
Interesting perspective, hj0. Personally, I might attempt to get into your section in order to have the privilege of playing against Rollie in a tournament. The odds are not so great that I'd get to play him if we were placed in different sections. As to where my game is or has been in the pecking order, I've never won a TB set against any of the following tournament players who I've played against- Karlw, Zoeyk, RichardIII, or Novatis. They've all won TB sets against me (if poof games are counted). So realistically, I could see myself winning as P1 in most games, but unlikely to advance beyond round 1. I'd consider it almost as good to have an opportunity to sweep Rollie as to advance to round 2, and if I somehow managed that feat I might well do both... but I suspect the sections are likely not to be as predicted
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
.
Remember to bring your "b" game.