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2018 UK Pinball Open and Classics

It's quite sad that there are factions here and no-one is taking a holistic view of this, so to clear it up for anyone who is misunderstanding of this:

Without the tournament, those machines wouldn't be there
Without the show, the tournament wouldn't be there (and as a standalone, it has fared poorly)
Without the tournament, there would be less people attending the show

I'm unsure why people on both sides can't see this and then bitch and moan about it. There is moaning that tournament people are too competitive (it's the nature of some) and there is murmuring that non competitive people don't give a toss.

I used to be very competitive but now I'm not too bothered, it does need some understanding that getting a load of machines ready and set up for a tournament is a big undertaking. It also does need some understanding that people want to play certain machines and have no understanding there's a tournament going on (I've always advocated a separate room for the tournament). Machines are inevitably more likely to fail if used pre tournament (they may well fail during the tournament but then that's the issue of the tournament).

I would have thought opening them up to everyone on the Saturday night would have been a decent compromise.

Whatever happens, lets all try to make it the best show and tournament it can be.
 
mufcmufc said:
It's quite sad that there are factions here and no-one is taking a holistic view of this, so to clear it up for anyone who is misunderstanding of this:

Without the tournament, those machines wouldn't be there
Without the show, the tournament wouldn't be there (and as a standalone, it has fared poorly)
Without the tournament, there would be less people attending the show

I'm unsure why people on both sides can't see this and then bitch and moan about it. There is moaning that tournament people are too competitive (it's the nature of some) and there is murmuring that non competitive people don't give a toss.

I used to be very competitive but now I'm not too bothered, it does need some understanding that getting a load of machines ready and set up for a tournament is a big undertaking. It also does need some understanding that people want to play certain machines and have no understanding there's a tournament going on (I've always advocated a separate room for the tournament). Machines are inevitably more likely to fail if used pre tournament (they may well fail during the tournament but then that's the issue of the tournament).

I would have thought opening them up to everyone on the Saturday night would have been a decent compromise.

Whatever happens, lets all try to make it the best show and tournament it can be.
Click to expand...

I agree to a point Nick (some of the machines would still be coming and maybe you’d have a different tourney with different machines?) also need to make sure that costs and commitments are understood and nobody is making a huge loss whilst others maybe making a huge surplus it’s in everyone’s interest to work together for the best outcome and that everyone enjoys the festival irrespective of ambition or in my case skill :)

Cheers,
Neil.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Just to clarify;

All of the tables that are listed for Tournament Play are going to be exclusively for participants of the tournament on the Saturday and the Sunday, and thus unavailable for play outside of this, regardless of VIP status.

Also, is a final table list going to be made available before next weekend? (Obviously either excluding the Tournament tables or stating that they are there for Tournament play only)

Thanks :)
 
thepspgamer said:
Just to clarify;

All of the tables that are listed for Tournament Play are going to be exclusively for participants of the tournament on the Saturday and the Sunday, and thus unavailable for play outside of this, regardless of VIP status.

Also, is a final table list going to be made available before next weekend? (Obviously either excluding the Tournament tables or stating that they are there for Tournament play only)

Thanks :)
Click to expand...
Lordy can you just read the first line of the first post and most of the other posts between that and this and you get your answer.o_O
 
Peeps

I have just cancelled my bookings for the nights of 24 and 25 August. So there may be a space if you move quickly. When it became clear that there were plenty of donor machines, I spoke to Phil about backing out a couple of weeks ago. I just ought to spend some time with 'er indoors whose work has led to her spending a lot of time out of doors this year.
 
Don't suppose anyone has a one paragraph crib sheet for the games in the open? I know there's lots of videos about on how to play them but that's too much for me to try to take in (and we're really not that good to go for 10-15min games!!).

I was just really looking for a quick, 'go for this multi ball, good points to be had by doing X' to give us a half respectable chance of a score. I assume most people have their own strategy, just wondered if there was something anyone is prepared to share (without compromising their own chances).

We're playing at 2pm (as getting a student out of bed for a 10am start was never happening), but will I be able to watch others competing in the morning?
 
So who actually qualified for classics and open? Do we have a full list. I couldn't quite see on the 14" monitors.
 
I ended up forfeiting my last two matches in classics. It did drag on a bit, and was ... a little chaotic

Splitting up into groups (A,B,C etc) was a good idea given the numbers, but then when you have (eg) a G group in one comp, and a G group in another comp, that caused confusion - with people picking up the wrong cards and so on. I'd be amazed if 100% of the score cards handed in were correct. Very easy to accidentally fill in an entry for classics with eg G1 beat G3, when the person actually meant the *open* game G1 beat G3. In that regard it would have also helped to have player names (not numbers) on the cards. And plenty of score sheets.

Amazingly the public mingling with the comp machines didn't seem to cause too much of an issue I thought. I think most of the delays were just waiting for one set of comp players to finish their games before another pair could step in.

More info on the classics games would have helped too. Some were 3 ball, some 4 ball and some 5 ball. Some had extra balls on.. All would have been good to know before starting the game.

Good luck to those that qualified. I'm pretty sure I'm not in that group, but would be nice to know who did make it.
 
Cut is up on pinball news tournament page..

UK Pinball Open 2018 UK Pinball Classic 2018

GROUP A:
Stan Simpson
John van der Wulp
Graeme Haynes
Marcel de Lang

GROUP B:
Peter Blakemore
David Dutton
Simon Harper
Kate Rothwell-Jackson

GROUP C:
Craig Pullen
Will Dutton
Richard Rothwell-Jackson
Alan Jones

GROUP D:
Greg Mott
Andrew Foster
Kirk Sadler
Aid Cooper

GROUP E:
Vin Jauhal
Ivan Miles
Rich Mallett
Ian Walmsley

GROUP F:
Romain Wilem
Nathan Garwood
Nicholas Morris
David Mainwaring

GROUP G:
Rafael Masedo
Matt Vince
Wayne Johns
Paul Owen

GROUP H:
Gabriel Ortiz
Rayne Passmore
Victor-Francois Machart
Jim Lindsay


UK Pinball Classic 2018

GROUP A:
Rich Mallett
Dina Lindsay
David Tucker
Vin Jauhal

GROUP B:
Ian Craig
Tim Thornton
David Mainwaring
Keith Withnall

GROUP C:
Rafael Masedo
Matt Vince
Ivan Miles
CJ Brown

GROUP D:
Nick Hamill
Gabriel Ortiz
Stewart Judson
Keith Boeland

GROUP E:
David Dutton
Dan Lewell
Alan Syson
John van der Wulp

GROUP F:
Kevin Donovan
Peter Blakemore
Kate Rothwell-Jackson
Mark Potter

GROUP G:
Steven Smith
Craig Pullen
Will Dutton
Clare Johnson

GROUP H:
Carl Spiby
Greg Mott
Richard Rothwell-Jackson
Ailsa Clunie

http://tournaments.pinballnews.com/
 
I know a lot of effort was put into the tournament and Peter I saw you running around trying to keep everything going but I have to say it was far what where it needs to be.

There was no on the floor tournament directors - so stuck balls, decisions or questions all went back to the corner who really had no ability to help with any queries.

The key issue was instructions and how the tournament ran - I didn’t have a clue how I was supposed to know who I was supposed to play - the dance cards helped but even that was not perfect. Why we couldn’t have had names is beyond me but even that wouldn’t have helped that much.

if you are running the tournament you can’t play in it or you have to have a lot of empowered mvolunteers helping run it on the floor. I enjoyed playing in the end and we have a good set of finalists so fortunately it all ended well. But it could have been such a better experience - managing a bank of machines with post it notes just didn’t work.

Pinball in the U.K. needs to move on - running a tournament using a spreadsheet just isn’t feasible for large tournaments (or even small) - there are two strong software choices that would have tackled all of these issues: matchplay.events would have made all of this simple - running rounds and doing it in away that would have been organised stress free and given people up to the minute information about where they stood and standings that people could see.

Sunshine laundromat runs a league every Wednesday night for about 40 people using this platform and it works perfectly.

Good luck to those in the finals.

Neil.
 
Only played 2 games in the open, took over a hour, so decided to call it a day after those. My son decided not to play any, after 3 hours in the classic.
 
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I concur Neil, it was a shambles. Being stressed out trying to find people and find a free machine doesn't make for a good pinball play. Instead of having to draw a machine they could have been pre-picked so everyone has a go on a different machine. This isn't rocket science.

I kind of gave up half way through.
 
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Totally agree about matchplay.events - let it draw the machines and stick it up on the projector so people can see what machine they are meant to be playing and let the players turn up. I spent hours trying to find people to play instead of actually playing.

That said though, I had fun so thanks for organising.
 
I had fun and appreciate the efforts involved, but through an operations management eye - there was a lot to be improved on, please take this as constructive, not an out and out dig. Others have mentioned but some non-negotiable elements HAVE to be:

- Allotted time, if there is 8 groups of 10, that's 90 games per group - 720 for the total knock-out stages, average of 6 minutes per game, 4,320 minutes - that's 72 hours of play. Over 12 machines that is 6 hours. 6 Hours over 8 groups, 360 minutes over 8 groups means that 45 minutes per group - round it to an hour makes me think the maths for the tournament were done but... it just didn't get done. If group A had 10:00 - 11:00 etc etc, with the games pre chosen and just given a list of what machine to go to after you've finished the first one, I think it would have worked well.

- Screens, I thought I made it into a playoff with 5 wins and a bye, the same as many others according to the screen.

- Tech's - had a couple of issues with stuck balls etc, always going to happen, but the techs did a stand up job, but no rulings on where the ball should go (flippper, shooter lane, drain?). Keys seemed to be in varying areas.

Those working on the desk taking the tickets, a huge thank you - how you kept our head so well throughout the day, incredible, thank you so much once again.
 
Out of interest, how did you carve up the players in the relevant groups?
 
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