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Christmas Cracker 2018

Wayne J

Registered
10 Years
Joined
Jul 22, 2011
Messages
2,962
Location
Walsall
The Christmas Cracker will once again be returning to Shepshed.

Full event details can be found at www.christmascrackerpinball.org.uk

Registration will be through that website ONLY.

Registration will open in November.

Format will be the same as previous few years. 12 randomly selected groups of 4 for initial round, followed by seeding for further rounds. Double elimination.
 
Hi Wayne

Just tried to register for myself & daughter and keep getting a ‘database error’ message when trying to submit?

Still seems to be places and have emailed via the contact email on the site.

Cheers

Nick
 
Hi Wayne

Just tried to register for myself & daughter and keep getting a ‘database error’ message when trying to submit?

Still seems to be places and have emailed via the contact email on the site.

Cheers

Nick
Looks like whatever the problems was it's sorted now. (I don't deal with the website or registrations - just on the day).

Only 3 spaces left now.
 
With a few people dropping out for one reason or another, there are some more spaces now available
 
Games will be from:
TWD
NASCAR
GOTG
ST
Avengers
F14
High Speed
Getaway HS2
Eight ball
Eight Ball Champ
Mr & Mrs Pacman
Black Jack

&

Aladdins Castle
 
great gig - huge thanks to Terry for his hospitality and to Wayne for running a slick event.
 
As Neil said, a very fun day. Thanks to Terry for hosting and Wayne for the comp. Also, thanks to Julie for the lovely turkey and ham rolls.
 
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First time for me...very enjoyable thanks, Terry has a great collection, the hospitality was top notch and I thought the competition format works really well :thumbs::thumbs:
 
I think its good to experiment with different formats but this format I'm less sure about. It meant a lot of hanging around because a lot of folks had tie breakers, not every group had 4 players and the quantum for each game was quite different with the possibility of the quantum for the two games in each round being mega long (then plus the tie breaker). With the card drawing system also means chance of balancing the games each player played was not possible. (note the running of the day was spot on so this isn't a criticism of that before anyone gets their Christmas cracker in a twist :D )

When I compare the format to group matchplay I'm not sure what the real difference is especially if you have enough games to do it versus the number of folks attending. OK so you get an elimination but you can cope with that in group matchplay by using a fast ladder, play 8 rounds of matchplay, top 12 get into a fast ladder final... I think you end up with the same out come but with more pinball played without the complexity of two ladders to run? Always hard to tell what works out best.

Cheers,
Neil.
 
Thanks for the comments.

Obviously a huge thanks to Terry for hosting, Julie for doing the majority of the food (I noticed some others bringing cakes), Jim for the excellently decorated cake, Ross for managing the website and registrations and Rob for sponsoring the trophies.

Congratulations to David Dutton for the win with a fantastic last ball comeback in the final, beating the last ball comeback of Nick, and the last ball comeback of Will, each of which scored at least double their score on the last ball than they had achieved on their previous 4 balls put together.

Leo Marshall won the U16 competition, which due to the fact that he finished 6th in the main comp, took place at the same time as the main final, beating Phoebe Lewell into second ahead of Effie Lewell in 3rd.



The format has been ran like this for 4 years. The thinking behind it is that the games are front-loaded - meaning that the majority of the day has the majority of players actually still playing. As the tournament progresses the rounds become much shorter (semis and final are both just a single game). This gives people the confidence to travel sometimes a significant distance knowing that no matter how badly they play they'll still have a decent number of games and likely remain in the comp for a significant length of time. (Despite/because of the format I don't think anyone can argue that the players who have played best on the day have made the finals in each of the last 4 years.
The nature of the way players and games are allocated can throw up some more unusual match-ups, but it always means that you don't play the same game twice in the same round, and you don't play the same people in consecutive rounds. It also means that the Eight Ball produced one of the strangest finals I have ever seen - to my detriment unfortunately.

It has been, and will remain, a family friendly event with there being plenty of time between games to chat to people, some of which you haven't seen since the previous Cracker. There are other events where the play is much more focused with little time between games (Flip Frenzy being the extreme example).

Personally, I feel that there must be a variety of formats to keep things interesting, rather than all comps beginning to morph into similar formats to max pts.

The only negative (which I'm prepared to comment on here) is the number of people who sign up and then cancel (over a dozen this year) - often at very short notice. Not only does it stop others from entering due to the limited places available, it reduces the money raised for charity. Maybe next year I'll have to switch to pre-payment, even if players don't turn up it won't reduce the money going to charity.
 
Fair points Wayne.

On that latter point I couldn’t agree more - and hence all tourneys I run are all now pre-pay.

Cheers
Neil.


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