Hi again. Just a "P.S." regarding this past Wednesday's tournament and how we will improve it for July 10's match...
There are multiple ways to run a Flip Frenzy tournament. The technique I learned was you stay on a game until, as I put it, "you win once or lose twice". Managing that format requires a lot of manual effort, and I thought Match Play simply automated this technique.
But Match Play relies upon what it calls "Virtual Queuing", a different technique which appears to be fairer. With Virtual Queuing, it does not matter whether you win or lose a game, you are going to play twice before being sent back to the queue.
- In your first game, you play as Player 1.
- In your second game, you play a new opponent on a new machine as Player 2.
- After your second game you go to the back of the queue.
This technique ensures everyone balances out at around the same number of games played. (Everyone played around 20 games in 2.5 hours!)
I think we had the right size queue (2-3 players), although I stress that players should commit to the full time period so we do not have drastically short queues.
Some players lamented that they played the same game over and over. Although we had a good player queue, we failed to institute a
machine queue! So when Match Play picked you as a player for your second game it may have placed you on the only machine open - the one you just played! We can solve this easily by adding a few machines to the bank. Match Play will choose one of these unused machines for the next match, thereby guaranteeing you will not play the same game twice in a row.
So, at the next tournament you can proceed with confidence! At the end of each game:
- Player 1 will report to the scorer to announce the outcome and prepare for his/her next opponent and machine. (You will be playing the first person in the queue.)
- Player 2 will report to the last seat in the queue.
I apologize for not being in sync on Match Play's variation on this format, which caused a little too much confusion at the beginning of the night. I also apologize for not adding a few extra machines to the bank beforehand, which would have increased variety. Next time we will include as many machines as we can, regardless of the size of the field.
Thank you for your understanding as we blaze new trails in Florida tournament play!
