Time to turn on some music, open a new bottle of Coke and type away. This is probably going to be a long one…

Remember when I was talking about “plateaus”? Well, I seem to have reached my 3-1 stage. I’ve discovered that playing slowly and treating each game like a hand of poker works really well for me. I’ve been putting some bluffs around, acting mana-screwed when I’m not and generally misleading my opponents into thinking I haven’t improved my game. It was one of the best feelings to finally make a 3-1, but the aftermath really hurt.

Why? Well, ever hear of “tiebreakers”? I’ve finished 3-1 in two consecutive FNM tourneys this past two weeks, and finished 5th and 4th respectively – all because of that little thing called “Opp-Win %”.

God, I really wish I could somehow show my frustration in text, but aside from a few smileys, there’s nothing I can really say. Up till now, I’ve never really considered the impact my opponents have on my standing, as finishing 8th to (whatever last place is) doesn’t really call for massive amounts of post-match thought. My only ones were “Well, I lost again” or “(*^(*&(*!(*(*&!!(!”. Now I find myself constantly keeping one eye on what my opponents are doing and how many games they’re winning.

It’s distracting, to say the least.

I’ve read articles before on Byes, Tiebreakers and such and the possible alternatives for them. The only thing I can think of personally is to make the round limits smaller, thus you’d have less identical records. Okay, so it’s not practical to run eight rounds of swiss with a 10-player FNM (about the average around here), but four rounds? It’s over before you know it and more or less everyone is 3-1. Take last week for instace:

1st 4-0
2nd 3-1 67.8% OWP
3rd 3-1 67.6%
4th 3-1 67.5% (me)

I mean, for crying out loud! I missed out on third place by one tenth of a percent. That’s such a small number for a card game that it’s laughable to me. If you add another few rounds to this tourney, I’m sure the outcome would have been quite different…

So, with those two losses on my chest, I decided not to play states this year. I was dreading the search for “the” deck, playtesting, working out a sideboard, scrapping it all at the last minute and then playing something that took me to a nice 0-2 drop. Instead, I drove two hours to Minneapolis and helped judge the Minnesota states.

All I can say is that I had great fun. I met a lot of nice players (and a few idiots, but that’s gonna happen in a collection of young men aged 13-25 lol) and had a blast. Running booster drafts and extended tourneys all day did wonders for my playing skills (I’ve picked up a lot of helpful hints on drafting by watching everyone) and I made some new friends. The finals of the tourney were close (G/R beatdown/burn against U/W Angels) but I think the winner was the best player at the end of the day.

Maybe next year J

Lastly, I’ll mention a few things about my lack of trading on here lately. I have really began to become upset with some of the newer members who seem to value cards at deity-like values, unless they want one themselves. I’ve tried to be patient (I really have), but I’m limiting my trading to the friends I’ve made on here for a while.

Anyway, till next time…

Banzi

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here's a rundown of how it works..
first and foremost.. min requirement for the tourney to be sanctioned is 8 players.. thus 3 rounds.. since 8 is the 3rd power of 2.
why use the powers of 2? well its easier.. how you ask? well you will be easy to determine someone who is undefeated... (it works mathematically tho some can end up with 2 x-1 - 1's)
take for example.. 16 players.. you play 4 rounds.. 1 player at the end will be 4-0
however.. if you have the 17th player.. it would require a 5th round to weed out one of the two 4-0's at the end of the 4th round so only 1 person can be 5-0
why do something like this? well its the easiest way to determine a first place of course..

its easiest if you look at a pascal's triangle... however.. I'll break down a 32 player tournament like so..
. 32 32 players
. 16 16 round 1
. 8 16 8 round 2
. 4 12 12 4 round 3
. 2 8 12 8 2 round 4
. 1 5 10 10 5 1 round 5

so.. if there are no draws.. the run down would be like this:
1 5-0
5 4-1
10 3-2
10 2-3
5 1-4
1 0-5

hope this helps.. and tie breakers always screw ppl over.. just part of life

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