The National 4x4 four pin team championship 2018

[daveuk1]

As far as I am aware all 8 teams who entered this competition last year have confirmed their entry for this years tournament which will take place on Saturday 29th of September at the white horse, in north street Sudbury

We now have a few options. Keep it exactly the same as last year or,,

Increase the number of tables to 6, drop the doubles games and have 12 teams instead of 8.
My idea to make sure everyone gets six singles would be,
First round straight knockout, six matches of four singles
Winners go through to the main and the losers all go into the plate

Second stage is the 6 teams in the main play each other in a round robin mini league. Team top of the league at the end are the winners. The same for the six teams in the plate.

This would make the day longer though, according to my dodgy maths it would mean starting at 10-30am and finishing around 9 pm.

Just wondered what your thoughts on that would be.

I should add that the above is not the agreed format if we go up to 12 teams as I know Chris and some others are having a play around with the schedules to see if we can come up with something better, which im sure they will.

We moved to the white horse this year to give us a little more room but if we increase to 6 tables it will again mean we will be nice and cosy.

If the interest is there it may well be that next year we look at the logistics of 8 or more tables and hiring a hall

Please let me know your thoughts

Dave

[mal]

There is a halfway house option.

5 tables, 10 teams. Would allow for a small expansion this year and not be quite so tight on space.

2 groups of 5, 4 singles and 2 doubles, would be 120 legs according to my maths (5C2 x 6 x 2)

120 legs across 5 tables would be 24 time slots. Assuming a 20 minute slot per leg, that would take 8 hours.

You could then run a simultaneous playoff for all 10 teams. Group winners playoff for 1st and 2nd, runners-up for 3rd and 4th and so on. That adds another 2 hours.

It keeps the ethos from last year where all teams play until the very end / all play a mini final of their own, which I thought was a nice touch. It allows for a small expansion. It isn't quitw as cramped as 6 tables will be. It lets you keep the format of 4 singles and 2 doubles (which I also like). In terms of time, It would give you options such as 10am to 8pm, 10.30am to 8.30pm etc. (There's more we could do about staggering start times to help teams travelling on the morning, and giving teams guaranteed lunch breaks and I'm happy to propose something if there is enough interest/support for my idea)

[taffy]

long day last year, we all got there early and it went on late. it becomes for me, critical what i eat. if I eat rubbish I've had enough quickly. if I eat well then I go on longer.
we did 3 rounds of 6 games last year. main KO, then KO for the trophy or plate and then essentially a game for 1st or second (the main trophy), 3rd or fourth, 5th (and the shield/plate), 5th or sixth, 7th or wooden spoon. we all played the same amount of games. But I played just 6 games in 10 hours!

would suggest leagues of 3 teams x 4 leagues = 12 teams. straight semis at highest, second tier and third tier. then a finals for each tier = 3. that makes 4 rounds and not 3 like last year. this increases the day by 33.3% IF we can move quickly but I didn't notice much slacking last year.

there is one other way and that is to have 8 tables and you let 12 teams enter. and that you form four groups of 3 teams that are playing two matches consecutively on two tables set aside for them and that way there's no standing around.
with 8 tables it is really easy.
here is one league of 3 teams on their two tables.
we'll call team A players 1 to 4
team B is players 5 to 8
team C is players 9 to 12

here goes;
first round; player 1 v player 5 while on the other table; 9 v 2 (that's A v B and C v A)
second round; 6 v 10 and 3 v 7 (B v C and A v B)
third; 11 v 4 and 8 v 12 (C v A and B v C)

fourth, fifth and sixth rounds are the above moved on and so player '1' now plays someone from the other team in the singles etc.
doubles are next and in three rounds too, here is the doubles;
round 7; players 1+2 from team A v players 7+8 from team B and also 11+12 V 3+4
round 8; 9+10 v 5+6 and 11+12 V 7+8
round 9; 1+2 v 5+6 and 9+10 V 3+4
so each player has had two singles games and two doubles games and they were against each of the other two teams.
this makes 9 rounds but if you were to play one pub at a time it is 6 games followed by 6 making 12 rounds. it is a 25% saving in time! everyone is always playing and always busy, busy, busy!!!!

then calm things down, people have pocketed a lot of BB by lunchtime and now go back to straight forward team A v team B semis at the the 3 levels (so 6 games on just 3 tables) and then final position play-offs in the last round. so the whole day with 12 teams is 21 rounds. last year it was 18 rounds for 8 teams.

21 rounds instead of 18? last year 3 matches this year is 3 1/2. but little extra playing.

the first part of the day would be really good fun with no standing around and when you have put a few games in it is OK later to wait around a little but I think I had 6 games in 10 hours last year so this would be 8 games in 11 hours if you speeded things up asw well!

the shame of the above and maybe Nigel can help here, is that there are only 6 tables in use from 1 o clock. you start the day with 4 leagues of 3 but finish it with 3 semis (6 games) then three finals (3 tables).

if below, you felt this crude way worked then it is a way of pushing on the second part of the day (I THINK IT WOULD BE BRILLIANT TO PLAY ALL DAY);
same format as above until you have had 9 rounds. the difference is that the whole thing is on points acummelated and even though there were 4 leagues (and thus 4 league winners), only the acummelated points or wins are counted.

Now for the second part of the day, you then make 4 leagues of 3 again based purely on these points and not wins or even team wins just 'points' with league A obviously being likely to be three teams that are mustard and the 4th league-D has the worst performing teams and run the whole thing again like this for the second half of the day. you have 18 rounds - same as last year - not 21 AND everyone is simply playing all day.

THE DAY WOULD BE THE SAME LENGTH AS LAST YEAR BUT i WOULD HAVE 8 GAMES NOT 6. the problem with it is that you have had a strange way of qualifying. but every single one of those 8 tables is being used for every minute by every team all day and the day is only as long as the 18 rounds as last year.

Taffy

[taffy]

run out of fingers Dave!

Taffy

[daveuk1]

The only certain thing is we wouldn't be able to get 8 tables in the white horse without taking over all the pub

["Silent"]

Jul 3, 2018 11:27:13 GMT taffy said:

long day last year, we all got there early and it went on late. it becomes for me, critical what i eat. if I eat rubbish I've had enough quickly. if I eat well then I go on longer.
we did 3 rounds of 6 games last year. main KO, then KO for the trophy or plate and then essentially a game for 1st or second (the main trophy), 3rd or fourth, 5th (and the shield/plate), 5th or sixth, 7th or wooden spoon. we all played the same amount of games. But I played just 6 games in 10 hours!

would suggest leagues of 3 teams x 4 leagues = 12 teams. straight semis at highest, second tier and third tier. then 4 finals for each tier. that makes 4 rounds and not 3 like last year. this increases the day by 33.3% IF we can move quickly but I didn't notice much slacking last year.

there is one other way and that is to have 8 tables and you let 12 teams enter. and that you form four leagues of 3 teams that are playing two matches consecutively taking up two tables so that there's no standing around.
with 8 tables it is really easy.
here is one league of 3 teams on their two tables.
we'll call team A players 1 to 4
team B is players 5 to 8
team C is players 9 to 12

here goes;
first round; 1 v 5 while on the other 9 v 2
second round; 6 v 10 and 3 v 7
third; 11 v 4 and 8 v 12
fourth, fifth and sixth rounds are the above moved on and player '1' plays someone from the other team in the singles etc.
doubles are in three rounds too, here is the doubles;
round 7; 1+2 v 7+8 and 11+12 V 3+4
round 8; 9+10 v 5+6 and 11+12 V 7+8
round 9; 1+2 v 5+6 and 9+10 V 3+4
so each player has had two singles games and two doubles games.
this makes 9 rounds but if you were to play one pub at a time it is 6 games followed by 6 making 12 rounds. it is a 25% saving in time! everyone is always playing and always busy, busy, busy!!!!

then calm things down, people have pocketed a lot of BB by lunchtime and now go back to straight forward team A v Team B semis at the the 3 levels (so 6 games on just 3 tables) and then final position play-offs in the last round. so the whole day with 12 teams is 21 rounds. last year it was 3 x 6 rounds for 18.

21 rounds instead of 18? last year 3 matches this year is 3 1/2.

the first part of the day would be really good fun with no standing around and when you have put a few games in it is OK later to wait around a little but I think I had 6 games in 10 hours last year.

the shame of the above and maybe Nigel can help here, is that there are only 6 tables in use from 1 o clock. you start the day with 4 leagues of 3 but finish it with 3 semis (6 games) then three finals (3 tables).

if you felt this crude way worked then it is a way of pushing on the second part of the day (I THINK IT WOULD BE BRILLIANT TO PLAY ALL DAY);
same format at the beginning as above until you have had 9 rounds. the difference is that the whole thing is on points acummelated and even though there were 4 leagues (and thus 4 league winners), only the acummelated points or wins are counted. you then make 4 leagues of 3 again with league A obviously being the three teams that are mustard and the 4th league-D has the worst performing teams and run the whole thing again like this for the second half of the day. you have 18 rounds not 21 and everyone is simply playing all day.

THE DAY WOULD BE THE SAME LENGTH AS LAST YEAR BUT i WOULD HAVE 8 GAMES NOT 6. the problem with it is that you have had a strange way of qualifying. but every single one of those 8 tables is being used for every minute by every team all day and the day is only as long as the 18 rounds as last year.

Taffy

Jean this a fantastic idea for the Sussex Off the Spot. I am sure you will be working on this as we speak

[daveuk1]

So glad to see everyone wants to copy Suffolk

[JB]

Matt I’m on it

Might need bit of help got bit confused when I got to the
1 v 5
9 v 2
6 v 10

Etc.

Although the Bacardi intake and holiday mode isn’t helping

[taffy]

it has just occurred to me that if you went off total points scored (accumalated) by your team and not even games won or maybe say points accumalated and a 500 bonus for the win, you could effectively leave all 12 sides playing hard to win overall at the end of the day. sure teams 9-12 on points will kinda be looking at the beer a little but at least 6 teams would be playing to win the title overall right through past 7pm. very similar to our premier league. with the FA cup you're in - or your out! but with an overall (premier) league you have favourites but sometimes the top 4 or 5 even 6 teams think they are in it right through Christmas and January.

Glad people like it!

Taffy