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knockout 07 |
Having run 4 online Knockouts on the Tric Trac Tourno sub-website I decided that Knockouts are a viable and popular occasional option for TTT Players.
But re-jigging around the TTT sub-website with the info that is needed for Knockouts was proving a pain the the bum for me to do and was cluttering up and confusing the TTT sub-website. So, to save myself 60 minutes per month altering the TTT sub-website, I spend about 2 weeks setting this Knockouts sub-website up!
This is the 3rd Tournament sub-website I've written (previous are Funcom TTT & Playmaker-world TTT sub-websites) and I was looking to make further improvements over the others.
Instead of having all centered text, the little text that there is, is littered around your screen in bite size portions.
There are less pages: no Notes Page, no Bulletin Board, no B-G Sets Page, no Links Page and no Tell a Friend Page - all of them got very few hits.
The points are down the left hand side of your screen only and the in-boxed hyperlinks are down the right hand side.
The screen should all fit in perfectly into the imported website box in Playmaker.
Probably the most useful addition as far as Players are
concerned is that the Registered, Reporting and Standings
Pages will update themselves automatically from your computer
every 60 seconds.
There is no need for Players to hit their refresh button during a
Tournament.
I still have to manually upload the names in boxes on the
Tournament Charts and update those every few minutes, but at
least you will see the updates pretty well as soon as they
happen.
I've altered the Tric Trac Tournos
Mailing List to include the
Knockout Tournament announcements.
If you are already on the TTT Mailing List, you'll get emails
about Knockouts too
and visa versa.
My intention is to run an Online Knockout once per month
to compliment the weekly Online Tric Trac Tournos.
This, compared to other Tournament Websites (such as IBA) is miniscule,
but then I'm only a one man band and besides I've no aspiration be that big -
I do my bit and that's enough for me.
Over the last few weeks a good number of Players that came to Playmaker
because of Tric Trac Tournos have done well in IBA Tournaments
(Stan was playing Grant101 in an IBA Final as this Tournament started)
so I feel that what I do has been of some benefit.
I sent out an email to the Mailing List 5 days before this Tournament -
I wanted to give Players plenty of time to read the new Knockout sub-website.
And I was expecting (hoping) for full registration within a day or two.
Not so. I must admit I was disappointed - I'd spend 2 weeks writing this new sub-website and I wanted the first Tournament held on it to be a good one.
However 30 minutes
before start we had 15 of the 16 seats reserved so it was looking ok.
I'm not going to name names because that will achieve little, but not
all registered Players turned up - 4 were missing.
I found 1 on PM and asked her to join us. She apologized but said she
was busy elsewhere.
Two others didn't turn up at all and now, 12 hours after the
Tournament, I've still not heard from them.
The other Player arrived quite a bit late, but said straight away that
he had had connection problems and was sorry.
I really don't want to get School Teacher like or even God or Monk
like here, but please Players, if you register - please play.
Or at least have the decency to let me know in good time, that
you must with-draw. If you don't, your inconsiderate action has
knock-on effects on the Tournament.
It means that the draw is not as good
as it could be and will probably
leave the Players that do play waiting
v e r y l o n
g t i m e s for an Opponent.
It also creates a lot more work for me as the Tournament Director -
sorting out who is in and who is out and answering valid questions
from Players as to what is the procedure.
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The real knock-on effect of all this was in the Consolation. How would you like to enter a Tournament and spend 2/3rd of your time waiting for an Opponent? This is what happened to Xantippe. Having lost her 1st Round in the Main, she had to wait an age to see if she got a bye in the 1st round of the Consolation or if she was to play another. And on she was due to play in that Round, but her Opponent had to leave. = More frustrating wait for Player Xantippe. O.k. She got a bye into the Final of the Consolation, but I'm sure she would have preferred to be playing than sitting at a computer screen doing very little. Two other Players left when they were consigned to the Consolation Tournament.
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And the Tournament itself. The Charts are below and must now speak for themselves - "Time for bed" said Zebadee.
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