Please read the following before taking part in your first Blitz Tantrix tournament, and if possible, print it to refer to during the event. If everyone knows what to do, the tournament will run more smoothly and be fun for everyone. Reading these notes will also ensure that you do not lose points or get defaulted unnecessarily. There are three sections - Absolute Essentials, Non-Standard Games (eg. time wins, disconnections, etc) and the optional Understanding the Results Pages, separated by 'bars' like the one below so that you can find where each one starts easily.
Absolute Essentials
The Controller:
The controller (Steven Trezise / "steven2" for Qualifier 1) will be in a chat room (chat room 1 if possible) from about 15 minutes before the start and then throughout the tournament, except when rebooting. You must go into that chat room and write a message while the controller is in there if you want to be sure that things like wins on time and results where the Robot played on after a disconnection are recorded correctly.
Making sure you are not excluded from Round 1:
Please ensure that you arrive in the Tantrix lobby at least 5 minutes before the tournament is due to start and make sure that the controller knows you are there, otherwise you risk being left out of the tournament. If you are going to miss that deadline because the lobby is loading too slowly but you are likely to get online in time for the start, you can call +44 20 8680 8918 to avoid being left out.
Starting Round 1:
All players play in every round. At the start time for Round 1, the pairings will be posted at the top of the http://tournaments.tantrix.co.uk/blitz1/r1.htm page under the heading "Results", eg.
No Name Feder Total Result Name Feder Total
1 Marion Scott (mazzer) GBR [0] : Péter Petrecz (pepe) HUN [0]
2 Zoltán Németh (Zormac) HUN [0] : Rick Yagodich (RickY) GBR [0]
... would mean that in Round 1, mazzer had to play pepe and Zormac had to play RickY. The numbers in [..] are the total points the player had at the end of the previous round.
The player on the left has first choice of colour. That player should go into an Unranked room and invite the player on the right.
If your opponent has disappeared, please see "No-shows" in the "Non-Standard Games" section below the next "bar". NB. If you yourself have to withdraw during the tournament for any reason, please tell the controller before you leave if possible to avoid disrupting the tournament any more than necessary.
During each game:
Just play normally, but quickly, and do not try to distract your opponent during the game.
If your opponent disconnects or goes over time, you must follow the instructions in the "Non-Standard Games" section below the next "bar" - see the subsections "Disconnections" and "Winning on Time", which includes among other things the rule that you must type TIME in the game room when you notice that your opponent has hit or exceeded 7:00 and preferably get evidence or witnesses that this has happened.
Results:
You do NOT need to use the normal tournament results submission form. I will pick up 'normal' results from the last 50 games list, and you get 1 point for a win (or a bye), 0.5 for a draw and 0 for a loss, but if one player won on time or played on against the Robot after a long disconnection by their opponent (see below), that player must tell the controller in the chat room so that the result is recorded correctly.
Results at the end of each Round:
Shortly after all games in any given round have finished, the results for that round will be posted to the same page as the pairings for that round were on - there may be updates during rounds too. You will be told in the lobby when this has been done and you will then have one minute to check them and report any errors in the controller's chat room before the round is considered complete and the next round is paired automatically.
To see the results, just refresh the page the pairings were on, i.e. tournaments.tantrix.co.uk/blitz1/r*.htm, where * is the current round number. For help with understanding the results, please see the "Understanding the Results Pages" section near the end of this page.
Pairings for the next round:
For the next couple of minutes, you will be able to look at the results tables in more detail, then at (or just after) the time the next round is due to start, the controller will announce in the lobby that the pairings for the next round have been posted. Go to the address bar on the results page, change the r1.htm to r2.htm (or similar for later rounds) and press Enter.
You will then see the pairings for the new round and it all starts again, with each of the players on the left choosing their colour, going into an unranked room and inviting their opponent, etc. NB. If you seem to be paired with a player you have already played, then you have probably not put the correct round number in the address bar, so please try again!
Non-Standard Games:
No-Shows:
If your opponent has disappeared from the lobby when the round is due to start, please tell the controller in the chat room. Your opponent will be given 4 minutes to appear, otherwise they will lose the game. If both players fail to appear within four minutes, the game will be deemed to be a draw.
A player who misses one game like this can still carry on in the tournament, but only if they get back into the lobby before the same round ends. If you miss the start and the time that the last game finishes in any one round, you will be disqualified. Again, you may be able to avoid this happening to you if you call +44 20 8680 8918 and then make it back into the lobby before the next round is paired.
Disconnections:
If your opponent disconnects during a game, then if the disconnection (or the total of two or more disconnections) lasts for more than two full minutes, you should let the Robot play on for them.
To compensate for the fact that the Robot plays even faster than Joe Ruby (at least, I assume so!), if the result of such a game is a draw, the still-connected player is given a win and if the Robot wins, the game is deemed to be drawn, but only if you tell the controller about this in the chat room. If you do not tell the controller or the disconnection happened with no tiles left in the bag, the result was not in any doubt and the disconnected player had more than a minute left on their clock at the time, then the actual result stands.
NB. To be safe, you should look at your PC clock if your opponent disconnects and then wait until the minutes increase by 3, not 2 - that way you will be giving them at least 2 full minutes. Even if you are feeling generous, you should not give your opponent more than 3-4 minutes because doing so may hold up the tournament. Also, to avoid controversy later, please type a note in the controller's chat room (or at least in the lobby) when your opponent disconnects.
Winning on time:
If your opponent's time reaches or exceeds 7:00 (after allowing for any odd time changes during short disconnections - do not adjust down after a disconnection, but do adjust up, eg. if the disconnected player's clock got reset to zero), you must type TIME in the game room chat window to claim the win. You can then claim a win in the game by telling the controller in the chat room. If both players have 7:00 or more on their clocks before either notices, the game will be drawn - make sure the controller is told about this too.
Typing TIME before your opponent hits 7:00 is cheating - it will lose you the game and may even get you disqualified from the rest of the tournament.
To avoid controversy, please screen print the game room and/or ask an independent witness into the room when any of this happens.
Players who finish their games quickly can help here by going into any game room without a spectator in it to act as a witness, please, but you must NOT point out a time win to either of the players! If any idiot does do that, a player may act on that reminder, but the idiot will be penalised, probably at least disqualified from the rest of the tournament.
Understanding the Results Pages:
The results page for Round * (where * = 1, 2, ..., 8) can be found at tournaments.tantrix.co.uk/blitz1/r*.htm. It is split into four sections. The examples below are after three rounds of completely randomised results.
Please note that while the pairing and results system is fairly automatic, the results still need to be published to the web 'manually', so results will not update on the site as soon as each game has finished.
Results:
These are the results for this round only, eg:
No Name Feder Total Result Name Feder Total
3 Rob Morton (cheekymbk) GBR [1.5] .5:.5 James Preen (bluedog) CAN [1.5]
This means that this is (loosely) the 'third most important' game in the round. The scores in [..] mean that cheekymbk and bluedog were both on 1.5 points (a win and a draw) before round 3 and the .5:.5 Result means that they then drew their round 3 game, thus scoring .5 points each. Hence, they will now both be on 2.0 points after 3 rounds. Before the round started and while the game was in progress, the line would have looked like this, showing that this game was waiting to be played:
3 Rob Morton (cheekymbk) GBR [1.5] : James Preen (bluedog) CAN [1.5]
Standings:
This table shows the players' positions at the end of the round, or after the results recorded so far if the round is still in progress, together with their pre-tournament seeding points, their main Score and their tiebreak scores:
Place Name Feder Rtg Title Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.
5-12 James Preen (bluedog) CAN 1881 2.0 1.5 5.5 4.0
Rob Morton (cheekymbk) GBR 1910 2.0 1.5 4.5 4.5
This means that bluedog and cheekymbk are equal 4th (with 6 other players) with a Score of 2.0, but in fact bluedog is ahead of cheekymbk on tiebreak.
The last three columns are the tiebreak scores, which are only used if the main Scores are equal - M-Buch (median Buchholz) is the sum of opponent's total scores ignoring the best and worst-placed opponents, Buch (Buchholz) is the same but without ignoring any opponents and Progr (Progress) is the sum of the player concerned's total scores at the end of each round. They are considered one by one in that order until the tie is broken. These two players have the same Score, and the same M-Buch, but a higher Buch puts bluedog ahead. If they had the same Buch too, cheekymbk would be ahead on Prog.
Cross Table:
Example:
No Name Feder Rtg Title Total 1 2 3
5 James Preen (bluedog) CAN 1881 2 12:D 10:W 6:D
6 Rob Morton (cheekymbk) GBR 1910 2 25:W 3:D 5:D
This shows the positions after tiebreaks, bluedog in 5th and cheekymbk in 6th. Total is the player's total score, and the remaining columns show that bluedog D(rew) in round 1 against the player now in 12th place, W(on) in round 2 against the player now in 10th place and D(rew) in round 3 against the player now in 6th place, who is of course cheekymbk as we saw above.
Club Standings:
This table shows the positions of each country so far based on the sum of the scores of their top 3 players in the table. It is just a bit of fun which I will include only because the program calculates the table automatically, but obviously countries with less players taking part are at a big disadvantage, so it is really fairly meaningless! eg. bluedog is the only Canadian in the tournament so CAN are on the same score as him, 2.0, but Rob is joined by two other British players on 2.0 and 3.0 points in this random example, so GBR are on 7.0 points:
Place Name Score
1 GBR 7.0
2-3 HUN 5.0
NZL 5.0
4 GER 3.5
5-6 FRA 2.5
POL 2.5
7-8 CAN 2.0
SVK 2.0