AND... WE ARE FULL!
Which is great, clearly.
We have about 46 teams registered and unfortunately we are not able to take any more registrations at this point. The venue just doesn't have the space. Apologies if you have been unable to register this year, but next time don't leave it so late!
We simply cannot wait to see you all on July 8th!
A New, Improved format for 2017
We have listened to the comments and feedback from last year's tournament, and based on what we heard, we've change the format somewhat this time round.
If you just want a quick summary it would be this:
The new format features fixed time games, in a format that is designed to keep the tournament to time, ensure that you only play each team once, and allows a team to lose a game, but still being in the running to win the overall tournament. We think its a big improvement.
THE DETAIL
The format is called the Kubb Klassic, and has been used extensively throughout the USA in 2016 as a way of running fair, predictably timed tournaments that end up with the best teams in the semi finals and final. You can get a lot of details here if you want it. Or read on for our summary.
STARTING
At the start of the tournament, the teams are entered into a spreadsheet, and the first round of games is created. The first round is selected randomly.
SCORING
Each round is fixed at 30 minutes, and all matches begin and end on a bell. At the end of the 30 minutes, there are a number of possibilities, with points awarded for winners and losers, but also for the leading team at the point when the game is cut short. If the game finishes within the 30 minutes, then the winner gets 1 point and the loser gets zero. If the game stops before there is a clear winner, then the team that is leading at the end gets 2/3 of a point and team that is losing gets 1/3 of a point. If the teams are even, they each get 1/2 a point.
The leading team is determined to be the team that has most baseline kubbs at the end of the game.
NEXT ROUND
The results from the first round of games are fed into the system and all the teams in the tournament are ranked.
Ranking is based on a team's points, but also on the record of the teams that they played against. That means that a team that has won all its games against strong teams will be ranked just a little higher than another team that has also won all its games, but against weaker opponents.
The second round is created based on that ranking.
Starting with the first team in the list, the system finds the next highest ranked team that they have not played and assigns them to pitch 1. Then it moves on to the next available team on the list and assigns them the next highest team that they have not played and assigns them to pitch 2. It continues this method until all teams are assigned a pitch.
KNOCKOUT STAGES
Once everyone has played four games, we use the ranking at that point to separate the teams out into Championship and Plate sections. From that point it's a standard knockout tournament, where you need to keep winning to stay in the game. Importantly, the record from the qualifying stages is used to generate the knockout bracket, but that is it, if you lost your first game but did well enough to get into the top 8 teams, you can still win the overall tournament! So stick with it!
