About a month or two ago, our TO got a new DCI tournament reporting software and since then he is unable to figure out how to do a "top8 split" like we used to have before the software update.
What ends up happening is people who make top 8 are "playing it out" in his system as he sees fit and I ended up finishing 1st place sometimes and taking people's rating points even thought we never played a single match in the top8...
I confronted the TO, amongst other people and we were informed there is no way to do it.
Can someone point to an article or explain here how he can split top 8?
I tried clicking around in the software after the next FNM and we figured out if he actually went in and dropped everyone who made top 8 and then submitted the results, it would not make us all lose/gain extra rating points...
However, since that time, we all continue to get these random top8 game wins/losses.
Even if someone explains how to do it on this forum here, I guarantee you that our TO will NOT look on this forum to find out how to do it. And I doubt he will read anything you print out. He is one of the most stubborn people on the face of the planet when it comes to doing new things. I doubt there really is any way to do this.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
Um, I'm no expert but just by the way it sounds, what he's doing with just randomly assigning wins and losses is probably against the rules.
oh I have no doubt that it is. He is probably (from what I know of the guy) assigning these wins and losses the way he is because his boss has ordered him not to stay open as late as Friday Night Magic WOULD keep them open should the store stay open for the entire top-8. It is entirely because of the recession. They can't maintain the store hours that they used to, thus they are cutting business time from even their most profitable times of the week.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
There is a forum on the Wizard's site for issues with DCI Reporter (v. 3), and Wizards Event Reporter (v. 4).
I'm assuming you are talking about version 4, since it is new, and very different than DCIR. I don't have a copy of WER on this PC, but I'm pretty sure there is a very obvious button that says "Create Playoff" which then prompts you for how many players to cut to (top 4, top 8, top 16, etc.).
It then proceeds to do single-elimination for those matches.
Manipulating DCI ratings by creating bogus tournaments and/or matches is a big no-no. It seems that no one that plays under him really cares about their rating, or he would have been reported to Wizards in a heartbeat!
oh I have no doubt that it is. He is probably (from what I know of the guy) assigning these wins and losses the way he is because his boss has ordered him not to stay open as late as Friday Night Magic WOULD keep them open should the store stay open for the entire top-8. It is entirely because of the recession. They can't maintain the store hours that they used to, thus they are cutting business time from even their most profitable times of the week.
I totally don't understand this--it almost seems counter-productive. What does it cost them to stay open a few hours later? A couple of bucks on the electricity? Maybe 20 bucks to the employee staying later?
My shop typically stays open until the last customer leaves, no matter what the hours on the door say. Sure, there are times when people get "kicked out", but it would never be because a tournament is running late!
Besides, from what I've seen, the best time to make sales on singles and such is AFTER the event is over (or in between rounds). You aren't going to make many sales rushing people out the door to meet some perceived hard closing time.
Manipulating DCI ratings by creating bogus tournaments and/or matches is a big no-no. It seems that no one that plays under him really cares about their rating, or he would have been reported to Wizards in a heartbeat!
Actually, one of the guys who top-8'ed the U.S. Nationals plays at our Friday Night Magic Events... so I can assure you that at least HE cares about his Rating Points. Not to mention we have some of the best players in Texas playing at our events. So in reality there are plenty of people who care about their ratings.
However I really can't see anyone in our area reporting the Tournament Organizer to the DCI. For one thing we only have two stores in the area who really host any tournaments. Losing one of them would be seriously counterproductive to the community as a whole. While I would hope that someone could figure out how to do the top-8 splits, I highly doubt WotC built that into the most recent edition of their tournament reporting Software given the nature of how they feel Tournaments should be decided on MTGO anyways.
Anyways, as far as the counter-productivity goes, I have no explanation for it. I just know that the Tournament Organizer has had standing orders for some time from his boss to close down shop at very specific times, and that he can't contradict those orders as far as I know.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
One method is as follows: After the Top 8 is paired, have him go to the area where you enter match results at the bottom of the screen. There, he can tick drop next to both players and click the enter button. Once he does this, the software will say the tournament has run out of matches and will end. That gets around the arbitrary win choices the TO is making and i believe will not even effect any ratings.
The other method is for him to just not pair the top 8 and instead look at the final standings and award prizes from there. A single elimination playoff is not required to be run at the end of any tournament. If he does pair the top 8 so people know who they would be playing and then everyone decides to draw it out, he could also just delete the round and then end the tournament witht the same results.
One method is as follows: After the Top 8 is paired, have him go to the area where you enter match results at the bottom of the screen. There, he can tick drop next to both players and click the enter button. Once he does this, the software will say the tournament has run out of matches and will end. That gets around the arbitrary win choices the TO is making and i believe will not even effect any ratings.
The other method is for him to just not pair the top 8 and instead look at the final standings and award prizes from there. A single elimination playoff is not required to be run at the end of any tournament. If he does pair the top 8 so people know who they would be playing and then everyone decides to draw it out, he could also just delete the round and then end the tournament witht the same results.
do these options work with the most recent Event reporting software?
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
Our and many people's FNMs are small enough that they don't play top 8's either. Final standings based on swiss rounds... there is certainly a way to do that.
Our and many people's FNMs are small enough that they don't play top 8's either. Final standings based on swiss rounds... there is certainly a way to do that.
well actually the last FNM I was at, we had over the minimum number of people to do a top-8. The problem was that the TO just didn't WANT to do a top-8 for whatever reason.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
I totally don't understand this--it almost seems counter-productive. What does it cost them to stay open a few hours later? A couple of bucks on the electricity? Maybe 20 bucks to the employee staying later?
My shop typically stays open until the last customer leaves, no matter what the hours on the door say. Sure, there are times when people get "kicked out", but it would never be because a tournament is running late!
Besides, from what I've seen, the best time to make sales on singles and such is AFTER the event is over (or in between rounds). You aren't going to make many sales rushing people out the door to meet some perceived hard closing time.
Oh well.
Just a note guys - keep it on topic. I didn't say anything prior to this because the off-topic stuff was from before the thread's move to Magic Software, but let's just remember that this is hardly the place to discuss whether TO's are cheating or not. The appropriate topic here is help with the software. Thanks!
just wanted to post a clarification... I thought this thread was about one particular local Tournament Organizer. Turns out this thread was actually about the other one. So disregard everything I said about the mannerisms of the Tournament Organizer as they do not apply to this one in particular. And in point of fact the Tournament Organizer whom I thought it was actually seems to be much more aware of how to run the reporter programs
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
How to fix the problem depends largely on which reporting program you're using. You say DCIR, so it is probably DCIR3, with which I currently have no experience. However, if you are using WER, and you just pay out your top 8 based on the standings, then when you finish the final round of swiss, print out the pairings and just end the tournament. -Jack
just wanted to post a clarification... I thought this thread was about one particular local Tournament Organizer. Turns out this thread was actually about the other one. So disregard everything I said about the mannerisms of the Tournament Organizer as they do not apply to this one in particular. And in point of fact the Tournament Organizer whom I thought it was actually seems to be much more aware of how to run the reporter programs
Yeah, its kinda messy. Seems to me, though, that the issue with the local tournament organizer was kinda like background information as to why he wants an answer to how to do this function in the reporter software.
I verified last night that there is a blue button near the top of the screen which says "Start Playoff" that you can use.
That actually starts a top-8 playoff, which is not exactly what the guy apparently already knows how to do. What he needs to figure out is how to drop people from the tournament once the top-8 playoff has already begun.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
If you've already used the Start Playoff button to start the top-8 playoff, you shouldn't need to do anything else. Why would you want to drop everyone else from the tournament? Their role in the tournament is already done and will have no further impact whether they are there or not.
Or am I totally not getting what you guys are trying to do?
If you've already used the Start Playoff button to start the top-8 playoff, you shouldn't need to do anything else. Why would you want to drop everyone else from the tournament? Their role in the tournament is already done and will have no further impact whether they are there or not.
Or am I totally not getting what you guys are trying to do?
your totally missing what we are trying to do... we are trying to split the top-8 players winnings... meaning we don't actually want to hold a top-8. The fact that he is pairing the top-8, well I don't know why he is doing that actually?
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
your totally missing what we are trying to do... we are trying to split the top-8 players winnings... meaning we don't actually want to hold a top-8. The fact that he is pairing the top-8, well I don't know why he is doing that actually?
OK, but why do you need software for that? If all the rounds are completed and there is not going to be a playoff, end the tournament (there's a button for that), and print out the standings sheet. (Make sure to print standings by rank.)
How you split winnings amongst the winners is up to the TO/store/whatever. No piece of software is going to tell you how to split the credit/boosters/prizes for the top 8 players. The TO should know how he wants to do the split--then he looks at the standings, finds the top 8, and awards them their prizes.
I'm starting to feel really dumb now, because I feel like I must be missing some nuance of this situation. Otherwise, it is all just really basic usage of WER (which has its faults) plus some common sense.
What we want is this:
1) TO to Print TOP 8 Pairings
2) TO asks if everyone is OK with split 3) If people agree to split, we do not want any more matches reported to DCI as they do not happen <------- this is where the current issue lies
4) If we don't agree to split, they we play it out and we report further matches to the DCI (irrelevant in this situation)
What ends up happening is people who make top 8 are "playing it out" in his system as he sees fit and I ended up finishing 1st place sometimes and taking people's rating points even thought we never played a single match in the top8...
I confronted the TO, amongst other people and we were informed there is no way to do it.
Can someone point to an article or explain here how he can split top 8?
I tried clicking around in the software after the next FNM and we figured out if he actually went in and dropped everyone who made top 8 and then submitted the results, it would not make us all lose/gain extra rating points...
However, since that time, we all continue to get these random top8 game wins/losses.
Cheers
oh I have no doubt that it is. He is probably (from what I know of the guy) assigning these wins and losses the way he is because his boss has ordered him not to stay open as late as Friday Night Magic WOULD keep them open should the store stay open for the entire top-8. It is entirely because of the recession. They can't maintain the store hours that they used to, thus they are cutting business time from even their most profitable times of the week.
I'm assuming you are talking about version 4, since it is new, and very different than DCIR. I don't have a copy of WER on this PC, but I'm pretty sure there is a very obvious button that says "Create Playoff" which then prompts you for how many players to cut to (top 4, top 8, top 16, etc.).
It then proceeds to do single-elimination for those matches.
Manipulating DCI ratings by creating bogus tournaments and/or matches is a big no-no. It seems that no one that plays under him really cares about their rating, or he would have been reported to Wizards in a heartbeat!
I totally don't understand this--it almost seems counter-productive. What does it cost them to stay open a few hours later? A couple of bucks on the electricity? Maybe 20 bucks to the employee staying later?
My shop typically stays open until the last customer leaves, no matter what the hours on the door say. Sure, there are times when people get "kicked out", but it would never be because a tournament is running late!
Besides, from what I've seen, the best time to make sales on singles and such is AFTER the event is over (or in between rounds). You aren't going to make many sales rushing people out the door to meet some perceived hard closing time.
Oh well.
Don't double post.
Actually, one of the guys who top-8'ed the U.S. Nationals plays at our Friday Night Magic Events... so I can assure you that at least HE cares about his Rating Points. Not to mention we have some of the best players in Texas playing at our events. So in reality there are plenty of people who care about their ratings.
However I really can't see anyone in our area reporting the Tournament Organizer to the DCI. For one thing we only have two stores in the area who really host any tournaments. Losing one of them would be seriously counterproductive to the community as a whole. While I would hope that someone could figure out how to do the top-8 splits, I highly doubt WotC built that into the most recent edition of their tournament reporting Software given the nature of how they feel Tournaments should be decided on MTGO anyways.
Anyways, as far as the counter-productivity goes, I have no explanation for it. I just know that the Tournament Organizer has had standing orders for some time from his boss to close down shop at very specific times, and that he can't contradict those orders as far as I know.
The other method is for him to just not pair the top 8 and instead look at the final standings and award prizes from there. A single elimination playoff is not required to be run at the end of any tournament. If he does pair the top 8 so people know who they would be playing and then everyone decides to draw it out, he could also just delete the round and then end the tournament witht the same results.
do these options work with the most recent Event reporting software?
well actually the last FNM I was at, we had over the minimum number of people to do a top-8. The problem was that the TO just didn't WANT to do a top-8 for whatever reason.
Yes, I ran a test tournament and these were the methods that seemed to work.
Just a note guys - keep it on topic. I didn't say anything prior to this because the off-topic stuff was from before the thread's move to Magic Software, but let's just remember that this is hardly the place to discuss whether TO's are cheating or not. The appropriate topic here is help with the software. Thanks!
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Yeah, its kinda messy. Seems to me, though, that the issue with the local tournament organizer was kinda like background information as to why he wants an answer to how to do this function in the reporter software.
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That actually starts a top-8 playoff, which is not exactly what the guy apparently already knows how to do. What he needs to figure out is how to drop people from the tournament once the top-8 playoff has already begun.
If you've already used the Start Playoff button to start the top-8 playoff, you shouldn't need to do anything else. Why would you want to drop everyone else from the tournament? Their role in the tournament is already done and will have no further impact whether they are there or not.
Or am I totally not getting what you guys are trying to do?
your totally missing what we are trying to do... we are trying to split the top-8 players winnings... meaning we don't actually want to hold a top-8. The fact that he is pairing the top-8, well I don't know why he is doing that actually?
OK, but why do you need software for that? If all the rounds are completed and there is not going to be a playoff, end the tournament (there's a button for that), and print out the standings sheet. (Make sure to print standings by rank.)
How you split winnings amongst the winners is up to the TO/store/whatever. No piece of software is going to tell you how to split the credit/boosters/prizes for the top 8 players. The TO should know how he wants to do the split--then he looks at the standings, finds the top 8, and awards them their prizes.
I'm starting to feel really dumb now, because I feel like I must be missing some nuance of this situation. Otherwise, it is all just really basic usage of WER (which has its faults) plus some common sense.
1) TO to Print TOP 8 Pairings
2) TO asks if everyone is OK with split
3) If people agree to split, we do not want any more matches reported to DCI as they do not happen <------- this is where the current issue lies
4) If we don't agree to split, they we play it out and we report further matches to the DCI (irrelevant in this situation)
I will find out what software he is using today.