A change to Co:Events for 2016?

[Zarte Siempre]

Hello all, and a happy new year to you!

Now it's 2015 it seems a perfect time to discuss erm... 2016?

A few of us have been discussing a bit of a change to the way parts of the Co:Event calendar could work, and this seems like as good a time as ever to let you know about them, and get some feedback.

As it stands, each co-event is entirely it's own thing - there's no correlation from one event to another, even within events run by the same organisers. So we thought, why not have an annual competition, that maintains the identity of each individual event, whilst also giving individuals something to aim for on a broader scale. This joining together of events would also increase co-operation between existing tournament organisers as well as providing a network for new/newer tournament organisers for advice etc.

Not ALL tournaments will automatically be part of the tour - it's up to each individual tournament organiser to decide whether they wish to be a part of it, and we'd make every effort to make sure a tour event would in no way clash with another tournament.

So, here's how it would work:

In the first 11 months of the year, there will hopefully be 9 tournaments that count as part of the tour. These will hopefully be spread out around Britain, with around 1 a month, leaving a couple of gaps for any tournaments that may not wish to be involved.

Each tournament will award points for the finishing places of the players. The winner will receive points to the value of 2*total number of players in the tournament. So in a 50 player tournament, the winner will get 100 points. Each place below will award 2 less points (i.e. 100, 98, 96 etc.).

Over the course of the year, people's best results, up to 5 events will be put towards their total. This means that you don't have to make EVERY event to feature on the leaderboard.

In December, the top 8 players will be invited to a showpiece event for which there will be NO entry fee. This will be done by the tournament organisers paying a contribution of £1 per player in their events towards a pot that will go to paying for the organisation of this showpiece.

In the likely event of anyone from the top 8 not being available, then 9th place will be invited, then 10th etc.

In addition to this being the finale of the Co:Tour year, we also wish to aim to put it in a central destination, which can be accessed by many players and this can therefore be used as a year-end meet-up as well as a tournament.

In addition to the standard prizes that each individual organiser offers, it has been agreed that the following prizes will be offered:

The top 3 finishers in each individual tournament will receive free entry into the correlating event the following year, or a suitable replacement in the event of the same event not taking place.

The overall winner of the final showpiece will win free entry to EVERY event for the following year.

So, what do you peeps think? Would this be something that you'd enjoy? And also tournament organisers, current or future - how does this sound to you? (We have attempted to consult all current tournament organisers, however some have not responded)

Those of us who've worked on this have been excited by this idea, and we hope you see something in it too

[Chris Marshall]

Great idea.

Could be a logistical nightmare but with the right prep and planning then I can see it being a goer.

[Gavin Chipper]

I think it generally sounds like a good idea. However, I need to moan about something, and one thing I don't like, which I also don't like about the duels on Apterous, is the proposed scoring system.

First of all, does the number of players need to be multiplied by two? But that's a side issue. I don't like the idea that the winner in a 50-person tournament is seen as equal to halfway down the field in a 100-person tournament. This grates with me in the duel.

The way I would do it is like this - 0 is the theoretical minimum score and 100 the maximum, but you'd need an infinite number of people to actually achieve these scores. If there's one player, they score 50 points (they're the middle player). If there's two, first and second get 66.7 and 33.3. If there's three people, it's 75, 50, 25. So you always have 100 [gap] 1st [gap] 2nd [gap] ... [gap] [last] [gap] 0 where all gaps are the same. The general formula for someone's score would be 100 - (position/(players + 1)*100). This isn't just arbitrary. It's one way you can calculate percentiles, and, I would argue, the best one because it gives the best estimate of someone's rank in the global population based on the ranking information. Another way would be to have top at 100 and bottom at 0 and the others equally spaced in between, but that's not as good.

Yeah, you end up with fractional points, but so what?

[Zarte Siempre]

Personally, I like duel scoring, because I think it's usually more impressive to beat 50 people than it is to beat 10. That's not to say that any of this is beyond discussion though.

[Matt Bayfield]

I like the idea - it's the sort of thing I'd've loved to have had a go at, before I retired from these sort of events.

Potential obstacles, which might be good questions for people to consider of themselves:

(a) Are the top 8 (or enough of the top 8) really going to be bothered to turn up to the end-of-season finals, bearing in mind that even in a central location, this could cost them upwards of £50 in travel and possible accommodation costs?

(b) Do you really expect anyone to turn up to spectate? There's a lot of difference in turning up to an event to play, and just turning up to watch.

Also bear in mind there are some who - wrongly in my opinion - think the Co event scene is biased enough towards the elite, so won't be pleased by part of their entry fees to Co events subsidising an invitation-only tournament.


On another issue, I tend to agree with Gevin that the points allocation for Co events (but not the apterous Duel, where tied positions are frequent) should not be an arithmetic progression. Allocation of ranking points in sports tends to use a more steeply sliding scale, e.g. snooker or darts, which are based on prize money (where the r/u typically receives 50 - 60% of the winner's cheque). Tennis also uses a more steeply sliding scale.

[Edit: oh, Gevin is actually proposing an arithmetic progression, just with the gap size dependent on field size. Never mind.]

[Zarte Siempre]

Thanks for the comments Matt In response:

a) From the people this has been discussed with, it was felt that enough of the top 8 would be likely to try and make it if they could, that it would be worthwhile doing.

b) I would agree if it was just an event that everyone would just piss off from, but it has felt like there is more willingness from Countdowners in general to meet in non-Countdowny circumstances, so if it was partially tournament and partially a bit of a shindig, I'd be hopeful that a fair few people would attend.

These are very much things that we may not be 100% sure of without trialling it. The thinking behind this is to look into something different for maybe a year/2 year trial, and then reassess whether it's ALL not working, it's all working perfectly, or if it needs some tweaking

[Callum P]

Really like the overall structure to it and think it would work a lot better than the current system in place- I think at the moment there isn't a great spread of events at certain times in the year. The top 8 tournament is not something I am keen on, however- I think it would be better accompanied by a "best of the rest" tournament running parallel to it, if done at all.

[Graeme Cole]

I like the idea of loosely linking up all the events somehow, and this suggestion is a good one. However, I think some of the numbers could be tweaked.

There have never been more than seven events in a year according to that wiki page, and I wouldn't have thought it's a good idea to bank on there being extra events, especially as some events might not be "ranking" events. Also, I'm not sure many people go to five or more events in a year. Some top players only go to COLIN, or maybe one or two others.

Looking at the top of the apterous Pro Ranks, Jack Worsley attended six events in 2014, Innis attended three, Dylan two, David Barnard three, Callum four, Dan McColm three, Zarte three, Giles three. A few others attended one or none. Perhaps it would be better to calculate a player's score from their top three events, rather than their top five?

Another thing I've just thought of - is there any reason why the year for this thing has to run from January to December, other than neatness? This would make COLIN and the Hangover the first events in the tour (assuming the Hangover will be part of it). As COLIN is the biggest event by far, with the most points available, it would make more sense to put it at the end of the year. So the year ("season"?) would run from February to the following January, and you'd have the final showpiece in about March.

[Zarte Siempre]

Personally I'd like to keep the band for the number of events that count higher to give those people who support a number of events a greater, but not clear chance of making the finals, whilst not making it so high that those who attend 2 and win both can't also make it.

In terms of having a wrap-around season, I have no issues with that if it's a popular idea.

[Gavin Chipper]

Personally, I like duel scoring, because I think it's usually more impressive to beat 50 people than it is to beat 10. That's not to say that any of this is beyond discussion though.

You're certainly right to an extent, and under the system I proposed, winning out of 51 people (so beating 50) would get you about 98.1 points, whereas winning out of 11 (beating 10) would get you 91.7. But it's not just the number of people you beat that's important. I would argue that coming first out of 11 (beating 10 people) is better than coming 50th out of 100 (beating 50 people). My system would take that into account and you'd get 98.1 and 50.5 points respectively. In the duel you'd get more points for coming 50th out of 100 than 1st out of 11.

On another issue, I tend to agree with Gevin that the points allocation for Co events (but not the apterous Duel, where tied positions are frequent) should not be an arithmetic progression. Allocation of ranking points in sports tends to use a more steeply sliding scale, e.g. snooker or darts, which are based on prize money (where the r/u typically receives 50 - 60% of the winner's cheque). Tennis also uses a more steeply sliding scale.

[Edit: oh, Gevin is actually proposing an arithmetic progression, just with the gap size dependent on field size. Never mind.]

I have in the past suggested a non-arithmetic progression for the duel, but it probably overcomplicated things and I don't think it was popular with people (or you at least). If you're going for a non-arithmetic progression, I'd do some sort of reciprocal thing, so the winner get double second, three times third and so on. So you could have (players + 1)/(position). This would make the score open-ended though with no upper limit.

With this system, 1st out of 11 would get 12 points and 1st out of 51 would get 52 points. Approximately speaking, if you double the participants you double the score for the winner. This is actually the case for the duel anyway. So I wouldn't regard this method as too insane.

[Ben Wilson]

I'm very much for this idea. The prospect of the season-ending finale in particular is something that should've been done a long time ago, though I agree that maybe a 'plate' competition running alongside the event could work, as long as it didn't clash with the grand final itself. For years the UK National Scrabble Championship and the World Scrabble Championship would have showcase best-of-5 finals where the options for other players were 'watch', 'go home' or 'bar', but this year the world championship switched to having a tournament for non-qualifiers, so there's no reason that couldn't work.

Not sure I agree with Gevin about the scoring system, though. It strikes me that winning a co-event with a field of 48 people is a greater achievement than winning an event with a field of 24 people and as such deserves a greater weighting. I'm not 100% sold on the 'double the number of entries' points system but any improvements on it would likely be impractical to apply unless you like people's scores having ridiculous amounts of decimal places.

And as for numbers of co-events... there are 5 already on the calendar for the first half of 2015 and the community is growing year on year (yes, pretty much exclusively due to apterous) so it's not too great a stretch to imagine there'll be at least 9 events on the calendar in 2016.

Needless to say, if this goes ahead, COLIN XII (and the hangover, if desired) will be part of the tour, regardless of when the season starts/ends (and when COLIN itself will take place in 2016, for that matter).

[Gavin Chipper]

Also bear in mind there are some who - wrongly in my opinion - think the Co event scene is biased enough towards the elite, so won't be pleased by part of their entry fees to Co events subsidising an invitation-only tournament.

I wouldn't say that the CO event scene is necessarily biased towards the elite at the moment, but I wouldn't necessarily feel the need to push it in that direction either. I like the idea of generally connecting together the tournaments, but you could just say that the winner is the points winner after all the events, or you could have the top 8 play-off at the final qualifying event. You'd just have the top 8 of the players who are at that event. The fact that some couldn't make it to that is no different to them not being able to make a specific showpiece event so no less unfair.

Also a whole event with people turning up and spending money on travel and accommodation doesn't seem like very much if it just has eight people in. You could either have simple quarters, semis and a final in which case it would be very short for all that effort, or alternatively a longer tournament with maybe a group stage, but then I don't think too many spectators would be interested in watching it all. So I would suggest the short version but at the last qualifying CO event.

Edit:

I'm very much for this idea. The prospect of the season-ending finale in particular is something that should've been done a long time ago, though I agree that maybe a 'plate' competition running alongside the event could work, as long as it didn't clash with the grand final itself. For years the UK National Scrabble Championship and the World Scrabble Championship would have showcase best-of-5 finals where the options for other players were 'watch', 'go home' or 'bar', but this year the world championship switched to having a tournament for non-qualifiers, so there's no reason that couldn't work.

Having just seen this, I think that's not too bad an idea. A separate tournament for everyone else running alongside the main event could work.

Not sure I agree with Gevin about the scoring system, though. It strikes me that winning a co-event with a field of 48 people is a greater achievement than winning an event with a field of 24 people and as such deserves a greater weighting. I'm not 100% sold on the 'double the number of entries' points system but any improvements on it would likely be impractical to apply unless you like people's scores having ridiculous amounts of decimal places.

I totally agree that winning out of 48 is better than winning out of 24 and that's why I've said so! But also 1st out of 24 is very similar to 2nd out of 48 and we want a system that takes this into account too and doesn't massively reward one over the other.

I don't think decimal places are too much of a problem really. They can be presented with just a couple of decimal places and it would be quite simple to look at.

[Gavin Chipper]

I like the idea - it's the sort of thing I'd've loved to have had a go at, before I retired from these sort of events.

Sorry, you've done what? Are you not coming to COLIN?

[Jon O'Neill]

The 8-thing could take place alongside the Hangover? Guarantees spectators, gives the 8 the best chance to actually be there without increasing their costs, assuming they would've gone anyway. No extra costs involved for anyone.

[Jon O'Neill]

And depending on which scoring system is used, the 8 will probably be in attendance in Lincoln.

[Ben Wilson]

And depending on which scoring system is used, the 8 will probably be in attendance in Lincoln.

...But may not necessarily be able to stick around on the Sunday. Also, you know how crap public transport- which a lot of attendees rely on- is on a Sunday. The finals would be best held on a Saturday.

[Jon O'Neill]

I just can't see the top 8 caring enough to go to a specific event with 8 people, let alone any spectators. You might get a few.. but if it's rolled into the Hangover, people who are in the top 8 will probably already be in town, and people outside the top 8 may even be more keen to stick around for the Sunday to watch whilst having some Goatdown fun or whatever. However in fairness I accept that you're in a better position to judge this with your Scrabble background, Co-event hosting and attendance and general real-life competitive word game deity status.

[Jon O'Neill]

You could get the top 8 to chip in the £75 it would cost on average to get to another event and pay Mark Deeks £600 to drop them all home in his minivan.

[Jon O'Neill]

Actually give him 575 and I'll take the rest as a commission for having this fucking amazing idea.

[Mark Deeks]

You could get the top 8 to chip in the £75 it would cost on average to get to another event and pay Mark Deeks £600 to drop them all home in his minivan.

This will work as long as the top 8 all live within reasonable distance of a funny place name.

[JimBentley]

Actually give him 575 and I'll take the rest as a commission for having this fucking amazing idea.

I can beat that price easily. Using my revolutionary system, I'll get all eight home for HALF what you're quoting, yes you heard right folks, HALF that price. That's three hundred quid for the eight, all in, and no commission for Jono.

This is absolutely nothing like the Velvet Underground track "The Gift", by the way, and anyone suggesting that I got my revolutionary idea from that track is lying.

[Jon O'Neill]

Actually give him 575 and I'll take the rest as a commission for having this fucking amazing idea.

I can beat that price easily. Using my revolutionary system, I'll get all eight home for HALF what you're quoting, yes you heard right folks, HALF that price. That's three hundred quid for the eight, all in, and no commission for Jono.

This is absolutely nothing like the Velvet Underground track "The Gift", by the way, and anyone suggesting that I got my revolutionary idea from that track is lying.

I've had my skull cut open by a saw at Co-events one time too many times to fall for this shit again.

[Chris Marshall]

A win is a win and won't be easy however many participants there are. Give 100 points for the winner as a base.

Then, based on number of participants, the rest of the points can be calculated. If there are 50 people, go for 98, 96, 94 etc. If there are 10 people, go for 90, 80, 70 etc. This keeps it relatively simple.

An event for all pre the main finale sounds a good idea.

[Jon Corby]

before I retired from these sort of events.

You just sent me on a mad panic to check your name was on the COLIN 2015 list. What did you mean by this?

[Mike Brown]

Sadly it looks like Edinburgh is not a goer for this year but I'll gladly put forward King's Lynn for next year if that's acceptable. Hoping to announce the 2015 event for KL shortly.

[George Pryn]

GREAT idea!!!

[Matt Bayfield]

Gevin and Jon: to answer your queries above, I retired from Co:events after CoBliviLon 2013, and moved on to playing games which use other dictionaries. I didn't make an announcement, although I thought people may have worked that after 3 years of me barely missing an event, last year's Lincoln was the only event I've attended from the last 9.

I'm still planning to play at COLIN this month, will still play in any of Ben's apterous Masters tournaments (whether by invitation or by trying to qualify), and would like to continue to attend occasional Co events where I can, because - well - they're fun, and I also think it's important to support the hard work the organisers put in. But my priorities have changed and my competitive Co event days are over.

Right, back to topic, folks.

[Rhys Benjamin]

Personally, I think that overcomplicating things won't help at all.

Not ALL tournaments will automatically be part of the tour - it's up to each individual tournament organiser to decide whether they wish to be a part of it, and we'd make every effort to make sure a tour event would in no way clash with another tournament.

Definitely agree with this, although I would slightly redo this in that organisers should be allowed to opt-in to the tour, unless I'm misinterpreting this altogether.

Either I'm committing a huge oversight here or what was ever wrong with a typical Championship-style points system, rather than algorithms based on number of contestants? Surely something like 12-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2 for the top 10, with 1 point given to people for turning up?

What we do at Tube Challenge (and I say the next bit with caution), is that we do something similar to this: six mini-events across a Sept-July year, using the following points system: 12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, no matter how many people turn up. On occasion you get four entrants, sometimes you can have 14, but the points system stays the same. Best five results of the six count to the Championship (this is not something I encourage) and points are totted up and the BERC (Bernie Ecclestone of the Random 15 Championship) gives out the prizes at a low-budget prize-giving ceremony in a pub in London the day after our biggest event of the year* (the Zone One challenge, organised by the BOZO, the Big Organiser of the Zone One event).

*Soon to be eclipsed by FART - the Fantastic August Race around the Tube, organised by the FARTER, the Fantastic August Race around the Tube Event Referee.

[Zarte Siempre]

Thank you for all the feedback to this - it's been enlightening.

I think there are 4 main things to be drawn from this so far, and so I'll list some further thinking.

1) The overall enthusiasm for the idea is really promising. I would say there is enough in this that it will be probably be pursued further, and I'm very glad of this.

2) People have varying ideas about the scoring system. We decided on a scoring model that we thought would combine the abilities for those who had a couple of strong performances over a yearly period, with people who did consistently fairly well over a greater number of tournaments who continue to provide constant willingness and support for these events. We didn't want a situation where tournament winners and runners-up alone were the only people likely to be in with a shot at making the final event. This is something we stick by very strongly. That being said, I will be using the various models suggested over the course of this week and running the results from 2014 through them in order to see which models seem to most encourage the balance we were looking for.

3) There seems less of a willingness in people's mind to travel to a showpiece event, even if tied into an end-of-year gathering than I'd expected. So what all of the organisers who've put their names to the Co:Tour have been able to agree on is the following idea:

The final showpiece would be tied into an event for all other players as well. The final 8 would all still receive free entry to their event, whilst other players would be charged a small fee (perhaps £5). The room would be laid out Bristol style, with rows of tables, but one table would be front and centre. The tournament for the paying players would be a 6-match league, with the winner being the top of this league after those games are completed. During each of those 6 games, one of the QFs/SFs of the Tour Final would be being played. The final would then be the spectacle at the end of this day.

We're also considering the idea that this background event could also carry points for the following season's table. This would create the interesting dynamic of allowing people who may not usually have the highest chances of competing in individual tournaments, the chance to get a little leg-up into the next year. It has been recognised that the top 8 may view this as unfair, but my hope would be that those likely to make the finals, would a) appreciate the challenge but b) also have faith in their ability to overcome this. We would definitely like feedback on this idea though.

4) Concerns have been expressed about the over-saturation of the calendar. I can entirely understand this notion, that people feel that there might be too many events, and too many places to travel, but the response to that is that we're setting this up with the aim of spreading the events out as much possible in geographical terms in order to accommodate as many people as possible. Admittedly, this does rely somewhat on having people willing to organise in key areas, but that is the ultimate aim. On top of this, if Lincoln and the Hangover end up being marked as 2 different events, or if people are willing to go with the second part of point 3 of this post, or even if the events happening this year for the first time become regular fixtures, and are willing to join the tour schedule, the end result is that we're not adding very much to the calendar at all.

But once again, I'd just like to say thank you for all the feedback - the final form of this idea will probably not be decided for a few months yet, but the overriding feeling of enthusiasm for at least the base idea is definitely making this seem like a goer in some form or another.

[Zarte Siempre]

Definitely agree with this, although I would slightly redo this in that organisers should be allowed to opt-in to the tour, unless I'm misinterpreting this altogether.

You're misinterpreting this altogether - event organisers are being asked on an individual basis, and have been reassured that if they have existing established slots on the calendar and don't wish to be involved, those spots will be left well alone.

[Tony Atkins]

COREA is entirely for charity, so unless someone donates the cost of the levy it will not be part of this Grand Prix circuit.
Volunteers to cover the cost, anyone?

[Zarte Siempre]

We figured that would most likely be the case, Tony

[Matt Morrison]

I have read all posts, but don't want to scan back through - if I recall correctly the "we" behind this idea has not been mentioned.
Surely names can only bolster the momentum behind the idea?

[Zarte Siempre]

I have read all posts, but don't want to scan back through - if I recall correctly the "we" behind this idea has not been mentioned.
Surely names can only bolster the momentum behind the idea?

Ah yes, that's quite true. It was intentional to begin with, as we weren't sure where quite where Mike was at with Edinburgh/King's Lynn, however this would currently cover both JR/Jeff events in 2016, Lincoln from Ben, with the possibility of both the Hangover and a 2nd unique event being included (i.e. 3 separate ones towards the tour potentially), Mike's tournament that will hopefully be starting in King's Lynn, and hopefully, the 2nd running of the event I'm hoping to get off the ground this year.

So yes, potentially there could be 7 events on the calendar before we've even taken into account the possibility of Bristol and Glasgow having 2nd runnings next year and wishing to be a part of it.

[Gavin Chipper]

We're also considering the idea that this background event could also carry points for the following season's table. This would create the interesting dynamic of allowing people who may not usually have the highest chances of competing in individual tournaments, the chance to get a little leg-up into the next year. It has been recognised that the top 8 may view this as unfair, but my hope would be that those likely to make the finals, would a) appreciate the challenge but b) also have faith in their ability to overcome this. We would definitely like feedback on this idea though.

I'd probably say that this is unnecessary and would detract from the fact that it's supposed to be a measure of the best players over the year. An all-out handicap competition where everyone knows it's not just about how good you are is one thing, but a skill-based competition but with this added on seems neither one thing nor the other.

[Ben Wilson]

Over the past couple of days there's been some private discussion on the topic of the tour and the general consensus is that it will go ahead. The scoring mechanism isn't finalised yet but of the ones that have been trialled the same names do crop up on most of the leaderboards. People are already laying claim to dates for events in 2016- most of which will appear on the tour- but there's still room for more. If you've always wanted to host an event but never had the time or found the prospect too daunting, there'll be a thread in this forum after COLIN that you may be interested in.

[Matthew Tassier]

I'm imagining a Countdown/Co:Event co-sanctioned "Unofficial Countdown World Championship" hosted in the Countdown studios and being broadcast as the first 7 Countdown episodes every January. Top 6 from the tour plus the two series champions from the programme.
Am I mad?

[Adam Gillard]

Hi Zarte & co.,

I like the sound of the series of events with a showpiece finale, especially if it can be incorporated into a Sunday event like the Hangover (that's for selfish reasons, so I can attend)! I'm one of those rare weirdos who's happy just to spectate and mingle if it comes to that.

One thing that occurred to me is that it might be useful to use the French community (des Chiffres et des Lettres) as a case study (dos and don'ts) for expansion of Co:Events. I don't know what they do exactly, but from what Rémi has said in the past it sounds like it's much bigger than the UK Co:Events are currently, with hundreds of events per year.

this would currently cover both JR/Jeff events in 2016

I only know this from hearsay and being largely an outsider to it all I'm not afraid of shit-stirring here - hasn't Jeff banned a lot of people from his events in the past? Could there be any bad blood / disagreements between the various organisers / potential attendees? On the plus side, the fact that you're already putting your heads together to plan for a 2016 calendar of events indicates that there must already be a decent level of cooperation and organisation here!

I would agree if it was just an event that everyone would just piss off from, but it has felt like there is more willingness from Countdowners in general to meet in non-Countdowny circumstances, so if it was partially tournament and partially a bit of a shindig, I'd be hopeful that a fair few people would attend.

I like the idea of shindiggery with or without Countdown being played as well. My main reason for coming to Co:Events is to make / renew acquaintances with the other Countdown geeks. I see the shindig side of things as more likely to be local unofficial meet-ups though, with no entry fees. I can see how it might be useful and informative to enshrine this in an annual calendar of events if that's the way things are moving though.

[Zarte Siempre]

Hi Adam, thanks for the reply.

To begin with, it does unfortunately look like almost all the events would need to take place on a Saturday - from what we've seen, the combination of people having work the next day and transport being invariably more precarious on Sundays means that apart from the odd event like the Hangover here and there, it's just not that feasible to run multiple ones on that day unfortunately.

The good thing about having Jeff on board is that he has experience of the French way of doing things, and some of the ideas that have come out of our conversations have been along those lines - he's also aiming to set up some dialogues with one of the more personable tournament organisers over there to try and get some ideas that we may not yet have had ourselves.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't anyone banned from Jeff's events these days, though I will discuss this with him. I'm aware that he's not on the best of terms with some people, but I don't think that's going to be an issue.

The idea will inevitably evolve further over the coming months as we get ideas from other people, and have fresh ones of our own, but it does now look like we'll combine the finals with an event for other people in its own right - this means people can watch the end of the year unfold, but without just sitting around if they don't want to

[Zarte Siempre]

Also - non-related to Adam's post - we're planning on keeping a track of how 2015 would look if it was being run as part of the tour in order to give us a better idea of the finalised scoring system to be used (though we're pretty sure we know what we like).

Apologies if any of the last 2 posts make little sense, I have a flu bug and it's making my brain a bit of a non-starter.