COOT '08 - Final and 3rd-place playoff *tonight* from 8!

[Jon O'Neill]

Yep, it's nearly over. Here is the schedule for the final weekend of COOTy fun:

Friday, 18th July. 6.30pm - COOT Plate Final: Jon O'Neill vs. Matt Coates

Sunday, 20th July. 8.00pm - COOT 3rd Place Play-Off: Ben Wilson vs. Kirk Bevins
Sunday, 20th July. 9.00pm - COOT Final: Julian Fell vs. Damian Eadie

None of those games are to be missed so make sure you're on MSN to give everyone your utmost support!

[Howard Somerset]

Regrettably I'll be away (again!) for the weekend, and will certainly miss Friday's game, and most likely Sunday's games too.

So, best of luck to all six competitors, and thanks Jono for organising a most enjoyable competition.

I look forward to reading the reports when I get home on Monday.

[Matt Coates]

really looking forward to it, im working on my 4 lg technique

[Richard Priest]

Good luck to all 6 who are in action, got a lot going on at home at the moment (renovations that is) so not sure I can watch but will do my best.

Thanks too to Jon for organising a great tournament.Really enjoyed it.It was interesting to play Howard and Charlie because with them not having been on the show yet and me being new to the online scene they were both unknown quantities to me. Enjoyed the challenge of playing Julian too and watching the other games.

[Matthew Green]

Yeah its been good. Why dont you set up a darts-style Superleague? You could havedivisions, promotion and relegation etc.

[JasonCullen]

Yeah its been good. Why dont you set up a darts-style Superleague? You could havedivisions, promotion and relegation etc.

I agree Matt . It would also give all players a chance to play more than two games and will prolong the enjoyment of playing online

[Michael Wallace]

Has a ladder system been tried before? I don't know if we have enough players/interest for one to work, but it's another way of letting everyone get lots of games in.

[Jon O'Neill]

It's been discussed before, and we decided that the best idea was a ratings system, which Charlie wrote.

http://www.sooreams.com/cd/ratings.asp

[Ben Wilson]

Way back in 2003 a league was attempted but deemed to be impractical. I recently tried a similar thing in the Scrabbling world, which equally died on its arse.

The 2003 thing, incidentally, was kind of hampered by my internet connection dying for a straight 7 month period. No, I'm not joking.

Following the success of JOLT and near-success of COLT, I think the general consensus is that standalone tourneys based on the ratings list would be the best way to go. A league might work nowadays, but we'd have to keep divisions small and seasons short- which, in essence, would make it little more than a COOT but with more games

[Julian Fell]

Yes a league's a nice idea in theory, but in practice it doesn't work, people get bored of it after a month or two and stop playing their games, and it peters out. I don't think it would be any different if it were tried again now. Online tournaments have got to be short and sharp so you can see what you're aiming for, so that there's 'light at the end of the tunnel', and that way the interest is kept up.

As long as there are fairly frequent knockout tournaments, each with a Plate competition for those who lose early on, I think that gives more than ample opportunity for people to compete (alongside the real-life events, which mustn't be forgotten). In 'my day' there wasn't any of this - if you wanted a bit of practice before you went on the show, you got a board game and played against your mum and dad!

Would like to add my thanks to Jono for organizing this COOT - I know from experience that it isn't easy running an online competition, and he's had a lot to deal with, with people dropping out / not being available etc., I think you've done it really well Jono.

Ben and Kirk - I might have to miss the 3rd-place playoff, hope you won't be offended; I just think staring at a computer screen for an hour before my game wouldn't be the best preparation for facing the maestro Damian!

[Martin Gardner]

I was thinking of trying a Euro 2008-style tournament with 8 groups of 3 people, with players playing the other two people in their group, meaning of course that everybody gets 2 games minimum. The two non-qualifiers could then play in the plate and there would be eight qualifiers for the quarter-finals. This time next week I will be in France for a total of 25 days so if someone wants to organise a tournament before that, that would be a great idea.

Martin

Oh and of course, thanks to Jono for host a well-organised tournament.

[Charlie Reams]

I was thinking of trying a Euro 2008-style tournament with 8 groups of 3 people, with players playing the other two people in their group, meaning of course that everybody gets 2 games minimum.

That's a pretty good idea. But we could easily wait til you get back from France; there's no hurry to organise another tournament, and you need to give people a while to get their enthusiasm back.

[Matthew Green]

Corby, if you fancy an unofficial Plate 3rd place play off tonight then Im up for it. Could be a warm up for the final if youre online at 5ish?

[James Hurrell]

Back from hols and just caught up on the games. I will try to be there for the final tomorrow. Disappointed I was unable to play my game (though I think it would have needed more than a Corby 'off day' for me to have progressed). I would be more happy to participate in any online league/ladder/tournament in the future, just so long as my MSN behaves. It seems to have problems if there are more then 3/4 on line at once!

[Charlie Reams]

Have taken the liberty of changing the title in order to remind anyone who may have forgotten (especially the contestants.)

[Matt Coates]

good luck everyone, sorry i cant watch i will read the recaps when i get back.

prediction: Damian to win on a crucial conundrum

[JasonCullen]

Regrettably, I will not be able to witness the highly-anticipated COOT final between Julian and Damian because I have got a family tie that I cannot get out of (after much resistance) . But I will be able to host ben vs Kirk as planned at 8pm however I will be pushed for time.

So I kindly ask Ben and Kirk to arrive slightly before 8pm (if possible) so that the game will not be too rushed for all concerned . If there are any problems, either post them here or leave my an offline message on msn.

Much appreciated and I look forward to the play off match later on .

EDIT; Julian to win outright

[Kirk Bevins]

Regrettably, I will not be able to witness the highly-anticipated COOT final between Julian and Damian because I have got a family tie that I cannot get out of (after much resistance) . But I will be able to host ben vs Kirk as planned at 8pm however I will be pushed for time.

So I kindly ask Ben and Kirk to arrive slightly before 8pm (if possible) so that the game will not be too rushed for all concerned . If there are any problems, either post them here or leave my an offline message on msn.

Much appreciated and I look forward to the play off match later on .

EDIT; Julian to win outright

No problem mate. I'm on MSN all day.

[Charlie Reams]

Regrettably, I will not be able to witness the highly-anticipated COOT final between Julian and Damian because I have got a family tie that I cannot get out of (after much resistance) .

Unlucky mate. I will make sure there's a recap ASAP.

[JasonCullen]

Cheers Charlie and Kirk

[Ben Pugh]

I give up trying to watch the two games, my computer has something against COOT and so is freezing every time I try to get into the conversation. Sorry to Ben Wilson for wasting your time.

[Jon O'Neill]

Results from tonight:

COOT Third place play-off
Ben Wilson 95-105 Kirk Bevins, settled by a fourth conundrum!

COOT Final
Julian Fell 119-100 Damian Eadie, another crucial conundrum!

Congratulations Julian

[Julian Fell]

I was thinking of trying a Euro 2008-style tournament with 8 groups of 3 people, with players playing the other two people in their group, meaning of course that everybody gets 2 games minimum. The two non-qualifiers could then play in the plate and there would be eight qualifiers for the quarter-finals. This time next week I will be in France for a total of 25 days so if someone wants to organise a tournament before that, that would be a great idea.

As Charlie said, you need to leave a bit of time between this COOT and the next one, but that's an interesting idea - though you'd be unlikely to get exactly 24 participants; I suppose some groups could just have two players in them, and for those players the group stage would effectively be a knockout round.

The problem with group stages is that it means many more games to play before you can move on to the next round - some people will get all their group games played in double-quick time and be sitting twiddling their thumbs for weeks while they wait for the more dilatory groups to finish. You'd have to keep a really tight schedule so as to stop the tournament drifting and people losing interest (or playing their quarter-finals, semi-finals etc. before others have even finished the first round, which I think is what happened in COOT 3).

I'm not trying to knock your idea, just pointing out the potential difficulties - I had 3-person groups in the first round of my online tournament; that had only 12 participants altogether and I just about managed to get all the games played, but it was a stress. So you'd need to be well organized, and ruthless with people who're taking too long to play their games.

As long as you are though, I do quite like the idea of group stages - means people get more games each, plus it's more of an achievement to win the whole competition

[JasonCullen]

Err....what Julian said