**The Apterous Olympics 2012 (Fri 11th May-Thu 26th July)**
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 8:36 pm
Last June I thought about creating an Apterous-style series of tournaments to commemorate the London Olympics which are now a little over 3 months away. In August/September of last year I held a 9-day mini-series of tournaments and it quickly became clear that the original plan to host 149 tournaments across 30 weeks was way too ambitious.
That said, there will still be an Apterous Olympics which will start 4 weeks from now on Friday 11th May and will continue every other evening until the eve of the real Olympics on Thursday 26th July. This much scaled-down version of the original idea will still incorporate every format that Apterous has to offer - in the real Olympics there are 26 sports which break down into 39 disciplines so our version of the Olympics will cover all 39 formats, including the recently added Nice and Latin formats.
Each tournament will start at 8pm and be played in real time meaning that all participants will be playing simultaneously. Recent spot tournaments have shown that the double-elimination method works very well - it creates a second chance for everyone and also throws up a definite 1st, 2nd and 3rd place at the end of the tournament (or virtual gold, silver and bronze medallists).
When the original idea was raised many players liked the idea of competing for a "team" - this will be incorporated into the series, and players who join a tournament for the first time will be assigned a team at random from one of the 8 best-finishing nations from the last Olympics (China, USA, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, South Korea and Japan). Players will stay in these teams for the duration of the series. This means you can still cheer on your fellow team-mates even if you have lost early in a tournament or haven't been able to make it. There will be no restrictions on the amount of players who can enter a tournament - you can enter as many or as few as you like.
Full results and virtual medals tables will be updated via a dedicated external website which will keep you updated with how each team and individual is faring. The virtual medal tables are a fun diversion which will accompany the series but I'm excited to reveal that ACTUAL gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded to the top 3 finishing players in the individual virtual medal table. When I say "actual" I mean they're medals made of metal with the appearance of gold, silver and bronze (I'm not THAT rich!) - unfortunately there is no chocolate inside but they're pretty weighty and come with a proper ribbon so that you can wear it with (hopefully) pride. The top 3 finishing players will be ranked by number of "golds" won first, then by "silvers", then by "bronzes" - in the event of a tie for virtual medals at the end of the series then those players will play off to determine where the real medals go.
Whether you're a hardened regular who loves all the formats, or a specialist who fancies their chances at certain events, there should be something for everyone. So when are these tournaments? Click on the link below which will take you to the dedicated website which lists the dates for each tournament. This will be the website which will be updated after each tournament with the latest results/medals:
Click here for the website which will accompany the series - it's a little bare at the moment but will fill in nicely once the series gets underway
Thanks for listening and I hope to see you all playing very soon,
Marcus
That said, there will still be an Apterous Olympics which will start 4 weeks from now on Friday 11th May and will continue every other evening until the eve of the real Olympics on Thursday 26th July. This much scaled-down version of the original idea will still incorporate every format that Apterous has to offer - in the real Olympics there are 26 sports which break down into 39 disciplines so our version of the Olympics will cover all 39 formats, including the recently added Nice and Latin formats.
Each tournament will start at 8pm and be played in real time meaning that all participants will be playing simultaneously. Recent spot tournaments have shown that the double-elimination method works very well - it creates a second chance for everyone and also throws up a definite 1st, 2nd and 3rd place at the end of the tournament (or virtual gold, silver and bronze medallists).
When the original idea was raised many players liked the idea of competing for a "team" - this will be incorporated into the series, and players who join a tournament for the first time will be assigned a team at random from one of the 8 best-finishing nations from the last Olympics (China, USA, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, South Korea and Japan). Players will stay in these teams for the duration of the series. This means you can still cheer on your fellow team-mates even if you have lost early in a tournament or haven't been able to make it. There will be no restrictions on the amount of players who can enter a tournament - you can enter as many or as few as you like.
Full results and virtual medals tables will be updated via a dedicated external website which will keep you updated with how each team and individual is faring. The virtual medal tables are a fun diversion which will accompany the series but I'm excited to reveal that ACTUAL gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded to the top 3 finishing players in the individual virtual medal table. When I say "actual" I mean they're medals made of metal with the appearance of gold, silver and bronze (I'm not THAT rich!) - unfortunately there is no chocolate inside but they're pretty weighty and come with a proper ribbon so that you can wear it with (hopefully) pride. The top 3 finishing players will be ranked by number of "golds" won first, then by "silvers", then by "bronzes" - in the event of a tie for virtual medals at the end of the series then those players will play off to determine where the real medals go.
Whether you're a hardened regular who loves all the formats, or a specialist who fancies their chances at certain events, there should be something for everyone. So when are these tournaments? Click on the link below which will take you to the dedicated website which lists the dates for each tournament. This will be the website which will be updated after each tournament with the latest results/medals:
Click here for the website which will accompany the series - it's a little bare at the moment but will fill in nicely once the series gets underway
Thanks for listening and I hope to see you all playing very soon,
Marcus