Cakebowl 9, Swindon, June 8/9 2019

[sann0638]

Hi all,

Unfortunately due to parking issues last year, there will be a charge of £5 per day for parking, very sorry about that. Hopefully between car sharers and those staying in hotels this won't be too much of an issue.
There is a limit of 50 attendees, so we should be ok with current numbers, but obviously payment guarantees a place.
Final numbers by end of May please!

Cakebowl returns! A week later to avoid the Tabletop Expo. Skills the same, cost the same, slight tweak to scoring to avoid too much disruption of WLD primacy, but keeping the gist.

Full details here: http://sawbbl.uk/wordpress/?page_id=181

Signup list here: http://sawbbl.uk/wordpress/?page_id=187

Previous wording:

I'm going to keep the skill and team choice fundamentally the same, but adjust the scoring to make bonus points less important. Heartsbane came close to upsetting the apple cart! Current thinking is 4/2/0, with a bonus point for a "major" win by 2 or more TDs, then Opponent Score as first tie breaker.

[Joemanji]

I'm going to keep the skill and team choice fundamentally the same, but adjust the scoring to make bonus points less important. Heartsbane came close to upsetting the apple ct!ar

Current thinking is 4/2/0, with a bonus point for a "major" win by 2 or more TDs, then Opponent Score as first tie breaker.

For the record, in reality I don't think this achieve what you may want it to achieve. For example, major wins are much harder to come by for slow teams and so you may skew the field towards the more agile races. If you want to encourage team diversity, something you often mention, making the scoring system as flat as possible is a more effective tool.

Also, it just isn't really rewarding what I think you/we are trying to reward. For example, who deserves more points of the following three coaches:

Coach A plays a coach in his first tournament who is using Ogres. He wins 3-0, 5-1.
Coach B plays a coach using the same race as him. His opponent snake eyes his TD, then quad skulls on defence. Coach B wins 2-0, 1-1.
Coach C is using Amazons and plays the best coach in the world who has Chaos Dwarfs. He deservedly wins 1-0, 0-4.

[sann0638]

Fair enough. Discussion welcome!

I might consider for example a complicated formula of multiplying Opponent Score by something if you beat them by more TDs...

[lunchmoney]

Will be part of the SWTC 2019

[Hobnail]

Fair enough. Discussion welcome!

I might consider for example a complicated formula of multiplying Opponent Score by something if you beat them by more TDs...

Why don't you just make it 100/50/0 with the bonus points the same as it always has been?

That way, the bonus points will spread the field as was presumably always intended without impacting on WDL orders. With SOS breaking ties.

[Wotfudboy]

To encourage team/race diversity, offer a bonus X points before game 1 for the coach that picks a unique race for the tournament... and/or minus points if you are one of coaches that bring the same race as Y% as everyone else...

[Dionysian]

I obv agree with Joe. Major wins suffer the same problems as other bonus points. It sounds like a nice idea to give extra points for a dominant victory, but in practice what you actually end up rewarding is plum draws rather than superior play.

I expect it's too avant-garde for your tastes but there's a funky new system all the cool kids are trying. What you do is give 2 points to the winner (share them 1 each between the two coaches in the event of a draw)... and that's it.

[Heartsbane]

Heartsbane came close to upsetting the apple cart!

Sorry, not sorry.

But yes, my placing definitely surpassed where it should have been, and I'd have been a little embarrassed had I finished above Joe who not only had a better record than me but who'd also won our head to head match. Thanks to Ceetee for sparing me that by giving my team a good hard beatdown in game 6!

Bonus points by their nature reward something other than just winning. If you want to increase diversity, then probably best not to have them. However, you've not actually said you want to do that, nor do I think it necessarily a good idea. Cake is a remarkably bashy tourney, and it would be a perfectly valid choice to use bonus points to reinforce that, perhaps giving bonus points for inflicting cas and KOs, and maybe for conceding especially few tds? However, even as a beneficiary of how bonus points were this year, I'd still support scaling up the win/ draw points to reduce the impact of the bonus points.

Oh, and you can definitely put me on the interested list. I had a great time and am keen to come back for more (both bb and cake)!

[Hobnail]

I obv agree with Joe. Major wins suffer the same problems as other bonus points. It sounds like a nice idea to give extra points for a dominant victory, but in practice what you actually end up rewarding is plum draws rather than superior play.

I expect it's too avant-garde for your tastes but there's a funky new system all the cool kids are trying. What you do is give 2 points to the winner (share them 1 each between the two coaches in the event of a draw)... and that's it.

Yea. Lets suck all the variety out of the tournament scene. Good skills.

[Hobnail]

Btw Mike, put me down as a definite whichever way you decide to jump.

[Joemanji]

Yea. Lets suck all the variety out of the tournament scene. Good skills.

Just trying to help Mike not do something by accident. If he does it on purpose that’s fine.

[Hobnail]

Yea. Lets suck all the variety out of the tournament scene. Good skills.

Just trying to help Mike not do something by accident. If he does it on purpose that’s fine.

No I know I wasnt having a pop at you; just Dio who is used to me being mean to him.

Its not that I am against 2/1/0 in any way. Just that the scoring system might be part of the reason Cake has always flourished. Although i do agree that inferior records shouldnt be beating inferior ones (i hope ur reading Hawk!)

Please dont fix it too much Mike

[Dionysian]

Yea. Lets suck all the variety out of the tournament scene. Good skills.

I'm mainly ribbing Mike whose calculation skills on the Sunday didn't seem to be coping well in the aftermath of Saturday night.

Also your own idea was equivalent to 2/1/0 non-SOS!

The "variety" argument doesn't hold water either:

30 ranked UK tourneys so far this year.
Only 8* of which have used 2/1/0 (or equivalent).

*This includes all the inferior ( ) tiebreak options and not just 2/1/0 SOS. It also includes a team tournament.

That's hardly a lack of variety and if one does feel scoring systems are becoming too homogenised the prevalent 3/1/0 type tourneys should be the target of one's ire. The 2/1/0 (or equiv) tourneys certainly aren't the ones impinging on variety.

Besides which Cake would be special regardless of scoring system due to the skills package.

Mike can obv do what he wants and we'll likely all attend.

[Angry Hobbit]

I will turn up regardless of the system, probably with something I haven't used before. Unless - you make double skills 1 point for flings then I can have blodging/wrestle flings with blocking trees.
(you might do the same for the other stunties but I don't insist)

[sann0638]

Nah, no changes to skilling. Joe's absolutely right, I do want to encourage variety and there were not enough touchdowns this year! Heartsbane deserved to be rewarded for his