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| ajflanagan
- 07 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 509
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There has been some discussion in other threads about player classifications and how they should play into tournament seeding as they have in the past. Currently, the USAA doesn't define any classifications such as Novice, Expert, Pro or Ultra-Pro. Those are terms that have been used in the past, but many players today don't really know what they mean.
Just a quick history lesson... many of those titles were subjectively applied to players without any math or logical reasoning behind it.
Players often confuse these classification titles with their handicap level in local weekly tournaments. They are not one in the same. Playing as a level 4 in a weekly does not make you a "Pro" by default. Traditionally, one becomes a "Pro" by finishing in the "Pro A or Pro B" bracket of a major tournament. In the last few Houston majors, the field of "Pros" has been relatively large and a "Pro C" bracket was named. The irony is, those titles only exist because the event producers use them in their pricing and awards structures.
Confusing, I know.
What makes things even more confusing is the lack of sanctioning standards by the USAA. Someone can hold a "world championship" event with 30 player, regardless of the field of true masters in that event, and the top 10 finishers are still masters. Then someone else can come along and hold a "world championship" with 100 or more players with a field of 20 or more players who have proven to be masters, and only the top 10 will walk away as masters. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. In my humble opinion, if you're a master, you're a master. You can't really master something and then un-master it, can you?
By the way, you might be asking what the heck is a master anyway?
In the Summer of 2009 the USAA did discuss this topic and voted to officially recognize the title "Master" as being the current top 10 ranked players in the USAA ranking system. I know that because I was at the meeting. So, at this point in time, "Master" is the only title that that USAA has published as an official classification title.
So...
Do we need skill level classifications?
(cont'd...)
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| ajflanagan
- 07 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 509
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The way tournaments have traditionally been managed, some sort of classification system is very beneficial to tourney producers in order to have a tiered entry fee system as well as uniform bracket terminology.
The rating system that is currently in provisional use by the USAA provides an awesome, mathematic, systematic, hyyyyydromatic way to define players' relative skill levels. With some simple lines in the sand, the ratings can also easily define what a "pro" is or what an "expert" is. This is the direction the system seem to be heading and with a few tweaks, I think we'll be there soon.
HOWEVER
I'm personally not a huge fan of the way we traditionally manage tournaments. We have a pretty large field of players right now and a wide range of skill levels. I don't think the top percentage of players should be facing off against the bottom percentage of players for the same prizes. What does it prove to have a player like Danny Hynes face off against a player like Adam Accrocco in a World Championship singles event? Also, as the sport continues to grow, the traditional "open singles" double elim format is not going to function well. It's already difficult to manage with 100+ players.
It's a tough sell to newbies... Come one, come all! Play in our tournament and get your face smashed in and your ego completely destroyed by the best air hockey players in the world. We'll make sure you don't walk, but RUN away crying and never come back. Oh and give me $20 too. We'll give you a free t-shirt.
Like I said. It's a tough sell.
I am a proponent of some sort of qualifier or minimum requirements for entry into the World Championship singles event... not an OPEN singles. It's an evolution in thought. The Goalgrinder 500 is the first step toward showing the player base that we do care about the newbies and up-and-comers and want to give them something realistic to shoot for and win! In the future, I think it would be ok for hundreds of players to come in and fight for a championship in a true open, point spot event like the GG500. After that, the best of the best battle it out in a smaller format World Championship singles event.
Most importantly, players need to try and keep an open mind. Everything and everyone is constantly evolving. Change is constant. Things (and people) can change for the better. I know that promoters are working hard to do what they think is best for the players and for the sport so you can have WORLD CLASS events to play in every year. There are always going to be those whose sole purpose is to try and destroy everything that is good and right in the world. The rest of us have to just put our head down and push on.
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| ajflanagan
- 07 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 509
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I am really looking forward to the Goalgrinder 500 this year. This is a brand new event format for the World Championships and we hope the players really love it. It's going to be an awesome event and incredibly exciting to think that ANYONE can win it! The format is going to be just like our Houston weekly events... fast paced and action packed! In 2012, we have had 16 different weekly winners and 28 different top 4 finishers in 27 weekly events. That shows how wide open this thing truly is!
There are only 64 spots in this first ever World Championship event. At this moment, 42 of those spots are spoken for. When the event fills up, that's it... you'll have to wait until next year!
Register online now for only $20 at http://www.airhockeyworldevents.com
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| airhockeymarc
- 07 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 129
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| Great job Andrew, that's your best statement yet.
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| tableman
- 08 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 690
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The Goalgrinder is similar to the coin-op dart and pool tournaments/league events which are strictly handicapped and/or divided by classification. Those are fun for players and "anyone" can win. But in those events, Pro's are either banned or handicapped such that they have no advantage.
Those coin-op leagues/tournaments do not try to determine the best players in the world. In fact, as I said, some (like VNEA) actually ban professionals. In contrast, our USAA Worlds/Nationals are deliberately trying to determine the best players in the world, thus are open to all and non-handicapped.
I can see a place in the future for large handicapped events. Maybe that will grow AH. But there always haas to be tournaments open to the very best players to determine a World Champion and the top players.
Mark
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| Mike C
- 08 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 459
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I can see a place in the future for large handicapped events. Maybe that will grow AH. But there always haas to be tournaments open to the very best players to determine a World Champion and the top players.
Mark |
The Goalgrinder event is not designed to replace the World Championship. It's designed to bring in more players and to enhance the Airhockey experience for the players. The future is now. We've been having weekly handicapped tournaments for years here in Houston thanks to Brian A that on average equate to players in the 20s and 40s per week.
To use the Golf analogy - many tournaments have a ProAm at the beginning of the week to enhance the tournament and bring out more spectators. The ProAm is not going to replace the main event. The best players still play on Sunday!
We brought in the Youth Tournament to Sunday last year so as to create a new event, and to enhance the airhockey experience by bringing out more spectators to watch the Main Events top 16 players play, ie the best Air Hockey Players in the world. In the past, the Sunday event would include the 16 players and their families and a few other fans. Last year we added another 30 or 40 people to watch the best players play in the finals.
This team is working hard to create the best airhockey experience for the players and spectators. New ideas are being explored and tried. As promoters of the game of airhockey that is the goal! Good job Andrew.
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| TWeissman
- 08 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 210
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I agree that player skill classifications are currently misunderstood. Further, they are still applied haphazardly and with bias. Take for example the Houston weekly tournaments. Players are moved up all the time without any formal structure or set of guidelines, making it very subjective.
Without trying to sound like the old guy, in my day, we had procedures for promotion. In the 80's and early 90's the classifications were this:
Beginner
Novice
Amateur
Expert
Pro
Ultra-Pro/Master
Grandmaster
In the 90's it was formalized in the USAA that the term Master was simply an Honorary Title and NOT reresentative of your skill classification. So, we stopped using it and instead used Ultra-Pro for that level. This was because many people have finished Master once or twice, but are far from being "Masters." Seedings and low turnouts play a large role in that.
These classifications were changed by local organizers in the later 90's to be simple numbers -
0 - Beginner
1 - Novice
2 - Amateur
3 - Expert
4 - Pro
5 - Ultra-Pro/Master
6 - Grandmaster
The local weekly tournament organizer had the authority to promote players that WON at least 1 tournament up to Amateur (or 2). To promote a player any higher required a discussion and vote at the monthly local USAA Chapter meeting. This vote was public and recorded. It meant that players were not just moved up on a whim or because of personal desire by someone with authority. Discussion by the whole group at a formal meeting gave this structure and more objectivity. There was no "my tournament, my rules" mentality to it.
In my opinion, if organizers want to actively promote large-scale handicapped tournaments, then there better be more objective guidelines for determining skill levels. I promise you if you start giving away any significant money at handicapped events, there are going to be big controversies surrounding what skill levels people are set at.
Ratings are one way to do this, but currently the ratings are too underfunded with data. Plus, you have goofy things like the +1 rule affecting it, and improper K-values for the specific sets of qualified contests. I can certainly see a time in a few years when the ratings could be standardized enough to be used for classifications. Right now, I would highly suggest instituting formalized procedures that are publicized for setting skill levels.
I have a skills measure which I have been working on for a while. I will push forward to finish it since it seems like it might be useful to help this currently over-subjective area of the sport.
Take care...
Tim
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| carolina phil
- 08 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 1084
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I think Andrew's concept has important benefits. For example, if we held a pre-tournament, starting like the Goalgrinder event, days before the Saturday Singles, we could run scores of players through it (from, say, Wed through Friday night).Giving them a good time with trophies and cash and rating points won. Then on Saturday and Sunday play the Singles Championship with an invitation to, say, the top rated players in the world, limitted to, say, 32 for this showcase event.
Once it is limitted to 32 participants, a Saturday format could include a playoff for Seeding among the 32. This could be in a Swiss or a partial round robbin, or some other method. Playing ah on Saturday daytime for the seeding of the World Singles Championship, which would start that Saturday night or early Sunday morning, would create an exciting atmosphere and put an end to subjectivity.
This method above would combine the best of rating calculations to determine the 32 participants with the best of "on the table" competition to determine the seedings for the main event.
Just an idea to stimulate ideas for new ways of doing things!
Phil Arnold
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| jasonstevens
- 08 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 176
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carolina phil said: I think Andrew's concept has important benefits. For example, if we held a pre-tournament, starting like the Goalgrinder event, days before the Saturday Singles, we could run scores of players through it (from, say, Wed through Friday night).Giving them a good time with trophies and cash and rating points won. Then on Saturday and Sunday play the Singles Championship with an invitation to, say, the top rated players in the world, limitted to, say, 32 for this showcase event.
Once it is limitted to 32 participants, a Saturday format could include a playoff for Seeding among the 32. This could be in a Swiss or a partial round robbin, or some other method. Playing ah on Saturday daytime for the seeding of the World Singles Championship, which would start that Saturday night or early Sunday morning, would create an exciting atmosphere and put an end to subjectivity.
This method above would combine the best of rating calculations to determine the 32 participants with the best of "on the table" competition to determine the seedings for the main event.
Just an idea to stimulate ideas for new ways of doing things!
Phil Arnold |
Not a fan of the idea. This kind of format is not going to get more/new players.
People have to WANT to play air hockey in a tournament type of setting. Different methods of having them play other players isn't going to draw people in, the SPORT will or will not draw them in. I honestly hate being Debbie Downer but how many people saw the newscast last year and came to play? 1 that I know of (and he wasn't allowed to play because registration was already closed but this isn't really my point) and he was a player from back in the day. See my point?
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