Co-Event Suggestion Box

[JackHurst]

But as I've said, in terms of a big one-off event where you have to be present on the day, we have COLIN, and that's bigger and more prestigious than the FOCAL finals.

Great. That's your opinion, not a fact. I wonder if there's anybody on here who we could ask what it feels like to win each of them? Even better, is there anybody on here who has won them both more than once? Shall we ask that person which accolade gave them a bigger sense of achievement?

[Thomas Cappleman]

But as I've said, in terms of a big one-off event where you have to be present on the day, we have COLIN, and that's bigger and more prestigious than the FOCAL finals.

Great. That's your opinion, not a fact. I wonder if there's anybody on here who we could ask what it feels like to win each of them? Even better, is there anybody on here who has won them both more than once? Shall we ask that person which accolade gave them a bigger sense of achievement?

Speaking as one of the 20-ish Jack cited, I find the current finals structure exciting both for the run in to the end of the year and the event itself. I can see that the open may feel a bit of a side event/afterthought, which is because that's basically true. But for the top 8 it is a proper full-on competition.

Sure you occasionally get some weird results that don't reflect the whole of the year. But that's true of any competition which has knock out games. And the alternative last year would have been to declare Jack basically the winner after the first 5 events.

I'd be interested to see what newer people in particular thought of the relative prestige of COLIN vs the finals. COLIN is definitely near the top, with both history and still getting higher numbers than most other events. But I think doing well over the course of a year AND managing it all on a single finals day with no luck of the draw to help is a bigger achievement.

[Gavin Chipper]

But as I've said, in terms of a big one-off event where you have to be present on the day, we have COLIN, and that's bigger and more prestigious than the FOCAL finals.

Great. That's your opinion, not a fact. I wonder if there's anybody on here who we could ask what it feels like to win each of them? Even better, is there anybody on here who has won them both more than once? Shall we ask that person which accolade gave them a bigger sense of achievement?

Someone called Jack Hurst seemed to agree when it came up before.

Some of your posts have a hint of elitism about them. The tournament structure and the prestige of the events is not only enjoyed by people who have the potential to win them. And people can aspire to win them in the future. Your opinion doesn't count for more because you've won these events.

This isn't scientific, but people I've spoken to in general seem to think COLIN has more prestige. The thing about getting rid of the FOCAL finals is more of a me thing - it's not something I've particularly asked people about. I've made what I think are reasonable arguments. It's not like I'm insisting it gets changed but if you post your disagreement, a discussion will ensue and that's just normal.

[Fiona T]

Create a poll

Colin enjoys the status it does because of its history, and the first event to make a weekend of it. But I think the finals are great - sure the "best" player doesn't always win, but they're the best on the day and that's all you need to be. Same as a TV series of Countdown - "let's just award the series to the player with the highest octototal" would remove the possibility of a Latchfordesque upset!

[Gavin Chipper]

OK. How do I word the poll? Which has more prestige? Which would you rather win? Which is the ultimate achievement in the CO-event world?

[Phil Stanton]

COLIN may have slightly more prestige due to its history/longevity ... when I started on the scene, I was told I really had to go to COLIN, because of its legendary status. Looking back, I think that was based more on the pre- and post-event shenanigans (Fox & Hounds, Travelodge room parties) that the event itself.

In terms of "biggest", I checked the numbers for event attendance for Finals and other events with the same or higher attendance; going back to 2019, COLIN was only the biggest event once, in 2023, although it was indeed bigger than the finals in 3 out of the 4 years.

2019
London - 65
COLIN - 51
MK - 47
Finals - 36

2020-2022
Blackpool 2021 - 55
London 2022 - 52
COLIN 2020 - 46
...
Finals - 31

2023
COLIN - 44
Manchester - 41
Finals - 41

2024
Reading - 53
Oxford - 50
Finals - 46
COLIN - 45
London - 45

[Phil Stanton]

Speaking as someone who isn't very likely to be in the top 8 (and certainly hasn't been since I joined the scene), I'm very grateful that the Open at the Finals exists ... without it, there would be almost a 3-month gap with no events for me to attend. (Technically more for me, since Braintree always clashes with something else, so I've never been able to go.)

[JackHurst]

Someone called Jack Hurst seemed to agree when it came up before.

I reserve the right to change my opinion I've experienced competing 2 Colin Finals and 1 more Focal finals since that post, which has influenced my perspective (sorry, not intended to be a boast).

Some of your posts have a hint of elitism about them. The tournament structure and the prestige of the events is not only enjoyed by people who have the potential to win them.

Yes, I accept the point that I'm not really thinking in terms of the people who maybe don't aim to win events etc.

Your opinion doesn't count for more because you've won these events.

Bollocks to that. Yes it absolutely does. Suppose you have two achievements X and Y. Out of the following 4 categories, what are you saying about the weight of the opinions on which is a better achievement?
1) The people who have actually achieved both X and Y
2) The people who have the potential to achieve both X and Y
3) The people who have participated in X and Y but never had a realistic chance in either.
4) The spectators who have never participated.


Imagine telling Andy Murray "Listen Andy mate, I know you've won them both and you have some strong opinions, but we've got to care equally about what Dave, 54, from Southall also has to say about the relative merits of Wimbledown vs Olympic Gold."

This isn't scientific, but people I've spoken to in general seem to think COLIN has more prestige.

Anecdotally I would agree that the community might skew a bit towards COLIN. Is this as much a thing getting heritage and prestige a bit confused. Compare to Rugby (Union) World Cup (38 years old) and 6 Nations (142 years old) - I have no doubt that today we consider winning the Rugby World Cup to be more prestigious, however I think in the early days of the tournament, due to the heritage associated with the (at the time) 5 nations, a lot of people still put more prestige on that initially.

We've had 20 COLINs, and only 7 FOCALs.

[Gavin Chipper]

Your opinion doesn't count for more because you've won these events.

Bollocks to that. Yes it absolutely does. Suppose you have two achievements X and Y. Out of the following 4 categories, what are you saying about the weight of the opinions on which is a better achievement?
1) The people who have actually achieved both X and Y
2) The people who have the potential to achieve both X and Y
3) The people who have participated in X and Y but never had a realistic chance in either.
4) The spectators who have never participated.


Imagine telling Andy Murray "Listen Andy mate, I know you've won them both and you have some strong opinions, but we've got to care equally about what Dave, 54, from Southall also has to say about the relative merits of Wimbledown vs Olympic Gold."

Well when people consider the greats of sports they look at the events they won and how big/prestigious etc. they consider each event to be. They don't first go to the competitors to check how they should be weighting the events. Competitors might have their own favourite event to win, but that doesn't make their opinion the objective truth.

In terms of which is a better achievement anyway, it does depend partly on how you define "better". The players at the sharp end might have a better idea of the psychology and feeling of competing and winning in the different events, but they don't get to exclusively decide what is generally considered to be the "main" one.

This isn't scientific, but people I've spoken to in general seem to think COLIN has more prestige.

Anecdotally I would agree that the community might skew a bit towards COLIN. Is this as much a thing getting heritage and prestige a bit confused. Compare to Rugby (Union) World Cup (38 years old) and 6 Nations (142 years old) - I have no doubt that today we consider winning the Rugby World Cup to be more prestigious, however I think in the early days of the tournament, due to the heritage associated with the (at the time) 5 nations, a lot of people still put more prestige on that initially.

We've had 20 COLINs, and only 7 FOCALs.

I think the rugby analogy is slightly off anyway because the 6 Nations is just a European thing, so was always going to end up as a less main thing than a world thing. COLIN and the FOCAL finals have essentially the same pool of participants. But said before the inconvenience of a player in the open being the best player of the day does sometimes take the shine off the FOCAL finals. A lot of good players are not in the main event because they haven't done enough events. And while doing the events is part of what you have to do, that doesn't change the "Yeah, but were they even the best person there?" question. At COLIN everyone there is competing for the top prize.

[Gavin Chipper]

I just want to finish the thought about the open sometimes being an embarrassment for the finals. Below I've put the top two players in the rankings from the finals and open for each year, plus additional notable high scorers. And what conclusions can be drawn? Well, it's worth noting that in all seven years, the highest ranked player in the open has scored more points than anyone in the finals. That obviously doesn't prove anything by itself - it's harder to score in as many rounds when you're against consistently high-level opposition. I do, however, think this still takes some of the sheen off the finals when the plebs are outscoring them. And I would still say that out of those seven at probably most of them (though I won't name specific years), people would have said that the best player of the day came from the open tournament. This is one thing that I think takes the edge off the prestige of it.

2016

Finals

1 Jack Worsley 7 6 423 (winner of final)
2 Giles Hutchings 7 5 443

Open

1 Stephen Read 7 7 467
2 Tom Cappleman 7 7 439

2017

Finals

1 Rob Foster 7 7 481 (winner of final)
2 Jen Steadman 7 4 448

Open

1 Jack Worsley 7 6 537
2 Callum Todd 7 6 511

2018

Finals

1 Tom Cappleman 7 6 408
2 Jonathan Wynn 7 5 424 (winner of final)
3 Zarte Siempre 7 4 440

Open

1 Rob Foster 7 6 462
2 Jen Steadman 7 6 438

2019

1 Callum Todd 7 6 459 (winner of final)
2 Bradley Horrocks 7 5 430

Open

1 Jen Steadman 7 7 473
2 Rob Foster 7 6 465

2022

Finals

1 Jack Hurst 7 6 456 (winner of final)
2 Thomas Cappleman 7 5 433

Open

1 Rob Foster 7 7 509
2 Graeme Cole 7 5 428

2023

Finals

1 Jack Hurst 7 5 454 (winner of final)
2 George Armstrong 7 5 444

Open

1 Ahmed Mohamed 7 7 508
2 Ronan Higginson 7 6 467
3 Rob Foster 7 5 466

2024

Finals

1 Jack Hurst 7 7 443 (winner of final)
2 Jonathan De Souza 7 6 403

Open

1 Callum Todd 7 6 462
2 Ronan Higginson 7 6 453
3 Zohaib Rehan 7 6 384 (included because he missed his first game and I think part of the second)

[Gavin Chipper]

Tell you what actually - you could have a points champion like I originally suggested and also have the FOCAL finals. Two separate trophies for two separate things and people can decide for themselves which is worth more. So in terms of rough equivalence:

COLIN winner: Wimbledon champion, Monaco GP winner (though probably more equivalent to the level of the Indy 500 within the Indycar championship)
Points champion: end of year tennis rank 1, F1 champion
FOCAL finals winner: ATP finals winner, NASCAR playoffs winner

Edit - So winning all three would be the "triple crown" which I believe Jack Hurst would have done in 2024 if total points had been recognised as a tournament.

[Graeme Cole]

Well, it's worth noting that in all seven years, the highest ranked player in the open has scored more points than anyone in the finals. That obviously doesn't prove anything by itself - it's harder to score in as many rounds when you're against consistently high-level opposition. I do, however, think this still takes some of the sheen off the finals when the plebs are outscoring them.

As you say, this isn't comparing like with like, to the point where I think it's a non-issue. When a team wins the Premier League, does anyone ever compare their goal difference with that of the winners of the EFL Championship? And does anyone ever say it "takes the sheen off" winning the Premier League if the winners of the lower division had a better goal difference, or even a better win/loss record?

[Gavin Chipper]

Well, it's worth noting that in all seven years, the highest ranked player in the open has scored more points than anyone in the finals. That obviously doesn't prove anything by itself - it's harder to score in as many rounds when you're against consistently high-level opposition. I do, however, think this still takes some of the sheen off the finals when the plebs are outscoring them.

As you say, this isn't comparing like with like, to the point where I think it's a non-issue. When a team wins the Premier League, does anyone ever compare their goal difference with that of the winners of the EFL Championship? And does anyone ever say it "takes the sheen off" winning the Premier League if the winners of the lower division had a better goal difference, or even a better win/loss record?

They are playing the same rounds at least. So the football analogy is weak. I notice you didn't contend the next bit of my post.

[Gavin Chipper]

Marc Meakin mentioned this - with tie-break conundrums, it makes sense (after the first failed one) to start giving out easier conundrums. No game should go to five or six tie-breaks!

[Marc Meakin]

Marc Meakin mentioned this - with tie-break conundrums, it makes sense (after the first failed one) to start giving out easier conundrums. No game should go to five or six tie-breaks!

There were so many positives.
The declaration pointer sheet.
The QR codes.
The atmosphere is so much more relaxed than Scrabble tournaments.
The playing time is much better , start at a reasonable time and finish before 6 ( half four for rude bastards who bugger off after game 7 without saying goodbye )

Another idea I have from Scrabble is for the losing player ( or both players ) to sign the score sheet to confirm the results are correct.

[Fiona T]

Marc Meakin mentioned this - with tie-break conundrums, it makes sense (after the first failed one) to start giving out easier conundrums. No game should go to five or six tie-breaks!

Open to suggestions as to how the software could deal with this - at the moment it pulls in the next conundrum from the file if there's a tiebreak. The option to end the game and run a single conundrum loading an 'easier' file is always available to the host (as Phil did on the second one).

[Fiona T]

Another idea I have from Scrabble is for the losing player ( or both players ) to sign the score sheet to confirm the results are correct.

Players pretty much agree the score at the end, and not sure there's ever been a situation where the submitted scores have been disputed, so probably solving a problem that doesn't exist! Scores are sometimes entered the wrong way round, but that's a different issue!

[Marc Meakin]

This is a me problem but I found the screen to be too small for my dodgy eyes when I was at the rear tables but maybe next time I can bring 2 pairs of specs

[George Armstrong]

This is a me problem but I found the screen to be too small for my dodgy eyes when I was at the rear tables but maybe next time I can bring 2 pairs of specs

The text is normally limited to being at the top of the screen so that if you're sat behind people their heads aren't in the way. You're also always welcome to ask the host if you can sit at a certain table so you're closer to the front if you're hard of hearing or sight.

[Phil Stanton]

Another idea I have from Scrabble is for the losing player ( or both players ) to sign the score sheet to confirm the results are correct.

Players pretty much agree the score at the end, and not sure there's ever been a situation where the submitted scores have been disputed, so probably solving a problem that doesn't exist! Scores are sometimes entered the wrong way round, but that's a different issue!

We have also had instances (as we did on Saturday) where the scores have been entered the wrong way round, and the losing player has been the one to point this out, so I think we can be fairly confident that we're generally a bunch of honest people and we don't have an issue here.

[Phil Stanton]

Marc Meakin mentioned this - with tie-break conundrums, it makes sense (after the first failed one) to start giving out easier conundrums. No game should go to five or six tie-breaks!

Open to suggestions as to how the software could deal with this - at the moment it pulls in the next conundrum from the file if there's a tiebreak. The option to end the game and run a single conundrum loading an 'easier' file is always available to the host (as Phil did on the second one).

Basically what I just said on the CO:LON thread

You could have a separate tie-break conundrums file which all TBs are pulled from, and ensure those are easier, but you'd still need to find a balance in terms of how easy they are, and partly that depends on who the players are. I don't think there's a lot of merit in a tie-break conundrum just being a buzzer race, which would be the danger.
The downside is that this means yet another conundrum file to create and specify in the game setup, and it's still down to the host actually setting appropriate conundrums for that file.

My instinct is that this is a bit of an edge case ... it's the first time in my 6 years of events that I've seen 6 TBs, I think the most I've seen before is perhaps 3?
As Fiona says, there's always the option to end the game and start a new single-con one from an easier file.

[Matthew Brockwell]

I also think that the 6TB situation was unusual and would rather keep TBs the way things are for now. PODAGROUS, LOINCLOTH, HIFALUTIN, PREFATORY were from the harder choices in the file and DEODORANT not that easy either. Then CROCODILE from the easier section sorted the match out fine, and the conundrums were entertaining to spectators.

[Gavin Chipper]

If tables 1 to 12 get harder conundrums than 13 to 25, people who sit at the front all day because of e.g. eyesight reasons probably shouldn't always get the hard ones if they would otherwise have been on a 13 to 25 table.

[Fiona T]

I also think that the 6TB situation was unusual and would rather keep TBs the way things are for now. PODAGROUS, LOINCLOTH, HIFALUTIN, PREFATORY were from the harder choices in the file and DEODORANT not that easy either. Then CROCODILE from the easier section sorted the match out fine, and the conundrums were entertaining to spectators.

Compared to the players involved, I'm pretty bad at conundrums, but got a couple of those - think that pressure got to them!

Perhaps more could have been made of offering them to the audience to make it more engaging but it was an unusual situation!

CROCODILE is 8 on apto - think the switch to easier conundrums was for a different tiebreak!

[Fiona T]

If tables 1 to 12 get harder conundrums than 13 to 25, people who sit at the front all day because of e.g. eyesight reasons probably shouldn't always get the hard ones if they would otherwise have been on a 13 to 25 table.

It's complicated! Perhaps move table numbers around?

[Thomas Carey]

I also think that the 6TB situation was unusual and would rather keep TBs the way things are for now. PODAGROUS, LOINCLOTH, HIFALUTIN, PREFATORY were from the harder choices in the file and DEODORANT not that easy either. Then CROCODILE from the easier section sorted the match out fine, and the conundrums were entertaining to spectators.

It wouldn't be the case with all players but between those two players you'd expect most of these to go pretty quickly. Much better than giving them a buzzer race one. I do think a solution to this is have a 'hard cons' file and an 'easy cons' file, maybe a medium one as well, and then feed the two players tiebreaks based on their ability - but I think you don't want to go any easier than you did for a game between two people who reached the grand final of their respective serieseseseses. Yeah 6 tbs isn't a great viewing experience but the chances of those guys not getting five cons in a row at that level of difficulty is close to zero, freak accident, can't be helped. Without wanting to sound like a prick I (who is a similar level to the two lads in that situation) did have all of those pretty much instantly and I think the rest of the higher end players did too.

For two weaker players like we had later in the day this kind of thing isn't ideal although I think most people in the room got at least some of that lot. But switching to an easier but not trivial con like CONSONANT was a good solution imo.

If tables 1 to 12 get harder conundrums than 13 to 25, people who sit at the front all day because of e.g. eyesight reasons probably shouldn't always get the hard ones if they would otherwise have been on a 13 to 25 table.

This as well. I guess you could instead of having the table numbers read from the front to back, have them left to right so that there's a good range of table numbers in the front row, then you can have a few 'top half' and a few 'bottom half' tables suitable for the poor eyesight players and can sort their matches accordingly. Would require some additional coding effort but I believe

[Adam S Latchford]

would have been at least another one if he didn't get crocodile lol my brain completely froze.

I did get the answer to every other con all day bar one (and was beaten in a buzzer race to the other) so was just a freak incident - no need to rewrite the books on it.

I do agree at moving a table number around best solution to help avoid eyesight people being on the higher end of the conundrum scale

[Phil Stanton]

As has already been pointed out, CROCODILE came from the same "hard" file as the rest of the cons for the lower table numbers, it's an 8 on Apto.
I only switched to the easier file (which involved ending the game on RoboRiley and starting a new con-only one) for CONSONANT later on.

Agreed that people on an accessible table can (and did, this year and last) end up with harder cons than they would otherwise get.
The suggestion of having some higher table numbers at the front is a good one, either just by moving a table number sign, or numbering them differently on setup.

However, this still requires the host to have an idea of the level of the relevant players. We had Tim and Sandie on accessible tables; Tim is good enough to be on a low table number, Sandie perhaps not. But last year we stuck a newbie on an accessible table for the same reason, with no way of knowing how good she was.

There's also the fact, to some extent, that our pairing method makes con difficulty slightly less of a cut-and-dried issue.
We're pairing based on wins only, then random, as opposed to wins and points, which means you can end up with some top players paired against lesser ones, both on a high table number, e.g. Round 3 saw Dan Byrom vs Amar on Table 15, so arguably that saw Dan get an easier con than perhaps he should have?

[Gavin Chipper]

You don't even need to move table signs. Surely you can just say to an individual table that they're doing a particular conundrum.

[Thomas Carey]

However, this still requires the host to have an idea of the level of the relevant players. We had Tim and Sandie on accessible tables; Tim is good enough to be on a low table number, Sandie perhaps not. But last year we stuck a newbie on an accessible table for the same reason, with no way of knowing how good she was.

well - and this requires something that I'm not sure atropine currently does, but could easily

when atropine generates fixtures, it'll give every pair a table number, with lower table number = pair has been performing better on the day. there is some fuzziness due to avoiding duplicate games and especially now we random on win count not go by wins/points (which i love btw). then, if certain numbers are accessible tables, it puts those players on those tables and slots everyone in around them

what I'm saying is, there will have been a table number generated for the pairings, before the accessible thing overrid (overrided?) them, which will go in order of performance. if we can somehow hold on to those numbers, then we will know before each game which level each of the accessible pairings correspond to. you can then do what gevin said in the post above or similar.

this also solves your issue with the new player last year - you just go by how she's doing on the day, and it's possible she will jump between high and low table numbers. first matchup will be random, and then it will go by how well she's been doing - if you see she's 'meant to' be on table 19 for this round, give her an easier con, etc

worth reiterating that this is going by the matchups, not the players - occasionally you'll have the draw give a match between two players with big disparity in performance - but again, as it's generated a table number, just go by that number. none of this is an exact science anyway and people will always argue about the perceived difficulty of the cons anyway so who cares. in your specific example of dan and amar, i don't think it's unfair to say that dan had a bit of a shocker on saturday (i had a similar performance at oxford last month, it happens) and if the draw has put him on table 15, that's an indicator of how he's playing on the day rather than his general ability

anyway, good set of conundrums throughout the day - nothing impossible (even the final, while stumping me and ronan, was got by a handful of people, some who knew it in real life, which is great) but also not too many piss easy ones

[Gavin Chipper]

Overrode.