Official TPCI Pokemon Tournament 2009 | Congrats to all who participated!!

[TeeJay]

Hey guys, just got back from STL. Kikered was in yellow division (slimceagirl, fish) and I was in purple division (omega, batpig, tyler, mattj, sidd). It was a lot of fun to meet everyone. I ended up going 3-2, losing to one of the Phoenix finalists and some girl with a Choice Scarf Porygon-Z (ugh).

No matter what your feelings are about Swiss rounds, etc, it is fun to be guaranteed 5 matches in a competitive environment. My only regret is that not everyone got to play in the first place. It sounds like TPCi has already identified this and will be taking some steps to ensure quality players are able to compete.

Mingot was gracious enough to take a picture of the group using my camera, so here it is.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5991/sdc10102v.jpg

I'm not going to take the time to identify people, feel free to do so yourself.

Good luck to all of the finalists!

Also, I'm wondering how 512 EV's does not apply to the following excerpt from the rules:

The using of external devices to alter the Pokémon in a player's party is expressly forbidden. Random checks will be performed throughout the tournament to determine whether or not an external device has been used to modify a player's party. Players found to have Pokémon that have been tampered with will be disqualified from the event, regardless of whether the player tampered with his or her game or received a Pokémon or item that was tampered with by someone else

 

[Macheep]

Is that Mingot's daughter on the right? o.o

 

[TeeJay]

If by right you mean left =P

Kikered is on the right. I'm right next to him. (I'm also the OEBassoondude that Jumpman was c/ping in IRC)

 

[Macheep]

My bad... That's a pretty cool picture. Sorry to those who went 4-1 and did not make it in, trust me, I know it really is gay. Happens everytime in the TCG. Well, good luck to those who made it in tomorrow and bring Smogon success!

 

[Deleted User 33526]

@anyone who competed today, will we see warstories?

 

[picklesword]

1. In this tournament, 128 players were divided into 4 flights of 32 players each. In each flight, a player played a match against another player. After the result of their match was recorded, players with similar records were matched up. 5 matches were played by each player, and the players with the 4 best records in their flights went on to the top 16. In the case of a tie in records, the opponent's win percentage, among other things, were factored in as a tiebreaker. The top 16 will play in a single-elimination style tournament tomorrow to determine final placings.

2. I have no idea. Some other people might know, though.

3. The tournament is not even over yet, so I would suspect that there will be a few videos yet.

Here is how tiebreakers work in a swiss round rules. Basically your score is like this of the games you played. L-32 W-43 D-5

L is you lost to the player in position 32
W is you won the player in position 43
D is you drew the player in position 5

Those have certain point values to determine point values. So it is part luck if you play crappy people or not.

Aka, I play in chess tournaments a lot, and they use Swiss Round. Also btw, I'm ranked 6th in state for chess right now :p. My state that is for high school

 

[theamericandream38]

Hey guys, just got back from STL. Kikered was in yellow division (slimceagirl, fish) and I was in purple division (omega, batpig, tyler, mattj, sidd). It was a lot of fun to meet everyone. I ended up going 3-2, losing to one of the Phoenix finalists and some girl with a Choice Scarf Porygon-Z (ugh).

No matter what your feelings are about Swiss rounds, etc, it is fun to be guaranteed 5 matches in a competitive environment. My only regret is that not everyone got to play in the first place. It sounds like TPCi has already identified this and will be taking some steps to ensure quality players are able to compete.

Mingot was gracious enough to take a picture of the group using my camera, so here it is.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5991/sdc10102v.jpg

I'm not going to take the time to identify people, feel free to do so yourself.

Good luck to all of the finalists!

Also, I'm wondering how 512 EV's does not apply to the following excerpt from the rules:

K, left to right: Mingot's daughter, ??? (bald black guy), Batpig, Diesel, ??? (Asian dude with glasses), ??? (tall guy in the back with nice hair), Fish, OmegaDonut, IPL, FiveK, ??? (dude with glasses between IPL and TeeJay), TeeJay, Kikered.

Aka, I play in chess tournaments a lot, and they use Swiss Round. Also btw, I'm ranked 6th in state for chess right now :p. My state that is for high school

Completely off-topic, but that is pretty cool. I play chess for my high school as well, but I'm not particularly good. There are some really good players in my state, though.

 

[Sidd]

My bad... That's a pretty cool picture. Sorry to those who went 4-1 and did not make it in, trust me, I know it really is gay. Happens everytime in the TCG. Well, good luck to those who made it in tomorrow and bring Smogon success!

Indeed.

She's 12 but she's almost as tall as me.

 

[BoozeVGC]

Well tad, think about it. Why wouldn't Vash want to force zerowing out? I'm not saying that he purposely wanted him out either, but he's probably one of the best VGC players Smogon has, and Vash's usual chances of beating him are pretty slim. Now, what Vash and Sixonesix did imo was fucking retarded, they should've just played it out like any other and had one winner, not a tie.

I strongly agree with Sidd here. What Vash did was very nice, and I bet 616 is appreciative of it, but it also hurt someone else. But look at the situation with OmegaDonut and IPL, who took a huge car ride to get to Nashaville and play. They could've said "Look man, can me and my buddy have a tie, we took a huge road trip together just to play, I can't play him, he's too good of a friend" but they battled anyway. I don't know if 616 would've gotten in hadn't Vash drawed to him, but yea, Zerowing, would've been out anyway, no? So why is he so pissed :P. And I don't think Zerowing should be abusing power. It's a game, obviously SOMEONE has to win.

I'm also defending Vash here, he may have a better relationship with 616(as weird as it sounds) than with Zerowing. I'm sure Vash, if he could secure a spot for Zero and 616, would've done it. I think Zerowing is just pissed because he lost to hax and thinks Vash should've secured a spot for him rather than 616.

 

[Warthog]

There's nothing wrong with it. Elitist attitude has nothing to do with it.

What Vash & 616 did is perfectly acceptable in a situation like this. Whether zerowing would have made it or not shouldn't even be an issue. If you have a chance (that's within the rules, of course) to make sure you absolutely lock up your spot, you TAKE IT. Doing anything less would be foolish.

There is something wrong with what they did but it shouldn't have taken place if the tournament policy didn't allow it. That's what I'm really upset about.

 

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

Holy crap, look at all this bickering. =/ I can't wait to read the past 5 pages!



IMO, slimceagirl really surprised me winning flight four. I thought she was just a collector, since all she wanted at Fremont was the Milotic. I guess she has some battling prowness in her after all.


Does anybody(I would hope that the people who are competing know, lol) know what time the final 16 matches are tomorrow morning? Eventually I want to see a couple of videos of the battles.


Also, I am looking forward to meeting all of the top 16 in San Diego. ;) Can't wait for a smogon meetup there, just like last year.

 

[BoozeVGC]

There is something wrong with what they did but it shouldn't have taken place if the tournament policy didn't allow it. That's what I'm really upset about.

These guys could care less IMO. Final match, doubt they wanted to even give a winner's speech.

 

[drcossack]

There is something wrong with what they did but it shouldn't have taken place if the tournament policy didn't allow it. That's what I'm really upset about.

It was allowed though, there was no self-KO Clause.

 

[Deleted User 33526]

Honestly! GET OVER IT! YOU CAME TO BE THE BEST! So did everyone else, obviously your strategy didn't pull through because you didn't win that 5th match, that tie has NOTHING to do with you, Get. Over. It. All rules were followed and you just have to go cry because you lost. I hate it when people do this, just because they think they are good and the best, doesn't mean they are!

 

[hnh]

wow that was some serious read. anyway good shit to all the smogers that made it! alakapimp, IPL, omga, and everyone else Im rooting for you guys and gals! beast this tournament!!!!

 

[drug_duck]

Honestly! GET OVER IT! YOU CAME TO BE THE BEST! So did everyone else, obviously your strategy didn't pull through because you didn't win that 5th match, that tie has NOTHING to do with you, Get. Over. It. All rules were followed and you just have to go cry because you lost. I hate it when people do this, just because they think they are good and the best, doesn't mean they are!

Harsh, but true... Vash already said he had no malicious intentions so I honestly see nothing wrong in securing his friend a guaranteed spot for San Diego. In swiss or round robin systems it is almost inevitable that there will be gay constellations that may even screw the best players...

 

[Voltron]

First of all, congrats to everyone that is made the top 16.

I really can't fault vash for the intentional tie. Yeah it sucks that maybe it screwed zerowing out of a spot, but vash didn't do it to keep zerowing out. If vash had the match wrapped up then you can make an argument that he shouldn't have done it. However ensuring that you advance should be first priority so if vash had any chance of losing it was the smart thing to do. Zerowing, you got unlucky. It was luck that vash beat you (as you both admitted) and it was luck that you barely missed the top 16. It sucks but that shit happens. From reading this thread I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into the tourney so it sucks that you didnt make it, you deserved to.

That brings me to my second point. Don't fault the Swiss setup or the tiebreaker. It might not be ideal but let's be reasonable, everyone got 5 matches and if you lost one you still had a solid shot of making it. It's much better than the single elimination of the qualifiers. And I can't think of a more fair tiebreaker, without more matches atleast, than the way they did it. Can anyone really say they expected it to be better and more fair? I sure as hell can't. Now I have no idea how they factored in the ties so I'm going to just leave that alone.

Anyway good luck everyone that made it and congrats again.

 

[Stagnant]

It's a game, obviously SOMEONE has to win.

Lol, apparently not considering 616's and Vash's position.

 

[massi4h]

Wow all this stuff is real iffy. BL zerowing, you really do deserve to be up there, but I still can't be certain if what vash and 616 did was really wrong (and tbh not everyone is 100% sure how this swiss system works).

What I'm bothered about is that Australia (or just underneath them New Zealand) isn't included in this "world" tournament. I mean they got the JAO and they are still a big country. Heck I'd look for some kind of sponsorship lol to enter an Australian competition to go to world champs if I could. I'd also have to start playing again which I sort of am now.

 

[NeoSyrex]

Whew I finally got back to AZ. I placed in top 16 but wasn't willing to pay the extra money (~$500) to change my flight and get a hotel for another night, just for a chance to win a Wii and DSi. Although it would've been fun, I just couldn't justify the cost. Getting to Worlds was what I really cared about anyway. Plus I can always just buy a bowling or shotput trophy to make up for missing out on the trophy.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, I'm hoping mingot's daughter wins cuz me IPL and alaka were helping build her team the night before (had some intense debates lol), thinking she'd be in juniors, but she ended up being put in seniors and did so well which is pretty awesome. But good luck to everyone, looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow. You're welcome to whoever gets my bye, haha.

No way would I go that far. Flights 2 and 4 (orange and yellow) were jokes. Really only IPL emerged from them and all of the matches from these flights that I observed were absolutely disastrous.

The other two flights (green and purple) were stacked with our guys and some of the other top players. As far as I'm concerned, if you were in either of these flights, you had an uphill battle all day.

Jokes? I don't see how you can possibly say that, all the flights had the same number of regional qualifiers participating. I know mine (yellow) had 6 at least. There was me, Diesel, Pokethan, NestW, Vinh, and someone from Philly (sorry forgot name). In addition, as posted earlier there were several other qualified players such as Slimceagirl, Halordain, and Kikered. I'm sure the other flights had similiar competition, perhaps some slightly more than others, but in no way was any flight a "joke".

-Glen A
-Jason B
-Grace B (slimceagirl)
-Matthew C (MattJ)
-Orrin C
-Len D (Alakapimp)
-John F
-Huy H (batpig)
-Kamaal H (sixonesix)
-Nick J
-Allen L (imperfectluck)
-Jesse S
-Mike S (OmegaDonut)
-Steven W
-Levi Y (VashTheStampede)
-Malison Y (mingot's daughter)

Eight of the 16 are from Smogon (9 if you want to count mingot's daughter...). Looking at this list, none of these players are from last year's competition. All of these guys are new, so they don't have as much experience as, say, zerowing or Halordain.

I'm Steve W (I'd appreciate it if you could edit your post to remove my and perhaps everyone else's last name, I feel thats a bit too personal). Knowing or having met most of the top 16, I can say almost everyone at least has a Smogon account, except maybe one or two. But if you don't consider that to be enough to qualify someone as being from Smogon, then yes it is probably lower.

Btw in case you're wondering who I am, I'm not some random noob, I've been around the competitive scene since RBY just never bothered to post on these forums. After meeting everyone at Nationals though, I'm now a bit more motivated. Really some pretty cool people that go here.

 

[Zero]

OK can we stop talking about zerowing already? It's over with.

 

[mattj]

Don't know if anybody posted this yet, but I think 1 of the top 16 won't be playing today. I honestly don't remember who he is, but he's an elementary school teacher with 2 lil hoop earings (sorry that's all). He and I were the last 2 to talk to that Head Honcho guy (Mike?) and we talked a bit and he said he was leaving that night for some reason so he wouldn't be there to participate. Was that you NeoSyrex?

Oh yeah, BTW it starts at 8:30 AM. Be there! :P

ALSO I finally found out some details about how they Hack Check. When me and Siddarth were about to start we both got checked and passed duh, but we had a nice conversation with the checker dude about how they actually hack check, where they get the device, what EXACTLY the device checks for, AND HOW THAT DEVICE COULD POSSIBLY ACTUALLY HELP HARDCORE GAMERS IF IT WAS RELEASED BY GAMEFREAK!!!! Details later.

 

[drcossack]

Don't know if anybody posted this yet, but I think 1 of the top 16 won't be playing today. I honestly don't remember who he is, but he's an elementary school teacher with 2 lil hoop earings (sorry that's all). He and I were the last 2 to talk to that Head Honcho guy (Mike?) and we talked a bit and he said he was leaving that night for some reason so he wouldn't be there to participate. Was that you NeoSyrex?

Oh yeah, BTW it starts at 8:30 AM. Be there! :P

ALSO I finally found out some details about how they Hack Check. When me and Siddarth were about to start we both got checked and passed duh, but we had a nice conversation with the checker dude about how they actually hack check, where they get the device, what EXACTLY the device checks for, AND HOW THAT DEVICE COULD POSSIBLY ACTUALLY HELP HARDCORE GAMERS IF IT WAS RELEASED BY GAMEFREAK!!!! Details later.

Wait, what? Something that could help gamers? Pfft.

I am, however, VERY interested to know what the hack check device checks for. PM me. :)

 

[Macheep]

Same here. It is quite the interesting topic. Good luck to those competing today.

 

[imperfectluck]

I look forward to meeting everyone I missed out on meeting somehow today.