National Series 2011

true

Personally, and I know it sounds stupid since we won, but I don't think this year's NS was at all about a competition to find a champion or whatever. The real winner's of this year's tournament series are the teams which got to play more polo and improved a ton as a result, and the cities which may not have put on a tournament without some encouragement (although not much was required).

I couldn't agree more with this. Really enjoyed the NS. Thanks to all the tournament organisers.

Congrats Nice Touch!

Well done to all the scenes for putting on great tournaments. Only managed to make it to 3 but really enjoyed playing in them.

Well done to Nice Touch, Spring Break and Cosmic. So so close but there has to be only one winner.

Can't wait for next year. Would be good to get the calendar sorted out earlier so that travel, time off work etc can be worked out in advance.

It's very unlikely that things will be able to be done so far in advance. We don't even know where/when WHBPC will be yet and that's something I think we should be looking to pivot round (leaving enough of a gap before and after).

Looking at the calendar for next year and noting how packed it is already, I'm leaning towards a slightly different format for 2012. Maybe something that encourages more 1-day/1-court tournaments and allows for the fluid nature of polo teams. I'd also like to separate events like the UK Champs and the London Open but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts about that.

One thing I am very keen to do for next year is get the website sorted out. I'd like to create something where players register as individuals and can then assign themselves into teams. Teams can then edit their bio/results/logo/equipment/whatever page and their tournament history will be documented over the course of the season. Hopefully this will lead to a process where we can set up a NS tournament on the website with the organiser's paypal address, teams pay and register through the website and the organiser gets a clear list of who's coming, who's playing with who and who's put their money up.

Can anyone help me get this done? If not I'm tempted to just pay someone to do it and then try to find sponsorship to cover it.

Well done NT! Well done all who attended.
Josh completely summed it up.

This has been great for UK polo.

One thing I am very keen to do for next year is get the website sorted out. I'd like to create something where players register as individuals and can then assign themselves into teams.

I remember talking to you about this, it made sense at the time and sounded like you'd be able to do handicap events and other fun things like pre-seeded tournaments, ABC bench minors, Euro qualification, etc. Why not create a site that can track all UK players/teams and work with it as you see fit? It's easier to be a little limitless now than try to add functionality later and it'd be easy to exclude the UK Champs or Open's results using filters as you see fit?

We should have an online resource that stores/presents player/team results to date, that'd be neat. Eventually it could be used to seed and schedule tournaments, etc.

That's a much better idea. There's no reason it would have to be limited to the UK either, that could just be another filter you apply. Hmmm.

You could even get Vince to supply you with all of his Podium data to date (I'm not sure if he'd do this), then filter as needed?

You could even work out the odds of one team beating another and start a betting ring, put all the funds back into bike polo tournaments, etc?

^ Read: Jono has a taste for the jet-set lifestyle and needs to fund it.

You could even work out the odds of one team beating another and start a betting ring, put all the funds back into bike polo tournaments, etc?

Yes! Polo betting!

I bet you £10 that Sloppy Seconds takes Passed It* 3 games to nil in the league.

*Stupidest polo name yet.

I bet you £10 that Sloppy Seconds takes Passed It* 3 games to nil in the league.

*Stupidest polo name yet.

Done.

That's a bet. It is going to pain me to dominate you like that, Bill, but it is going to happen.

Did Bill used to "hold your seat rails" in your old team photos, Matt?

Oh it was way more debauched than that.

Did he show you his wrinkled finger?

http://www.hardcourtbikepolo.org/polo/main/index.html

An interesting approach for NA qualification next year, 10 point drops every 8 teams, then if a team gets 50 points (or whatever) they qualify.

I think the point allocation is sound (rewarding top 8 from the elim, then dropping down the brackets you get less proportionally).

The points drop 10 points every 8 teams. Then based on the number of entrants at that tournament points would be alloted as such.

For an 8 team tournament:

the first place finish would be worth 9 points
second place would be worth 7 points
third would be 6 points
fourth would be 5 points
fifth would be 4 points
sixth would be 3 points
seventh would be 2 points
eighth would be 1 point

Here is an example of a 32 team tournament:

1st Place = 50 Points
2nd Place = 47 Points
3rd Place = 45 Points
4th Place = 44 Points
5th Place = 43 Points
6th Place = 42 Points
7th Place = 41 Points
8th Place = 40 Points

9th Place = 35 Points
10th Place = 32 Points
11th Place = 30 Points
12th Place = 29 Points
13th Place = 28 Points
14th Place = 27 Points
15th Place = 26 Points
16th Place = 25 Points

17th Place = 20 Points
18th Place = 17 Points
19th Place = 15 Points
20th Place = 14 Points
21st Place = 13 Points
22nd Place = 12 Points
23rd Place = 11 Points
24th Place = 10 Points

25th Place = 9 Points
26th Place = 7 Points
27th Place = 6 Points
28th Place = 5 Points
29th Place = 4 Points
30th Place = 3 Points
31st Place = 2 Points
32nd Place = 1 Points

The distribution of points for when it's below 10 points doesn't make sense to me, but food for thought.

not trying to be rude, but it doesn't sound like they've thought about it

for starters, most of those places are going to be ties

Yeah, possibly, I think they're playing with formats too though.

also, it seems that the more entrants, the more points first place gets

what is the NA quali tournament format? presumably its the same for all the events

in fact, where is the thread? lobp?

found it: http://leagueofbikepolo.com/forum/tournaments/2011/11/06/2012-nah-qualifying-system-and-whatnot

Yeah, after thinking about it a little, it doesn't make any sense. The only way I could get it to work in my head is if a 1st place is consistently worth 50 points. Moving on...