The 32 week Bloody Mary Season VI started Sunday, 10-Oct-2010. Winners of the 32 weekly tourneys will be invited to participate in the Bloody Mary Championship Series (BMCS VI). Winners of two or more tourneys will receive two entries. Winners of three or four tourneys will receive a first round bye or byes.

Live Challonge! Brackets with TourneyBot

TourneyBot now publishes parallel brackets simultaneously in Challonge! The Challonge brackets are created directly from Tourneybot pairings. During tournament play, results of each tournament match are detected by TourneyBot, new pairings are announced, and the Challonge bracket is updated immediately.

This feature has been working on all of TourneyBot's automatic tourneys since 06-Jan.  When TourneyBot announces Round 1 pairings and results, about 5-10 minutes after play begins, the following message appears in FIBS Shouts:


You'll notice that the player entry in the Challonge bracket also includes the FIBS player rating at the time of registration. In the Bloody Mary weekly results in this thread, beginning with the 09-Jan-2011 tourney, I have also included a hyperlink to Challonge brackets. This makes it very easy to not only see who won, but who played and the bracket winners in each round during play.

For those who enjoy using Challonge for visual brackets (and who doesn't?), Tom has created the best of both worlds with this new feature enabling full TourneyBot functionality and automatic reporting of results to Challonge and even added information by now including FIBS ratings in the Challonge brackets. While this has largely gone unnoticed (since it has been working so well), I have noticed on several occasions, when a player asks the inevitable question of "Who do I play next?", regular tourney players are now referring folks to the visual brackets at Challonge. Tom has even made that easy to do by creating a unique Challonge group for TourneyBot tourneys. It is simply



Thanks, Tom, for your continued excellent work at maintaining and improving TourneyBot to meet the needs of the tournament players at FIBS. As much as we all like to gripe and lament about the woes and limitations of TourneyBot, you've supplied us with a very powerful FIBS specific tournament manager now fully integrated with the most widely used Internet tools for creating visual brackets. As a TD who attempted to run a tourney using TourneyBot and then publish the results live in Challonge before the end of the tourney, I can truly say, TourneyBot has come a long way, baby!

Congrats Vic!

I am sure you will do a GREAT job!

Full bracket, vic running it like a pro...nope, no joke...

The 32 week Bloody Mary Season VI started Sunday, 10-Oct-2010. Winners of the 32 weekly tourneys will be invited to participate in the Bloody Mary Championship Series (BMCS VI). Winners of two or more tourneys will receive two entries. Winners of three or four tourneys will receive a first round bye or byes.

Bloody Mary "Sunday Special" Season VI Weekly Winners:

[table=]
Week,    Date,Tourney #, TD(s),Seeding,Registered, Winner
,,,sixtie,,,yonay,
,,,sixtie,,,rif_raf,    
,,,sixtie,,,sunray,
,,,sixtie,,,sixtie,
,,,sixtie,,,inim,
,,,Naavanaxx,,,Picasso,
,,,sixtie,,,spielberg,
,,,sixtie,,,yoyo,
,,,sixtie,,,vegas_vic,
,,,sixtie,,,KDP,
,,,sixtie,,,spielberg,
,,,sixtie,,,aviator,
,,,sixtie,,,DeaDice,
,,,sixtie,,,austin,
,,,sixtie,,,DisraeliGears,
,,,sixtie,,,pollemanden,
,,,sixtie,,,TriAtma_III,
,,,sixtie,,,magic_one,
,,,sixtie,,,JonPrud,
,,,socksey,,,DeaDice,  
,,,vegas_vic,,,DiceMechanic,
,,,socksey,,,magic_one,  
,,,vegas_vic,,,saukriver,
[/table]


* TourneyBot results for #3847 are incorrect. The last two rounds of the tourney finished while TourneyBot was off-line. DisraeliGears defeated jackdaddy in the finals with 30 players registered in the tourney.

 

Comments from the Czar

Bloody Mary Seeding
Changing the seeding to random came up again before the last Bloody Mary tourney started. On reflection from my new role as Bloody Mary Czar, I'd prefer leaving things as they are through the end of Season VI (11 more weeks). After that, perhaps we can consider changing the seeding and even dropping registration limits.
 
Keeping It "Special"
Since I began hosting the Bloody Mary "Sunday Special", I've attempted to make the Bloody Mary a distinctive event by using devices like seeding and registration limits, but both distinctions may have served their purpose. The Bloody Mary remains the ONLY tourney that uses seeding by rating at FIBS and the only tourney that sets very high registration limits for Exp, Rep, and Rating. I've never turned anyone away that wants to play in a Bloody Mary but doesn't meet registration limits and the seeding debate is much ado about nothing, IMHO.
 
"Fairness"
Frankly, I have enjoyed the attention debate over "fairness" here at FIBSboard brings to FIBS tourneys in general. The Bloody Mary is squarely entrenched as one of the most popular tourneys at FIBS despite the numerous comments in posts, shouts, and private tells concerning "fairness". It is difficult to determine how much those often monotonous debates have effected tournament participation, if at all. IMO, the controversy, if any, created by the debates (public and private) with dorbel and others like LuckyDice have had a net positive effect on tournament awareness and participation. For example, the Bloody Mary field continues to grow each week and it is the consistent leader in registration among ALL FIBS based tourneys. Of course, the time slot has a lot to do with that.
 
Post-season Tournament
The post-season tournament is another part of what appeal the Bloody Mary "Sunday Special" has a FIBS tournament. To my knowledge, the Bloody Mary was the first to offer an invitational post-season tournament for WINNERS ONLY. Additionally, we introduced the concept of multiple entries and even guaranteed first round byes for multiple wins during a season. Such incentives keep previous winners interested in participating throughout the entire season.

I will run the post-season tourney for Season VI, as I have in the past. Quite a lot of behind the scenes work is required to pull it off with invites, arranging the brackets, and monitoring slow play once it is started. But I've enjoyed doing it each season. Additionally, Tom and I have discussed ways that TourneyBot may be modified to accommodate this format for post-season play making it much easier on the TD, but we haven't done anything about it to date. Maybe we can devote more time to that before the end of this season.
 
Sponsorship
Further, it has long been my goal to obtain corporate or private sponsorship for our post-season tourney offering nice prizes for ALL participants and VERY NICE prizes and trophies for the top three winners, but that is still just a personal pipe-dream. For example, how much attention and participation might a few hundred dollars for the winner generate? Even just nice gift certificates or something like that would be great. If anyone would like to help set something like that up, please contact me, ASAP.
 
Final Thoughts
Finally, back to the topic of seeding, Tom and I have discussed between ourselves and with other tournament admins a method for determining first round byes randomly which we call BALANCED SEEDING. While first round byes would be determined randomly, initial starting positions for all players would be ordered as if seeded by rating. Such a seeding method should, IMO, satisfy both adherents of random seeding and seeding by rating. Ideally, that would be my preference for subsequent seasons, if Tom can make it happen. Maybe we should call it FAIR AND BALANCED seeding, but we all know "fair and balanced" is a lie, but that's another story.

So, for now, whenever anyone complains or asks the new TD about random seeding, vic can blame it on me, the Bloody Mary Czar. We will keep seeding by rating until the end of this season, unless Tom can implement BALANCED SEEDING before then. Having a Czar to blame may be a useful device to keep our new TD out of trouble on other occasions. If so, feel free to abuse me anytime you think it may help, Mister vic.
 
BTW, the view from my throne room in my new palace is spectacular -- being a Czar is way cool, even if only a self-annointed one

Given the circumstances surrounding the recent suspension of vegas_vic, I am resuming my role as TD for the remainder of Season VI, about 8 weeks. I know that I will have conflicts on some dates and will be traveling on at least 4 of those Sundays, but I will arrange a sub whenever I cannot be there to get the tourney going. For now, socksey and spielberg are the only designated co-directors. For the next few Sundays, I may be late for registration, but I will log in by 10:15 AM my time (1515 UTC). So, please be patient.

This Sunday the rest of the world joins us on Daylight Savings Time (DST). Theoretically, the start time of the Bloody Mary should still be at 1515 UTC. So, for the USA, our local DST start time should remain the same, Euros and others will have to arrive an hour earlier thanks to "spring forward".

I will resume my search for a new Bloody Mary TD, effective immediately. But the announcement of a new TD will likely be delayed until the beginning of Season VII. The new TD will be expected to commit to at least one full season, 32 weeks, and be willing to continue the Bloody Mary tradition at FIBS with enthusiasm and without controversy. I will retain my title and responsibility as Bloody Mary Czar. Which simply means I will work with the new TD as a backup and be responsible and accountable for establishing with the new TD the ground rules for our new season and conducting the post-season tournament.

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing you all Sunday for the next Bloody Mary "Sunday Special", tourney number 25 in our sixth season.

The 32 week Bloody Mary Season VI started Sunday, 10-Oct-2010. Winners of the 32 weekly tourneys will be invited to participate in the Bloody Mary Championship Series (BMCS VI). Winners of two or more tourneys will receive two entries. Winners of three or four tourneys will receive a first round bye or byes.

Bloody Mary "Sunday Special" Season VI Weekly Winners:

[table=]
Week,    Date,Tourney #, TD(s),Seeding,Registered, Winner
,,,sixtie,,,yonay,
,,,sixtie,,,rif_raf,    
,,,sixtie,,,sunray,
,,,sixtie,,,sixtie,
,,,sixtie,,,inim,
,,,Naavanaxx,,,Picasso,
,,,sixtie,,,spielberg,
,,,sixtie,,,yoyo,
,,,sixtie,,,vegas_vic,
,,,sixtie,,,KDP,
,,,sixtie,,,spielberg,
,,,sixtie,,,aviator,
,,,sixtie,,,DeaDice,
,,,sixtie,,,austin,
,,,sixtie,,,DisraeliGears,
,,,sixtie,,,pollemanden,
,,,sixtie,,,TriAtma_III,
,,,sixtie,,,magic_one,
,,,sixtie,,,JonPrud,
,,,socksey,,,DeaDice,  
,,,vegas_vic,,,DiceMechanic,
,,,socksey,,,magic_one,  
,,,vegas_vic,,,saukriver,
,,,vegas_vic,,,Cinderella,  
,,,sixtie,,,WiFi,  
,,,sixtie,,,hobbit,  
,,,sixtie,,,KDP,
,,,sixtie,,,sunray,
,,,sixtie,,,RickrInSF,
,,,sixtie,,,KDP,
,,,sixtie,,,Cigale,
,,,sixtie,,,Leudwulf,
[/table]


* TourneyBot standings stored for #3847 are incorrect. The Challonge bracket is correct up to the point where TourneyBot went off-line but is incomplete. The last two rounds of the tourney were finished manually while TourneyBot was off-line. DisraeliGears defeated jackdaddy in the finals with 30 players registered in the tourney.

** The Challonge results for #3996 are incomplete. The tourney finished normally and the TourneyBot standings are correct. While the final match ended in a TIMEOUT, the timeout was legitimate as one of the players apparently lost their connection during play (or maybe they needed a nap).