Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Tournament

Finding an open-source programmer?

liquado — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:52:54 -0800

I'm involved in a group of small/nonprofit organizations that would like to financially support the starting of an open-source software application. While I am technically-minded, I'm not a programmer -- and I don't really know what to look for in one (hopefully to be found on MeFi jobs!). Help greatly appreciated. I'm the co-chair of a nonprofit community fishing tournament. We've been using a software package to run our tournament that, bluntly, was never very good to start, and is showing its age.

Its function is basically to facilitate the entering of weights as anglers weigh in at the scale, calculation of current standings as the tournament runs, display on a fancy screen for spectators to see, display sponsor ads, angler photos, etc., etc.

We have a group of local tournament organizers (mostly nonprofit) that would like help developing something that would be useful to all of us, but that is cross platform and open source, so that other (fishing or otherwise, possibly) tournaments can benefit from it, as well. We're not interested in developing it as any kind of revenue stream; we just want a useful product for our own tournaments.

We likely can raise a reasonable amount of money to start the project, and are forming a committee to try and develop a spec sheet for it, but I don't know how to proceed from there. Other than the obvious usual HR baseline, what do I need to know/ask/require/expect in finding someone to start an open source project for us?

Alternately, is there a protocol wrt to looking for programmers who just want to start a new open source project (i.e., are not looking for financial recompense)? As I said, we will likely have some financial ability to make this happen, but someone wanting to do it on their own time would be okay, too.

Thanks for any advice!

Looking for online tournaments

yankeefog — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:19:49 -0800

I'm looking for a website that will let me and a bunch of friends compete in some sort of online tournament against each other. That is, I want a site that I can go to every day, play some sort of short online game, and see how I do compared to a specific group of friends. And I'd like rankings to be updated daily and monthly. What are my options? The only website I know that's exactly the format I'm looking for is my.funtrivia.com, but frankly, the questions there suck. They're badly written and very narrowly focused.

So really what I'm looking for is a non-crappy version of my.funtrivia.com. (Although it doesn't have to be trivia. Any competition suitable for short daily work breaks is fine.)

Make Small Money Sound Big

my homunculus is drowning — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:09:07 -0800

I need a really great, somewhat poker related prize (or a couple of prizes) that will cost less than $1200. I'm giving it away in early August (somewhat flexible on the date). Right now the best I can think of is a trip to Vegas for 2 and a $500 gift card. . . but I'd like something even better/cooler/more expensive sounding than that. I'm also considering a trip to Commerce Casino in LA with Disneyland tickets and stuff, so anything is possible. Travel anywhere is definitely an option, local events are an option. . . it just really needs to sound good.

Looking for help with some Rock Band tournament questions

idleminded — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:57:17 -0800

I'm hosting a Rock Band tournament in a "battle of the bands" style competition and I'm looking for prize suggestions (as well as some other tips). I've heard of custom Guitar Hero controllers, but is there a place online that does custom Rock Band controller paint jobs? I run a video game club at my college and we're holding a Rock Band tournament as a really major event. We want to have judges rate competitors as a band in terms of style (playing behind the head, drum tricks, etc.), band unity (how well they work together), and dress (we want them to dress like rock stars). I should mention that this is the first time we've done a tournament this way, so any tips on running it like this would be great.

But here's the real question, I have been trying to come up with some good ideas for prizes and have come across some custom painted guitar hero controllers. Is there a place that can do custom painted Rock Band controllers online? Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

Predict the unpredictable NCAA Basketball Tournament

clearly — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:12:39 -0800

NCAA Basketball Tournament office pool. Do you have any strategies and tips to help me win mine? Games predicted deeper into the tournament are weighted heavier in the scoring. There will be about 20 entries. I know this is the most unpredictable sporting event around. Do you have any strategies that have helped you in the past?

Photographing a Kid's Judo Tournament?

chengjih — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:36:03 -0800

What's the best way to photograph a kid's judo tournament and have pictures ready for the parents right after awards are presented? My judo club is hosting a tournament a few months from now. I've been asked to look into taking photos during the tournament and having these photos for sale by the end of it. The idea is to raise money for club operations by charging parents some amount for the pictures. What's the best way to go about this?

By way of equipment, I have a Nikon D70 with a telephoto lens (80-200mm f/2.8), and I can scrounge up a couple of laptops. The tournament will be in a large community center gym, with overhead fluorescents, so I might to do some basic color processing before images are presentable (probably along the lines of Picassa's "I Feel Lucky" touch-ups).

I don't believe I can practically offer prints, but I should be able to produce some number of CDs. The goal is to have something physically available for interested parents.

The main problem is timing, I think. Parents and their kids may have travelled some hours to get to the tournament, and may want to leave right after awards are given, rather than hanging around for me to burn CDs.

Any suggestions on how to do this? Thanks.

It's a Wii, Wario!

superbird — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:37:08 -0800

I want to host an awesome and inclusive Wario-Ware Tournament/Party. I recently bought Wario Ware: Smooth Moves for the Wii, and I am really excited about having a crazy-fun tournament night where married couples will enjoy themselves.

I want everyone invited to have an equally fun time, even if they don't like video games all that much. Any ideas, from those who know anything about the game, how to organize it and what sort of game modes or events I should include? Should I do the bracket system or some sort of elaborate point system, or a hybrid of both?

Also welcome are ideas for luring skeptics who may balk at the idea of a party based around a video game.

Tournament Bracket Methodology

dafair — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:06:25 -0800

Is there a standard or generally accepted methodology for determining the optimal number of byes needed, and in which round they should occur, in a single-elimination tournament? I am running a Heads-Up poker tournament, and i doubt that i will have a power of 2 as the number of entrants, so i will need to have some players advance in some rounds without competing. There is no seeding is this tournament, and i want to have as few players end up getting a bye as possible. I have never scheduled any sports tournament before, but i am guessing that there is a generally accepted method for determing how many byes and in which rounds.

How do I run a simple online NCAA Tournament pool?

brain_drain — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:19:31 -0800

What's the easiest and least-intrusive way to run an NCAA tournament pool online? I may get stuck running my office's NCAA basketball tournament pool this year. Traditionally, it is administered using paper entries. This requires a lot of manual labor to tally up the picks for each round of games and to calculate overall results.

I would love to be able to set up an online pool that would allow people to submit their entries on a website, and that would automatically tally up the results and show the standings. ESPN and CBS Sportsline have services like this. However, those sites require registration, and I fear that many of my colleagues, some of whom are not internet-savvy, will balk at having to register to enter the pool (and, more importantly, will come complaining to me about having to do so).

Are there any websites that would allow me to run the pool as described above, but would not require users to fill out detailed registration forms? It doesn't have to be fancy or secure -- just simple and non-intrusive.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Yes, I do know that I'm crazy

ancamp — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 16:59:48 -0800

How to run a tournament? I'm thinking of organising a tournament for Rock Paper Scissors. I'm hoping to attract at least 100 people (although preferably more), and to include sponsorship, prizes, referees, a pre-tournament entry process, and other tournamenty requirements. It would take place somewhere around June or July depending on how much planning was involved.

I've never done such a thing before.

Is there anyone who has run a tournament of any kind and can give tips on what's involved and how to do it?

Sklansky's (Poker) Tournament System

RustyBrooks — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:26:02 -0800

So I was reading "Tournament Poker for Advanced Players" by Sklansky, and found his system, and his modified system, pretty interesting. It's pretty easy to analyze the basic system, but the modified system is more complicated, and I have some questions/concerns about it. First, if you're not aware of the system I'm talking about, I'll give a tiny bit of detail. His system basically involves decided whether to fold or go all in. He has a formula that is based on the number of limpers, the number of players still to act, and the ratio of the blinds to your chip stack. Basically (limpers+1) * actors * stack / blinds. If there is a raise before you, you go all in with AA KK QQ or AKs. If there is no raise, you take your output from the formula, and depending on the number, there are different sets of hands to go all in on. The lower the number is, the more relaxed the constraints. This follows from the fact that if there are fewer players to act, you are less likely to get called, and if your ratio to the blinds is low, you must play looser to catch up.

Anyway. I made some scripts that calculate this number for me in real time, and I've been experimenting with playing the system live, online. I tried in free tournaments first. It does "ok", generally coming in the top 25%. This is fairly easy to do in a freeroll though, I bet I could do as well, or better, just folding. Freerolls suck. I've also tried it in a few low dollar tourneys, $1-$5. I generally go out around the mid point. Not a great showing.

With the original system, which had a fixed set of hands to go all in wth, you would go all in about 13% of the time. So if you weren't called you'd slowly make money, picking up the blinds a little more often than you paid them. If you were called, generally you would either lose or double up. In the modified system, the call rate seems to be more like 5%. It may be that I don't have enough samples yet but that seems to be it.

I don't know how to simulate the situation. I guess I could model the players, picking values for how loose of callers they are (since the # of limpers affects the number so much) and run a bunch of trials. The other thing I don't quite know how to analyze is expected return. It seems to me that if you assume that everyone folds to you, you can model it fairly easily -- but everyone won't always fold, and in fact, in low dollar tournaments you will get called with crap hands quite a bit. So an unknown factor, to me, is how often I can expect to get called.

I am wondering also if the system needs to be modified for online play, since the levels advance every 5 minutes (turbo) or 12 (normal) compared to maybe once an hour in a large live tournament. So, online, I might expect to see 10 hands between blind increases and live I might expect to see 30-40. In the freerolls I was often knocked out (in the top 25% mind you) after only about 50 hands. In these situations it seems like you might need to loosen the restrictions, but again, not sure how to model it.