Tournament with Casual Players

[JxKxR]

The people at my local store are trying to get a tournament going. The problem is there are only like 5 people that can make it regularly but something like 10 people that might make it once a month.

Is there a good way to have casual gamers be a part of the tourney without screwing things up? So we don't have to rely on the casual gamers but not exclude them when they do show up.

[DarkLink]

If you go to a lot of tournaments, especially small local ones, you'll find there really isn't much of a difference between casual and competitive players. Sometimes there will be someone with the big fish in a small pond problem, but really the only difference between your normal gaming day and a tournament is time limits, guaranteed games, and possible prizes.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Maybe keep the tournament brackets flexible? Wait until the day of the tournie to decide match-ups so absences aren't a problem.

[SotonShades]

Do a league or a scroe board rather than a tournament. Rather than just acquiring points for playing more games, normalise it to the lowest number of games anyone has played (so if I've played 9 games, but someone else has only played 2, my total would be 2/9ths of my total points, whereas the other players would be 2/2nds of their points).

It is easy enough to do with an Excel spreadsheet, but if you also had a display board that got updated weekly to show current placings, it might encourage people to play more games.

The only real downside is that people who play a lot of games are likely to have fewer points than a person who comes in once and wins that game, so maybe add in bonuses for coming in at least once a week. make it 30 points for a win, 10 for a draw, 1 for a loss, 0 for conceding (within reason, so the guy who concedes because all he has left is immobile, gunless vehicles is unnecessarilly punished) and maybe a 5 point bonus if you play a game within 7 days of your last game, but you only get that once every 7 days, not each time you play within 7 days.

[Denzark]

You state the problem as being some people only able to play once a month. Soemthing that occurs that regularly is more of a league than a tournament - even at once a month!

The less regularly you hold the event surely the more people can turn up?

[JxKxR]

Thanks for the ideas fellas! I'm gonna get with the others and see if they want to try what SotonShades suggested.

[Lerra]

If you want to keep the casual players coming, I'd suggest keeping the entry fee and the prizes low. Most casual gamers aren't going to want to drop a lot of money when they know they won't win any prizes.

My favorite casual tournament had a $10 entry fee, and if we had at least 16 people show up, the store would provide free pizza for lunch. It was awesome, and it encouraged people to bring their friends so that everyone would get pizza.

[JxKxR]

We aren't doing fees or prizes just bragging rights.

But I'll suggest it if it would bring more people in.