Cincinnati OP CUP
report
Friday
After almost a solid week
of nothing but thinking about how to best judge and run the OP CUP, I finally
got on the road around 10:30am Friday morning for Gary’s house. About
five hours later, I pull up to his house for a much needed break.
Gary, Brian Hildreth, and I then left for Doug Simms house in Columbus,
Ohio, to spend the night there along with many other players for the Cup.
Just before 9pm we arrive at Doug Simms house and find Phil Keffer and
Jon Land were already there. Shortly after we settled in, Doug comes
in and Phil Miller a little after that. Soon, Marcel and the Suttons
make it, and the house is now pretty full of OverPower players and cards.
This evening was full of last minute deck preparation, testing, modification,
and just plain fun. I continued to mess around with my new laptop
to try to find the best way to run the events, both for my own benefit
and for the benefit of all the players.
Saturday
We began the day a little
later than expected. The night before was a very late one that did
not give me much rest after driving 8 hours on Friday. On the way
to Cincinnati we were separated from our convoy and had to call to get
directions to the store. It was just before 11am when we found the
store and decided to wait for one more player to show up so we could have
22 total players. This gave us more than enough time to get everyone
registered and discuss what the format would be. The turnout was
a little less than expected, but maybe next time we can be better prepared
to make it even more successful. If I help run another one of these
big money events, I hope to have more personal involvement and online promotion
to draw a larger crowd. Another consideration is to make the entrance
fee less than $50 as such a high cost might have kept people away.
I hope to take an online poll to find out who would be interested in attending
this type of event, how much they would be willing to pay to draw a larger
crowd, and maybe even where they are located to find a central location
that is convenient for all.
Because we had fewer
players than we had hoped, the prize money was also less. In order
to have a grand prize as high as possible, we decided to drop the $100
tournament on Sunday but still keep most of the $50 tournaments.
The first two rounds
were very smooth. With 45-minute rounds, the players had plenty of
time to play their games. The first round was called on time, but
the second ended early. With some of the currently top ranked players
in all of OverPower at this event, the number of rules calls was much less
than most tournaments, but the ones they did have were sometimes pretty
tough. Despite my efforts to keep every player in the event until
the very end of the swiss rounds, one player decided to drop out after
round three. We convinced him to play one more game for the sake
of the player who would have had a bye.
With only 22 players
in the qualifier for the Cup, we only needed to run 4 rounds of swiss instead
of the planned 5. Doug Simms and Jon Land ended the qualifier with
4-0 records. Myles Head, Erick Counts, Matthew Puckett, Tyler and
Derek Bertrand were the other qualifiers each with a 3-1 record.
On Saturday afternoon
we held the first of the $50 tournaments. This one was a Homebase
tournament with minor restrictions. We only had 19 of our original
22 players for this event, as some people had to leave or did not have
a Homebase deck for this event. We decided to seat this event randomly
among like records, since it was not sanctioned. There was a good
variety of Homebases being used. Cape Citadel and Age of Apocalypse
were the most popular. We played four rounds of swiss, and then the
top 8 made it to single elimination. Tyler beat Doug in the finals
with a Landau, Luckman, and Lake Homebase and a 6-1 record.
Saturday night we ran
a pure single elimination, no holds barred, anything legal goes tournament.
With only 20 players we had to give 12 players a bye in the first round
so we could easily have 16 players for the next round of single elimination.
Phil beat Tyler in the final.
This ended the night
just a little before midnight and we left for Chris' house to spend the
night.
Sunday
Since the store that hosted
us on Saturday had a Magic tournament scheduled at 2pm, we decided to finish
the event at Chris’ place. We could hold the finals for the OP Cup
and still have another tournament for the players that did not make it
at about the same time. It took us a little while to get everyone
together since some people stayed the night at a hotel or at other places,
but we were able to be a little more comfortable without all the noise
of the store, even if we were a little cramped.
There were seven finalists
for the OP CUP since we had 22 players to start the event, so it took some
effort to find the easiest way for these players to play everyone in the
least amount of time. We wanted the finals to be a round robin format
so that no player is removed from the event after a first round loss.
Tyler Bertrand won the OP Cup with a 5-1 record in the round robin.
He only lost to Doug in the first round. Myles and Matthew shared
second with a 4-2 record each. Doug finished fourth, Jon and Erick
shared fifth place, and Derek was seventh.
We ran the second sanctioned
event for the players who did not make it past the qualifier at the same
time as the finals for the Cup. We had to start this one a little
later than the finals, partly because of design and partly because we were
not prepared to finish the weekend at Chris' apartment and had to get everyone
together here instead of at the store. Phil beat Marcel in the final
with a perfect 7-0 record.
The last tournament
of the weekend was another pure single elimination event, but no Battlesites
were allowed. It was during this event that I realized what my biggest
mistake was, I didn't keep the secret prize enough of a secret. The
two players with the greatest chance of winning the prize at this point
kept asking who had the most wins, and I don't blame them, only myself.
The unnamed condition to win the secret prize was the highest number of
wins over the whole weekend. Phil beat Doug in the semifinals to
take the lead in overall wins for the weekend. He then beat Derek
Bertrand in the finals to win the tournament with a 7-0 record and the
overall weekend prize with a total record of 22-4.
Oh, did I forget to
mention what the secret prize was? It was an uncut sheet from Classic
with 5 of each of the 6 Classic inserts on it.
I want to thank Chris
Vezina for hosting this event, Acme Games in Cincinatti for allowing us
to use their space on Saturday, and all the players who made the trip for
a chance at some money. We had at least 6 players from Canada, 1
from Alabama, 2 from West Virginia, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from Illinois,
1 displaced Californian, a few locals, and some players I never met before
so I don't know how far they had to travel.
If anyone who was at
this event has anything they want to tell me that they did not get a chance
to in person, or just did not want to say it to my face, please email me
or Chris and let us know. The overall response I received was that
people had a great time this weekend, and so did I. I would like
to judge more of these, but would prefer if more people could attend, or
at least have more and different people win the tournaments.
I seriously doubt I
will be able to judge another one this year, as I work in retail and we
are getting ready to get ready for our busiest time of the year.
Chris mentioned the possibility of another one in November, which is probably
enough advance notice to plan an event like this. The only problems
I see is that an event like this during the regular school year makes it
difficult for some people to attend. Also, that is the holiday season
for me so there is no way I can take the time off to make it.
I am planning on holding
an online poll to find out what would be best for the most players to attend
an event like this one.
Once again, congratulations
to Tyler Bertrand for winning the OP CUP and the Homebase tournament and
to Phil Keffer for winning the overall weekend prize.
Email me at NickW1973@aol.com
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