The First WPSA Christmas Open

by **POTUS** Sun 24 Nov 2019, 7:44 pm

Welcome to the first WPSA Christmas Open!

This will be our first Christmas tournament and we decided since December is more of a holiday month to hold a shorter event in the form of a single stage elimination tournament. We also prepared an expanded rules list covering all aspects based on some of the problems encountered in the previous event. Read the rules carefully! and don't forget to sign up

REGISTRATION LINK: https://challonge.com/tournaments/signup/ym1y0ubXHe

Registration Rules

Only people that are following and registered members of the WPSA Challonge community page, the WPSA Forum and the WPSA Steam group are eligible to register for the tournament. (Links to all platforms included below).
The event starts on 05-12-2019 and ends on 23-12-2019. We are in a holiday month so the end date might be subject to change.
Registration for the event opens up on 26-11-2019 and closes 04-12-2019. Members that want to participate must do so before this date.
Any members who fail to do so after this date can sadly not be added to the tournament and will have to sit this one out, no penalties are given, their rank on the Challonge community is not affected, they are simply not active for the current event.

Prize money

First place wins €15 in Steam Gift Cards.
The runner up wins a €10 Steam Gift Card.
The winner of the third place game wins a €5 Steam Gift Card.
If a 147 is made an additional €5 Steam Gift Card is given.
The highest break gets a ticket to the exclusive “High rollers tournament” planned in 2020 where only a limited amount of places are available and players will compete for the championship title of one of the triple crown events in the WPSA.
All prize money will be paid out on 30-12-2019 or no later than 05-01-2020 in case the tournament is extended for a couple days. We are in a holiday month so depending when the tournament ends this might change

Format

The tournament will be a single stage tournament, with a single elimination setup. A match for third place is also included.
Members will be thrown into a random bracket system by the traditional seeding rules system Challonge uses.
Highest breaks are always to be reported to the Tournament Administration (TA)!
Each round shall have a progression in frames. In round one every match will be a 5 frame match, round 2 every match will be a 7 frame match and so on until the final.
In later stages, if a match is long, it can be played in multiple parts. (mid session intervals).
Come to an agreement with your opponent on matter of breaking off in the case of a mid session interval. Note down where the game status is, inform Tournament Administration. Also check the postponing/ mid session interval chapter.
We will not enforce hard rules on the matter of breaking off if the match is divided up, we simply ask to work it out with your opponent, in case of disputes Tournament Administration will act as the final judge and asks the participants to respect the decision that has been made.

Rules on aiming guides and usage

The standard aiming guides to be used in this tournament for all matches will be Pro. No other aiming guides are to be used in this tournament.
We ask all participants not to go crazy on the usage of “out of this world” swerve shots. Keep it somewhat realistic.

Rules of setting up matches and deadlines

All participants will have the freedom to arrange all matches against their opponents themselves. Get in contact with each other, if you need help to get in contact with a member inform Tournament Administration they will help you out.
While all Participants have the freedom to play the matches when they can, there will be some deadlines in place in order to ensure progression. Inactivity and failure to complete the matches in time can result in disqualification (DQ) depending on the situation! Check the chapter on absence and inactivity.
Even with deadlines in place tournament administration will be somewhat lenient on these matters. Deadlines can be extended for a couple days. If however progression of the rounds becomes to much affected tournament administration is forced to make decisions, check the chapter on absence and inactivity.

Reporting results

All participants have the freedom to and can report report the results of the game themselves on the Challonge event page. If a game is finished come to an agreement who will report the match. Alternatively you can inform tournament administration and they will do it for you.
Report the match with the result as it is, there is no need to add a set, or write individual frame scores.
If you made a mistake, no worries, no harm is done simply inform Tournament administration and they will open the match back up so it can be properly updated.

Postponing / mid session interval

If a match needs to be postponed then click on “match in progression” on the Challonge bracket match in question and make a mention on the discussion board or inform Tournament Administration and they will do it for you.
Make sure that when you report a mid session interval on the discussion board of Challonge to include the match affected and what the current score is.

Rules on absence and inactivity

If players cannot play their game in time inform tournament administration, and try to work out a date with your opponent. Deadlines can be extended as mentioned previously. We will however have a process in place to cover any possibilities of participating players not completing the matches scheduled.
If people are going to be away for a longer period of time during the tournament then let it be known so we can work the schedule out, if we are not aware of any absences the following rules will apply.
If the deadlines are not respected a first notice will be given to the players of the match in question. Tournament administration will during the deadline extension get in contact with the players and get them to play their match.
In case both players fail to play their match and respond to any of the messages sent by tournament administration before the end of the extended deadline. Then the match shall be considered as a “dead match” and tournament administration will flip a coin to decide which player of the “dead match” goes through.
The player from the “dead match” placed in the next round by this rule will be given an automatic loss. Basically both players of a “dead match” are considered disqualified. It is a harsh rule but in order to ensure progression of the tournament we have to make decisions.
In the case one of the players is trying to get in contact with an opponent but the opponent is unresponsive after repeated messages we ask the player to inform tournament administration. If it turns out the player is not responding to league administration messages as well, then the player in question is disqualified and the other player in the bracket advances with forfeit scores.

Snooker “etiquettes” and conduct around and on the table.

Always be respectful to your opponent. Never resort to cursing or swearing at your opponent, snooker is considered to be a gentleman's sport act like it.
Some players in the group require some patience as they are not as tech savvy as some of us might be, be understanding and help them out.
Give players time to respond to your messages, don't spam them with steam phone calls, messages or teamspeak 3 pokes if they don’t reply to you immediately.
Don’t prolong games unnecessary. If you need a crazy amount of snookers to get back in the game then cut your loss as explained earlier.
Don’t concede the frame if your opponent is on a break and he has crossed the mark of “snookers needed for the opponent” he might be on the roll for a high break or a clearance grant him that chance as you would like it yourself should you be in such a situation.

Rules on technical issues and game bugs and glitches

Sometimes the game suddenly disconnects and will give a “timed out connection” message. If this happens then the frame in progression will sadly need to be replayed. The frames that already been played do not need to be replayed and are valid. If the problem persists then the game can be postponed, do make a mention of it on the discussion board on the tournament Challonge page. And mark the game as “in progress” by clicking the play button next to match in question.
If the frame in play was going heavily one sided then players must come to an agreement on either conceding the frame or replay it. Come to a gentleman's agreement and we ask that the player on the losing side of such a frame not to exploit this, cut your losses be fair if there was no realistic way of getting back into the frame… This is a rather rare occurrence (timed out connections) in the previous league out of 27 matches played 2 froze up. If we begin to notice that a player is exploiting by doing a "ALT F4" forced "crash" a DQ can follow! in case of disputes Tournament direction will be the final judge.
Sometimes the game freezes up, you can tell this if the commentator is late with reporting score and if the player character is standing next to the table staring onto the table. A not confirmed fix to this is hit “ESC” 2 times (menu and back to game).
It is recommended not to “ALT-TAB” while you are in game, this can cause previous mentioned problems, “SHIFT-TAB” should not be a problem (steam overlay)
The game has a couple bugs regarding the free ball rule, there is nothing we can do on that as it is a game issue, what we can say is watch the result of the cue-ball line. If the line is white the shot should be legit, if the line is read then don’t take the shot as it will result in a fault even though you selected the free ball option and the shot would be legit.

Links to all the platforms MUST BE REGISTERED TO ALL OF THEM!

WPSA Forum: https://wpsa.forumotion.com/
Challonge community page (Hit follow):
https://challonge.com/communities/WPSA
Steam group: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/wpsal

Tournament Administration.

Head admin of WPSA and Tournament Administrator, Croc

Admin of WPSA and Tournament Director, Potus

by **POTUS** Sun 24 Nov 2019, 8:10 pm

reserved

The First WPSA Christmas Open

The First WPSA Christmas Open

Re: The First WPSA Christmas Open