Devonin's Critical Thinking Tournament (COMPLETED)

[devonin]

So I figured I'd finally try my hand at putting a tournament together, and what more appropriate way to do so than to meld my love of FFR with my love of CT.

Let me just say now that I have no intention of starting this tournament before January. I'm off visiting family for the holidays and I simply won't have the time to dedicate to running this particular type of tournament. Expect a start date some time in and around the 5th of January give or take.

As should be expected, this tournament is going to differ in a lot of ways from traditional tourneys. I'll give you a run-down of the plan.

1/ Signups will start from this post until the tourney ends. Yes, you could even sign up on the last day, and just whore whore whore the songs.

2/ There are no skill level categories in this tourney. You'll see why in a minute, but I'm not seperating anybody into categories by skill, nor will there be a linear scale of "the songs get harder every round" This will all make sense in a minute.

3/ Prizes will cascade as far down the list as I can manage. I don't have much by way of credits myself, but if I get sufficient donations, I'd like to see maybe a first prize of 20 or 30k credits, and it will scale down as far as I can go. If I happen to get millions like Phynx or something, prizes will get bigger obviously, but if at least the top 50% of all entrants win -something- then I'm happy.

The tournament is going to go like this:

On the first day of each round, I'm not posting what song you play. I'm posting a riddle, problem or puzzle that, if solved correctly, will tell you which song to play. The 'round' will last for 2 full days (If it goes up at 11:59pm monday, you'll have all day tuesday/wednesday [ending 11:59pm Wednesday]) during which time you will submit By private forum message only your answer and how you arrived at it. You will not be posting any song scores at this point, even if you solved the song (feel free to be playing and saving screenies though)

Points will be awarded to people based on the order in which they submitted the correct solution to the problem to determine which song is the song for the round.

At the end of the "round" (2 days after posting) I will post the solution to the puzzle, and the name of the song to be played for that round, as well as the new riddle for the new round. You will then have the entire duration of the tourney to submit scores for the song, via the usual method of screenshots here or PM'd.

Points will be awarded to people based on the ranking they have on the song compared to all other participants (numbering like levelranks do)

So as an example, assume we have 5 people taking part in the tourney. I'll post my riddle, and award points along the lines of
first: 5 points
2-3rd: 3 points
4-5th: 1 point

In order of submission of riddle solution. Standings read

Player A: 5 points
Player B: 3 points
Player C: 3 points
Player D: 1 point
Player E: 1 point

Then at the end of the two days, I post the answer, the song, and the next riddle. They begin submitting scores. Points will be awarded by rank like

1 -> 5 points
2-3 -> 3 points
4-5+ -> 1 point

So if player A and D both submit a AAA, player B submits a BF, player C submits X-3-0-0-0 and Player E submits X-20-12-1-5, their ranks will look like this:

1 Player A -> 5 points
1 Player D -> 5 points
3 Player B -> 3 points
4 Player C -> 1 point
5 Player E -> 1 point

Since the numerical rankings work like levelranks do, If someone new, player F submitted a AAA, they would also be rank 1, scoring 5 points, which would push player B down to rank 4, leaving him with only 4 points and so on.

In the above example, the current total score would be
Player A: 10 points
Player B: 6 points
Player D: 6 point
Player C: 4 points
Player E: 2 point

As I said, anyone can sign up at any time during the tourney, and will be awarded song points for songs from previous rounds if they submit on them, as well as riddle points from all rounds after they join. However, once I've posted the song and the solution to the riddle, no further points will be given out for solving the riddle. You can join at any time, and get riddle points from then on, but if you join late, you lose out on riddle points from earlier rounds.

I'm figuring on something around 10 rounds, Depending on how many really good puzzles I can come up with between now and then, it may go longer, but since riddles don't take whoring, and you can submit songs at any point, this is the kind of tourney that can easily let you work it into the rest of your schedule. And with enough rounds, missing one won't necessarily eliminate you at all.

With equal points being awarded for being the first to answer the puzzle and scoring a AAA on the song, anyone of any skill level has a chance to win this. I'm hoping to get a reasonably large prize pot so that as many people as possible can win something worthwhile. I'm tired of all these "60 people, but only top 3 get prizes" tourneys.

Winning might not get you 500k, but not winning might still get you 5 or 10k for the effort.

Puzzle Scores        Song Scores

Order                Levelrank  Points
Submitted  Points
1 ->     5 points    1 ->     5 points
2-9 ->   4 points    2-6 ->   4 points
10-19 -> 3 points    7-14 ->  3 points
20-29 -> 2 points    15-19->  2 points
30+ ->   1 point     20+ ->   1 point