THE 2015 SPADES TOURNAMENT

Thank you to everybody who signed up for the Spades tournament, I hope it is a very exciting and fun competition for everybody. Just before I explaine how the draw workes may I remind everybody that we host tournaments as we are giving something back to our friends and hope to make new friends on the way. Please respect your oponents as fair play is an important value to all of us!

We will publish the order of play on the tables soon so look out for those on the forum.

We have had 16 teams enter the tournament so good luck to those 32 players that are taking part. For the first two rounds we divided the 16 teams into two pots and placed them in pot 1 or Pot 2 depending on if they prefered to play at 15.00 or 19.00 UK time. We randomly drew teams from pot 1 and placed them into group A. We did this until pot 1 was empty and group A was full. We then went to pot 2 and drew out the matches in the same way for group B.

Round 1 (LAST 16)

GROUP A

FR1. Pistachio & badgirl V Jagu.hal & Ferki

FR2. Sopralto & adventure-time V balasana & doubletrouble911

FR3. Jesse & Alpharabius V Alesia & Aurel

FR4. Farzad & Cupid V domatricedishirehorse & Sampei-51

GROUP B

FR5. policeman1 & sirine V andkuk & doctor1

FR6. smoothy and tehsene V estrellavega & ilhan

FR7. prabhu & phyllis V Laila.ali & flower17

FR8. desire & genti V magicalkrrish & guliwer

Quarter-Final (Last 8)

GROUP a

QF1. Sopralto & adventure-time/balasana & doubletrouble911 v Farzad & Cupid/domatricedishirehorse & Sampei-51

QF2. Pistachio & badgirl/Jagu.hal & Ferki V Jesse & Alpharabius/Alesia & Aurel

GROUP B

QF3. smoothy and tehsene/estrellavega & ilhan V prabhu & phylis/Laila.ali & flower17

QF4. desire & genti/magicalkrrish & guliwer V policeman1 & sirine/andkuk & doctor1

The last 4 teams left in the competition were all placed into one pot and randomly drawn out. The same was done for the final.

SEMI-Final (Last 4)

SF1. Sopralto & adventure-time/balasana & doubletrouble911/Farzad & Cupid/domatricedishirehorse & Sampei-51
V desire & genti/magicalkrrish & guliwer/policeman1 & sirine/andkuk & doctor1

SF2. Pistachio & badgirl/Jagu.hal & Ferki/Jesse & Alpharabius/Alesia & Aurel V smoothy and tehsene/estrellavega & ilhan/prabhu & phylis/Laila.ali & flower17

FINAL (LAST 2)

Pistachio & badgirl/Jagu.hal & Ferki/Jesse & Alpharabius/Alesia & Aurel/smoothy and tehsene/estrellavega & ilhan/prabhu & phylis/Laila.ali & flower17

V Sopralto & adventure-time/balasana & doubletrouble911/Farzad & Cupid/domatricedishirehorse & Sampei-51/desire & genti/magicalkrrish & guliwer/policeman1 & sirine/andkuk & doctor1

We would like to thank everybody taking part and wish you all the best for the Tournament. If anything changes and you or your partner are unable to play then contact one of the organisers to let us know as soon as possible so we can find a replacement before the tournament gets underway.

Good luck

Mayank, Teardrop and YNWA

Exciting! thank you and looking forward for the tournament.
Regards Krrish

I have a question...can we make the score limit higher? with just 250 this will lean too much on luck. I have talked to several players whom I guess didn't realize it was this low, and they were disappointed with this too. If, for example, someone takes a nil and a successful contract, this could be immediately 150 points...there is hardly room for the other team to come back, even if they do nothing wrong strategically. Thank you.

Before the tournament we asked for opinions on the tournament. We have hosted free tables so people can talk to us about the tournament on many occasions but nobody commented on the points. All the information has been on the forum for the past two weeks. changing three days before the tournament would not be right. It would be the same if we wanted teams of three at this late stage. We asked for a timer for the tournament but Aminiel didn't want to do that, so that has put extra time on the games.

We would like to have had longer matches but that would have meant players who were second having to wait longer to play. we worked out that games could take around 35 minutes to 45 on average. It is true that people could bet a zero and get 150 as you stated but equally it is possible that people fail too making the game longer. Nobody has a crystal ball so we have to try to guess what is a reasonable time for each game to last. I was going to have the first two rounds at 200 points but was persuaded to make it higher. The semi's and final will be higher. At the time we were also thinking it was possible to have up to 32 teams. We have no precedent to follow, so who can say what scoring levels are correct or not. If you changed the first 2 rounds to 300 then you would move the semi's to 350 and the final to 400. How much longer will the games take? How many more people are likely to drop sandbags?Remember this is our first Spades tournament and our first team one too. Many said we were mad to rry a team tournament as many players will cheat. It is also harder to get all the players together. There are a lot of challenges to overcome to make this tournament successful and we will do our best to make it as enjoyable as possible for all of you.

about scores

I think you sent the message without finishing writting it. Can you edit it?

Below are the fixtures for Saturday 14 November. If possible we will try to get some of the Quarter-finals played on Saturday. If not then they will rollover to Sunday. Mayank and Teardrop will be refereeing 2 first round games on their table from 15.00 UK time. The winners of both games from Group A that are hosted at each table will play off against each other for a place in the Semi-Final. The same will happen at 19.00 for group B fixtures.

Any remaining matches from the Quarter-Final will take place on Sunday November 15 at 16.00 UK time. If the Quarter-Finals have been played we will start off with the Semi-Finals then final all at one table.

Please note that the draw and fixtures are subject to change.

MAYANK

GROUP A

Match 1. Sopralto & adventure-time V balasana & doubletrouble911
Match 2. Farzad & Cupid V domatricedishirehorse & Sampei-51

TEARDROP

GROUP A

Match 1. Pistachio & badgirl V Jagu.hal & Ferki
Match 2. Jesse & Alpharabius V Alesia & Aurel

MAYANK

GROUP B

Match 1. policeman1 & sirine V andkuk & doctor1
Match 2. desire & genti V magicalkrrish & guliwer

TEARDROP

GROUP B

Match 1. smoothy and tehsene V estrellavega & ilhan
Match2. TBC & phyllis V Laila.ali & flower17

TBC =To be confirmed.

Good luck to all those taking part in the tournament and I hope you have a really fun competition!

Mayank, Teardrop & YNWA

Hello,
Late but sure! You can use the following to fix the time limit you ask for tournaments:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/100311958/soft/virtualcrono.rar
Sorry, but i don't know have to fix the softwar for you to download in english directly. But you have in the menu bar to swich it into english:

1. Open the menu bar with alt key.
2. Press down arrow to find the option "idioma" and press right arrow.
3. Press enter in englis.

We have decided to change the victory score limit as some of the players wanted them to be higher. As I stated previously this is effectively the first Spades tournament in at least the English section of the PR so we did not have any thing to follow. we are hoping to get in 3 games each table per session if possible. As you know setting score levels for this game is unpredictable. We have to account for failiures, disconnections, slow play as people will tell each other their cards etc. In an ideal world would we would set it at a lot higher. We also have to be aware that wee need to fit it into 2 days and can't let it rollover to a Monday or even Tuesday as players have other things to do and may not be available. We posted all the information well in advance of the tournament and people left it till Wednesday to comment on the scoreing during the early rounds.

As the games are likely to take longer we would like people to turn up a good 10 minutes be fore the scheduled times of 15.00 and 19.00 uk time. For those of you that do not have the quickest connections could you please make sure that your Dropbox and Skype are turned off and any other programs that may slow down your internet as we need to ensure games have as few stoppages as possible.

For the first round and Quarter-Final it will be the first to 300 points. For the Semi-Final and Final it will rise to 350 points.

All we can do now is wish you all good luck for the tournament.

Mayank, Teardrop & YNWA.

First cheers for raising the scores!
As a spades fanatic, I do have strong opinions on the game--things like that 500 points is ideal for a competitive partner spades game. In case of bad luck, the lagging team could at least underbid, trying to bag the leading team out. This strategy will have little room to run in a 250 or 300-point game.
That said, a tournament involving 32 players around the world definitely has many logistic considerations. So "ideal" does not fit in this situation. 250, 300, win, loss, none of those matter at the end of the day. I'm lucky that our first game is going to be with my good friends I play with regularly in PR. I will cheer for the Woo-Hoos and Oopiess equally:)
There are plenty of opportunities to have a 500-point ideal killer game in PR later.
Again, thanks a ton for your time and good work, Ynwa, Teardrop and Mayank. See you all tomorrow.
Bal 


Thanks for raising the scores! this was a very considerate thing to do, and I think more people will enjoy this! Good luck :)

We always want people to enjoy it. The consideration is getting the tournament done in 2 days. Historically if tournaments last longer they never finnish. The question is always getting the balance between having good competitive games and having a tournament in the first place. Everybody can do their bit by making sure the games run at a good pace so we can get through the tournament. If people take too long to decide on what they want to bet because they want to consult with their partners we will know who to blame if the tournament does not finnish! We know that people would not be willing to finnish the tournament off on Monday or Tuesday.

Remember getting help from your partner is strictly forbidden. We will keep transcripts of games and can publish any unusual zeros that have been achieved with some very high cards!

Good luck all!

Mayank, Teardrop & YNWA.