Quoted from Sparky

I agree with Adam here. First place gets 4pts, 2nd gets 3pts, 3rd gets 2 pts and last gets 1 pt (so there is your participation pt if you like). For groups of 3, Tally the 3 scores, make an average with them, and there is your 4th player. So the only player that can vary with the median is the ''middle'' player, that can end up either 2nd or 3rd depending on his performance, and that of the best player (which can affect the average).

Now this being said, there is only one amount of people in a league showing that can be a pain i the a**, and that is 5 people. You have to avoid at all costs a group of 2. Always have minimum 3. I am sure TOPL has something to cover this.


Nut one word of advice.... don't bury yourselves in rules... just have fun. when it gets too competitive, you end up losing out.

Actually the Average would be taken out of all scores, from everyone who played on the machine, that way you getting a better representation of what an average score is.  

2 people has happened, it's rare but does happen.  In cases with 2 people, you play against 2 medeans.  That is the only solution we coud come up with for that problem.

Actually I find the competitive part the best part personally.  If TOPL wasn't competitive I would have lost interest and only show up once and a while rather then every Monday.  You need to give people a reason to show up and the competition does that.  Just showing up to hang and play some pinball will work for a while but once you've done it enough, other things will start to take priority.  

I didn't explain it well with words, let me try again with numbers. I'm advocating:

Position	4-Players	3-Players	2-Players
First	4	3	2
Second	3	2	1
Third	2	1	-
Fourth	1	-	-

It's simple, and scales to all the group sizes.

Whatever the group decides is fine by me, but I must be dense, I don't get how someone can finish 4th is fair because of an "invisible" player. I get the math, I understand the reason behind this medeans thing but it's a black/white thing.  One way, you feel a scoring set to 3 people is too much of an advantage compared to when there is a 4th player; but I see it as your system punishes the 3rd place player who ends up 4th because of the medeans.  

We don't know, put me on a modern DMD machine and I'll probably end up 4th so that advantages the 3rd place player.  However, if I'm not there one month, the 3rd place dude MAY end up 4th so the medeans screws him.  Again, I can see the reason for why you guys do it that way, but it sure isn't flawless either.  I'm old school, competition is between the individuals not math.  Just my opinion and I'm certainly not saying I am right.  I meant what I said, to me it's just for the fun of it which is why no matter my opinion, please re-read the first 8 words of this post .

Quoted from The Loafer

Whatever the group decides is fine by me, but I must be dense, I don't get how someone can finish 4th is fair because of an "invisible" player. I get the math, I understand the reason behind this medeans thing but it's a black/white thing.  One way, you feel a scoring set to 3 people is too much of an advantage compared to when there is a 4th player; but I see it as your system punishes the 3rd place player who ends up 4th because of the medeans.  

We don't know, put me on a modern DMD machine and I'll probably end up 4th so that advantages the 3rd place player.  However, if I'm not there one month, the 3rd place dude MAY end up 4th so the medeans screws him.  Again, I can see the reason for why you guys do it that way, but it sure isn't flawless either.  I'm old school, competition is between the individuals not math.  Just my opinion and I'm certainly not saying I am right.  I meant what I said, to me it's just for the fun of it which is why no matter my opinion, please re-read the first 8 words of this post .

I think what you missing is the fact that yes you are playing against an invisible player, but you still have to play well, better then the average scores of everyone else who plays in order to be able to get a decent score.

So as an example if you play a league night and there are 2 groups, one of 4 and one of 3.  Just because you ended up in a group of 3, you are already at a disadvantage as it is impossible to score a 4.  Where the people in the the 4 person group can gain access to 4 points.  So for that 4 person group they can get a total point count of 16, where the people in the 3 person group would only be able to get 12.  That is a 4 point diffrence which can be huge over a season.

The median only applies to that single night, I attached a score sheet so you an see what I mean.  See the scores for each machine are averaged out and if you are unable to beat the average then you are scored accordingly.  This way everyone allways has the same oppertunity to gain access to those 16 points.  No matter if they are in a group of 3 or a group of 4.  Limiting points only hurts the people in the smaller groups and makes it unfair to them as they don't have the ability to gain access to the same points that everyone else does.  

If you want the league to be about competition you have to make it fair for everyone regardless of what group they are in, everyone has to have the oppertunity to score equally.  

Quoted from tinyrodent

I didn't explain it well with words, let me try again with numbers. I'm advocating:

Position	4-Players	3-Players	2-Players
First	4	3	2
Second	3	2	1
Third	2	1	-
Fourth	1	-	-

It's simple, and scales to all the group sizes.

Not really because again if you have a group of 4 and a group of 3, on the same league night the group of 4 can get a total of 16 and the group of 3 can only get a total point value of 12.  Since the total scores are what determines a winner, the people in the 3 player group and being peanlized for nothing other then being in a 3 person group.  If you used a medean, then those players have access to the same 16 points as everyone else.  The only thing limiting them from achiving those 16 points is there own ability to play and not some constraint put on them because of the size of their group.  

Just another note on using a medean as there seems to be some confusion.  The medean is only used for the indivdual leage nights, so it does not carry over from league night to league night, the averages are taken at each indivdual leage night and only used on that league night.  

Quoted from Vengeance

I think what you missing is the fact that yes you are playing against an invisible player, but you still have to play well, better then the average scores of everyone else who plays in order to be able to get a decent score.

So as an example if you play a league night and there are 2 groups, one of 4 and one of 3.  Just because you ended up in a group of 3, you are already at a disadvantage as it is impossible to score a 4.  Where the people in the the 4 person group can gain access to 4 points.  So for that 4 person group they can get a total point count of 16, where the people in the 3 person group would only be able to get 12.  That is a 4 point diffrence which can be huge over a season.

The median only applies to that single night, I attached a score sheet so you an see what I mean.  See the scores for each machine are averaged out and if you are unable to beat the average then you are scored accordingly.  This way everyone allways has the same oppertunity to gain access to those 16 points.  No matter if they are in a group of 3 or a group of 4.  Limiting points only hurts the people in the smaller groups and makes it unfair to them as they don't have the ability to gain access to the same points that everyone else does.  

If you want the league to be about competition you have to make it fair for everyone regardless of what group they are in, everyone has to have the oppertunity to score equally.  

That's fine except you forgot one detail: I said I would score the top 3 and nothing after that.  So the only advantage in my way is if there are only 2 players in one group but that's the luck of the draw sometimes. I can't remember the exact rules or if it's horse racing or the horse racing with carriages,  but sometimes there are races with x horses, and then sometimes you have a race with 10 or 11 horses and then one horse will have to line up at the starting gate BEHIND the #1 horse.  In that race, the luck of the draw means some horse will be disadvantaged for that one race. However you see it, whether the horse behind horse #1, or the horse at the far right which has automatically more distance to travel and more horses in his way, you don't see then sort that out at the end by saying "well, if horse #1 wins, he has to be ahead by at least 1 meter to compensate for his advantages".   For horse racing, the ideal situation would be for them to compensate at the start and confine the horses in their lanes (like track racing for humans ), but that's not doable.

As for the playing well thing, I don't agree. If out of the 3 people playing, 2 have a horrible game, it's possible they will finish 3rd and 4th, and the invisible player gets 2nd place. The truth is, who knows?  The lad/lass missing that night might have had a worse score then the other two. It happens.

Anyway, I can see why you'd want to cross all the "t"s and dot all the "i"'s; since your league is competitive. I just don't agree your solution is fair but appreciate why you chose to go that way.

Quoted from The Loafer

That's fine except you forgot one detail: I said I would score the top 3 and nothing after that.  So the only advantage in my way is if there are only 2 players in one group but that's the luck of the draw sometimes. I can't remember the exact rules or if it's horse racing or the horse racing with carriages,  but sometimes there are races with x horses, and then sometimes you have a race with 10 or 11 horses and then one horse will have to line up at the starting gate BEHIND the #1 horse.  In that race, the luck of the draw means some horse will be disadvantaged for that one race. However you see it, whether the horse behind horse #1, or the horse at the far right which has automatically more distance to travel and more horses in his way, you don't see then sort that out at the end by saying "well, if horse #1 wins, he has to be ahead by at least 1 meter to compensate for his advantages".   For horse racing, the ideal situation would be for them to compensate at the start and confine the horses in their lanes (like track racing for humans ), but that's not doable.

As for the playing well thing, I don't agree. If out of the 3 people playing, 2 have a horrible game, it's possible they will finish 3rd and 4th, and the invisible player gets 2nd place. The truth is, who knows?  The lad/lass missing that night might have had a worse score then the other two. It happens.

Anyway, I can see why you'd want to cross all the "t"s and dot all the "i"'s; since your league is competitive. I just don't agree your solution is fair but appreciate why you chose to go that way.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, but again you said you would only score the top 3, that way is flawed as well.  Reason being that now the 3 person group has no way to receive the 0 that 4 player group can receive.  That would mean that in a 4 plaeyr group a person could receive a 0 where in a 3 player group the lowest score possible would be a 4.  

Personally I don't belive that luck of the draw has any place in competition at all.  Everyone should allways be on the same footing as that is the best way to measure preformance.  While I understand your horse racing analgy, again it doesn't fit, I'm sure the only reason that the #10 or #11 horse has to end up behind horse #1 is because they are unable to accomidate that horse in that race any other way.  There is a way to accomodate people in this instance and people shouldn't be put on uneven ground just because of "luck of the draw".

If TOPL rules don't work for you there are quite a few other rule sets you could draw from.  The VRPA has a set of rules that seems to follow more alog your line of thinking.  Mabye give them a read and see if they would be a better fit:

http://www.vrpa.ca/admin/documents/documents/268.mht

OK, but the REAL question is did you guys discuss how to arrange the next regular meetings? Timing? Weekdays or weekends? Host/hostess discression? Did anybody pick a date for the next league meeting?

What's the plan?

oops!

The only discussion I can recall about regular meetings was to agree that monthly is a good goal. The rest is up to the discretion of the hosts. Announce a date and time, hopefully at least a week in advance, and we'll try to be there!

If you want to know what to expect... the actual competition took about an hour. Doug gave us an hour of practice beforehand, and we shot the breeze for about another hour afterward. So 3 hours in total.

Oh yeah it was also suggested that probably 6 meetings is enough, then have some playoffs and see how that goes.

Did I forget anything?

Yup, tiny rodent summed it up nicely.

I'd be willing to host once I get SMDM working. With that game we can have a group of six! How would that affect the standings?