Starting new league

[capfreedom]

Hello everyone.

I'm starting a new league and hoping I could get some help from exper players and league runners. Here are my big questions.

1. Should you make everone play on one day or let them do it anytime they can get together?

2. Should there be a limit to the amout of games wecan play in a week?

3. Should any other things be setup before we start?

Thanks

Johnnie Knapp

[Mojoshenpo]

... sounds like sage advice... at least to start....

It advises a loose format of playing when you can....

At least read that before the really experienced guys give ya' the advanced advice on what works....



"To Believe That Our Beliefs Are Permanent Truths Which Encompass Reality Is A Sad Arrogance." Ursula K. LeGuin

[tchatter]

1. Well... one day is great if you can do it. It is probably the preferred way. But depending on real life, you may need to do the other option.

2. Well, this will depend on what you decide for #1. If it is all on one day then I would play a bunch of games. But if you do it anytime, you'll probably get less games in per week. Unless your coaches have no real life.

3. Yeah... all the rules, awards, etc... and who is bringing the beer and chips.

[KnuckleGutKiller]

Our league if you are not there on your day tuff! Really that didn't work I think we share the Pizza Chip idea! Mondays is NFL Pizza Hut deal so you have to do your Leagu on Monday and that is final!

[Anthony_TBBF]

1. Should you make everone play on one day or let them do it anytime they can get together?

2. Should there be a limit to the amout of games wecan play in a week?

3. Should any other things be setup before we start?

In our league we play every Thursday night, it's a lot to have everyone together in one place. We use an open system where people just show up and play whoever is around, or sometimes we arrange games ahead of time on our mailing list. when you play on one night it feels more like a league than just playing whenever, although we do have the odd games on weekends as well. The only rule we have limiting the number of games you can play is that you can't play the same team more than twice in a row... it will really depend on your league but for us it works and no one abuses the system. Other than that I think all you need is a small web site or newsletter that lists your league standings, recent game reports and all that other fun stuff!

[Cervidal]

An open schedule is VERY open to abuse, though. It's much, much easier to run, but what I've seen in the three different leagues I've played in is something like this:

www.oldboysleague.com

You have guys at the top and bottom with extreme team ratings and win-loss records because of the sheer volume of games they play against each other. No two teams are playing against each other on back to back games (if they do, they're fined), so they create two or three teams each and have them play against each other constantly.

No one can keep up with these teams for tournament play because they get in an incredible volume of games compared to everyone else. It doesn't matter how poorly or how well they did during the regular season because the good coaches with the mid-100s teams simply cannot compete well against teams who double them in TR.

[Anthony_TBBF]

Scheduled leagues are almost impossible to run with large amounts of people. Most of our guys have 2 teams and it hasn't been a problem for us. In fact, our last BB winner wasn't even a team with a high number of games.

It also helps if you don't use a points system to rank teams in an open league so that teams with more games come out on top just by sheer weight of numbers.

[Cervidal]

Well... in theory, the way the OBL is set up, getting in a load of games is not necessarily going to put up on top. The better your team becomes, the riskier it is to play lower teams. If two completely equal teams play each other, the loser loses 5 points, the winner gains five points. If I'm a heavy favorite, I might only win two points but I'll lose 8 to my opponent. if I go down in defeat.

For example, the top team in the league, Scott's Amazons, he's simply been on a tear. Yes, he plays more often than most, but he has not been playing against the same two or three coaches all the time. On top of that, I don't think that team has registered a game in nearly a month.

Dig through the sight, however, and you'll see that some coaches play against each other with constant frequency. They say they have multiple teams to use because they don't want to play fifty or sixty games with each of their teams, making them untouchable. It doesn't help. Instead, they play thirty or forty games with each of their teams, making them untouchable for anybody else who doesn't play that many games.

[tchatter]

I agree with Cervidal that an open league is open to abuse... I can see that already in the REBBL Challenge League. The teams on top are almost untouchable. Even with the best of three games.

It would also be much easier to run, UNLESS you are running a PBEM Open leauge. OUCH. It is a nightmare everytime I check my email, trying to figure out who challenged who and refusals and it gets outta hand sometimes.

Ok, I'll stop ranting...

[Kri]

1) We have a fixed schedule of who you gonna play and it works fine. We try to gather all and play each monday. If you can´t make it you contact the one you are suppose to play against and decide another day. A little more work but it´s a great system because the teams develop rather equally.

2) It can be difficult but it all depends on your players and how often they want to play. I recommend that you start slowly and increase if you fell that you don´t get to play enough.

3) House rules, interpertations of different rules, tournament winnings, tie breakers...

[Milo]

In my experience, I think that it really depends on the size of the league and the familiarity of the players. If your league is about 6-8 coaches or less, and the coaches are all familiar with each other, I'd recommend just scheduling one night a week for people to get together and play. It's fun, informal, and lets every coach stay involved and informed with the other teams.

However, it's next to impossible to arrange for more than that many people to get together on any given night of the week. So that means you're going to need to let coaches arrange, at least to some extent, their own games. In this case, you've got two options:

1) Schedule the games in advance, leaving up to the coaches only the time and date to play the game. This ensures that no team gets ahead of the others, keeps everything fair, and lets coaches prepare for big upcoming games in advance. Unfortunately, there are some problems with this also. You have to run at the pace of the coach who can play the least. If some coaches are unfamiliar with the others, it may be difficult for them to schedule the games. Also, if a coach drops from the league, that will leave you scrambling for a replacement.

2) Let the teams schedule the games on their own, allowing them to play at their own pace. This is nice and flexible and will accomodate large leagues. It's got a lot of room for abuse, though, since some coaches could play 10 games in two weeks, whereas others might only play one or two.

My advice, if you're looking at a large league of people who may not all be as dedicated as some, would be to play an open league but establish some guidelines. Figure out roughly how many games you'd like to see in your season. If, for instance, you've got 10 coaches and want to play 12 games, you can say that no team can play any other team more than twice during the season. That will force, at minimum, a team to play 5 other opponents. It's also a good idea to establish a maximum number of games for each week, to keep a few teams from running up a huge lead over the others.

Here's the minimum number of rules I'd advise for an open league:

1) Set a maximum number of games for the season.
2) Set a maximum number of games per week.
3) Set some restrictions on how often a team can play any other given team -- probably at least a max number of games, but a minimum number of games will ensure that everyone plays with everyone else.
4) Specify an ending date for the season, regardless of how many games are played.

In fact, those are precisely the rules I intend to implement in my league which is starting soon. The fact of the matter is that you can't guarantee that there won't be some unfair matchups in any open league -- there are almost certainly going to be times when a player with less games will get stomped on by someone who's played more than them. That said, though, you can't micromanage the league so that every team has the best possible experience, and you're better off rewarding the active, enthusiastic coaches instead of the ones who can't arrange to play a full season of games.

Hope that helps.

Milo

[Da Nite Rida]

2) Set a maximum number of games per week.

What is a good number of max games per week? Is 3 too low?

[Milo]

Depends how often your players play. I plan to say a max of 2 games a week, but that's because many of the players will only have time for 1 game a week, and I don't want the others to get too far ahead of them.

Use your judgement, but I'd recommend setting the maximum to be a little higher than the number of games your average coach will play.

[capfreedom]

Started the league and it is going well so far. We decided to go open with a max number of games per other coach. No max per week. Everyone making the playoff so it won't matter much about the time you players because every one should be equal at playoff time. (I'm hoping)

[Anthony_TBBF]

1) Set a maximum number of games for the season.
2) Set a maximum number of games per week.
3) Set some restrictions on how often a team can play any other given team -- probably at least a max number of games, but a minimum number of games will ensure that everyone plays with everyone else.
4) Specify an ending date for the season, regardless of how many games are played.

Some good ideas in there. I never really had a problem with our open format before but I think I might use these guidelines anyway.