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[Jive Junkie]

Say some crazy billionaire Dominion enthusiast was offering $10 million in prizes (split up among the top 16 or so) for a Dominion tournament, but only if it could meet the following conditions:

a) Luck should be minimized, and it should be a very good (but obviously not perfect) indicator of players' relative skills - at the very least, the very best players should reliably place near the top. [i.e. if you were to run the tournament again, you'd see a lot of the same people in the final rounds]

b) You have 2 weekend days, of 8 hours at most each day.

c) It should be able to accommodate a player pool of at least 200 people.



How would you structure the tournament? Some random things to consider:
- How many players per game?
- Should players play a single game, two games (each going first), or a longer match (3, 5, 7)?
- If multiple games, should the Kingdom be changed or remain the same?
- Should it be single-elim, double-elim, swiss with points, etc?
- How will players be matched up?
- How do you deal with ties?
- How should time be managed?
- How will Kingdom cards be selected?
- Should players know the Kingdom cards beforehand for any particular round?
- Should players have the same starting hand?
- Should there be any banned cards, or perhaps a veto system?


Have at it! Note that the inspiration for this thread was my friend telling me that Dominion would never work as a serious tourney game, since it was too luck-based. I know there are Dominion tourneys out there, but they'd probably be structured very differently if a ton of money were on the line.

[rrenaud]

Make it two player.

Contentious suggestion:  Goal: Try to eliminate mirror games where players execute the same obvious strategy.  These games are either decided either by the luck of the draw or tactics, but I think the tactical decisions aren't usually that hard or interesting, and so are not good player skill differentators.  Implementation:  Use rejection sampling on kingdom sets.  Both players see the randomly drawn kingdoms, get 5 (2, 3?) minutes to analyze it, and then privately write down a kingdom card that the opponent can't buy/gain.  If they write down the same card, start over. 

[sitnaltax]

I have a little bit of experience as a chess TD. Here is how I would do it.

* Games are two-player. With big prize money on the line, 3+p will be fraught with opportunities for kingmaking and collusion, and the integrity of the tournament would be difficult to maintain.
* Until the semifinals, matches are best 2 of 3. Loser plays first. The winner of a coin flip of each match chooses: play first in the first game (before seeing the Kingdom cards) or win the tie if the match goes 1-1-1 (or, by some crazy chance, 0-0-3). (I would prefer another game, but this is my concession to limited time.) In the semifinals, matches are best 3 of 5.
* The tournament structure is double elimination. With 256 players, this will produce a winner in 9 rounds. It allows all players at least two matches, and there is no incentive at any point to throw a match.
* If an independent Dominion system is available (Iso, Goko, whatever) that system is used to determine seeding. Otherwise it is random.
* Time is 75 minutes per 3-game match, 125 minutes per 5-game match. This allows a little bit of slack time.
* Players are required to play briskly. At the 45-minute mark, if game 2 is not finished, a TD may observe the game. If one player is playing slowly, and the match times out, the game will be adjudicated in favor of the opponent. Blatant stalling in the judgment of the TD will result in a disqualification. If both players are playing slowly, and the match times out, the third game is marked as a draw, but if the match is 1-1, the winner is decided by coin flip, not the tiebreak mentioned earlier.
* Depending on the tournament, Kingdom cards may be selected either randomly or at the discretion of a celebrity set designer--i.e. DXV or his chosen heir. A randomly chosen Kingdom is mulliganed if there are not at least two cards costing $5, per DXV's statements about what makes a good Kingdom. They will not be revealed before the start of the tournament in any event. The Kingdom cards change each game, but during each round of the tournament, each set of players plays with the same Kingdom cards. This allows commentators to compare different strategies post-mortem.
* If random Kingdoms are used, players may opt to use veto mode. Veto mode is a tournament-long decision, and a match is played in veto mode only if both players have opted for it. In veto mode, 12 Kingdom cards are chosen and each player, in player order, chooses a card to eliminate. (I considered having the choice be made before the players know who is going first; but this prevents us from having the who-goes-first choice made before the Kingdom is revealed.)
* There is no identical-starting-hands rule.

[Powerman]

I think the key is having a fair balance of 2, 3, and 4 player dominion.

How I would structure the tournament:
-First, define many kingdoms, probably in the range of 50.  Announce these kingdoms (on like a sheet of paper) at the beginning of the day.  This way all players can view each of them and start to get an idea of what they could be dealing with.  Each game will be played on a randomly selected one of these, unless otherwise noted.
-In 2 and 3 player games, all players will start with the same starting hands (randomly chosen).
-In 4 player games, each player will start with a random hand that is not necessarily the same.
-All ties will be broken by number of wins within the round.  Then number of total wins.
-Divide the players randomly into pods of 16 (we'll say 15 pods, so 240)
   -Within these pods of 16, divide randomly into groups of 4.
   -Each group of 4 plays 2 4-player games. (Reverse seating order).  Points go 3-2-1-0.
   -Now, re-divide the players so a person who got the most points is in a group with a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (1 from each of the 4 groups)
   -Now, each group of 4 plays 2 4-player games. (Reverse seating order).  Points go 6-4-2-0.
   -The winner of each of these groups of 4 moves on, so 4 of the original 16 advance, and 60 players should be left.
   -That stage (6 4-player games + movement) should take roughly 3 hours.
-Lunch Break!
-Divide the players randomly into pods of 12 (so 5 pods)
   -Within these pods of 12, divide randomly into groups of 3.
   -Each group of 3 plays 3 3-player games. (Each player starts 1 time in each seating position).  Points go 5-2-0.
   -The player that gets 3rd out of 3 in each group is eliminated.
   -Now divide the remaining 8 players of each pod into 4 matchups of a 1st vs. 2nd (from 2 different groups).
   -The players play 3 2-player games, with the person who won the 3-player group going first in the 1st and 3rd games, and the person who got second going first in the 2nd game.
   -The winner of each of the pairings moves on to the quarterfinal, so 4 of the original 12 advance, and 20 players are remaining.
   -That stage (3 3-player games and 3 2-player games + movement) should take roughly 3 hours as well.
-The 20 remaining players are split into 5 groups of 4 players.
   -Each groups plays 4 4-player games. (Each player plays 1 game from each seating spot) Points go 6-4-2-0.
   -The winner of each group (so 5 players) advances to the semifinals.
   -The 3rd and 4th place of each group is eliminated.
   -The 2nd place of each group advances to a qualifier for the last spot in the semifinals.
   -That stage (4 4-player games) should take roughly 2 hours.
-End of Day 1!

-Start of Day 2!
-The 5 second place players will each do a round robin 2-player contest.
   -This means each player will play 1 game against each player (4 total) and have 1 bye.
   -Each player will go 1st in 2 matches and 2nd in 2 matches.
   -A player gets 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie (on same turns), and 0 points for a loss.
   -The player with the most points advances to the semifinals.
   -That stage (5 rounds of 2-player games) should take roughly 2 hours as well.
-Lunch Break!
-Now, there are 6 semi-finalists.
   -Divide the players randomly into 2 groups of 3 players.
   -Each group of 3 plays 6 3-player games. (Each player starts 1 time in each seating position).  Points go 5-2-0.
   -The players that gets 2nd and 3rd out of 3 in each group is eliminated.
   -The winner from each group (2 total) advance to the finals.
   -That stage (3 rounds of 3-player games) should take roughly 3 hours.
-Dinner Break!
-We're at the finals!
   -The 2 players will play a best of 7 set.
   -The seating order will alternate, and each kingdom will be used in 2 straight games.
   -The match will end when 1 player has won 4 games.
   -However, if after 6 games the 1st seat player has won all 6 games (series tied 3-3), the series will change to a best of 9.
   -If after 8 games the 1st seat player has won all 8 games (series tied 4-4), a coinflip will be used to determine who gets the first seat in the final game.

The end!

[werothegreat]

200 people - break them into 50 sets of 4, randomly.  Each set of 4 plays 5 4-player games.  Whoever gets 4th place twice is removed.  If there is a relevant tie for 3rd place, do another kingdom.  If someone gets 4th place twice before the five games are up, eliminate them then.  Each game will be a totally random selection of cards, shuffled out and drawn by a judge.  Each table will play with a different kingdom.  Black Market will not be allowed.

You now have 150 people - break them into 50 different sets of 3, randomly, making sure no one is in a group with someone they've already played.  Each set of 3 plays 4 3-player games.  Whoever gets 3rd place twice is removed.  If there is a relevant tie for 2nd place, do another kingdom.  If someone gets 3rd place twice before the four games are up, eliminate them then. 

You are now down to 100 people.  50 sets of 2.  Start doing 2-player games, in a bracket system.  In case of a tie, do another kingdom with the same pair.  After the second round of this, there will be 25 players - randomly select a set of 3, and take the winner of that.  This will lead to 12, then 6, then 3.

50 sets - play with Base
25 sets - play with Intrigue
12 sets - play with Seaside
6 sets - play with Prosperity
3 sets - play with Hinterlands

Have four rounds of a 3-player game.  Whoever gets 3rd place twice is removed.  If there is a relevant tie for 2nd place, do another kingdom.  If someone gets 3rd place twice before the four games are up, eliminate them then.  Two of the rounds will be a mix of Alchemy and Cornucopia, and two will be Dark Ages.

Finally, do best out of three for the final two players, randomly selected (no Black Market).

Colony/Platinum and/or Shelters may be present in any game, at the discretion of the judge selecting the kingdom.

[antony]

I think 16hr is way too short for 200 players, but well.

I have very little experience with non-isotropic play :-) but let's assume 20min is a reasonable amount of time for one game to be completed (I am not considering >=3p games here).  Note that with that many players you also have to include time for players to report results, to find their opponents, etc (anyone who played in a big Swiss in of any game -- in my case, bridge and go -- knows that quite some time is always lost there).  I'll group the games by two so that hopefully, if the first game is too long then the second one will be shorter (and you gain time in reporting, etc.).  This means you can fit 8/(2/3)~12 double games (optimistically) per day.

I would just run a full 2-day, 24-round Swiss, cutting half of the field away after day one (cutting two thirds away may even be better for luck minimization but that would be quite unpopular amongst the players).  The reason for prefering a Swiss is that I think 2 of 3 is just too random for a KO, and if you start having 3 of 5 then 1/ you don't have enough rounds (you're basically limited to 5 rounds) and 2/ you have to allow time for games that go all the way to 5 matches while that could be a rare occurence.  For each Swiss match, a player can score 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 or 2 points (victories) (so total 24 pts per day); each player is P1 for one of the games.  A common trick in bridge Swisses to keep the second day reasonably interesting if there are players far ahead of the field is to limit the VP spread between the day-1 leader and the last qualifier to some preset limit (6-8 pts sounds reasonable to me); if the spread is larger then divide all scores accordingly to bring it back to that limit.  Another advantage using this technique is that because of the somewhat aribitrary divisor, players have some fractional score on day 2 which serves as a tiebreaker.

Card selection (in particular, which sets to use) is really up to the organizer (I mean, if I want to run a Base Dominion tournament, I can do it.  If I want to run an all-expansions Dominion tournament, I can do it.).  Probably an interesting way to do so is to publish 12 card sets approximately 10 min before each round starts (so while the previous one is running!) and use isotropic-style veto mode.

By the way, another idea I would like to see experimented (but perhaps that is the subject for another thread) is komi-bidding: after the kingdom is revealed (but before veto, if used), both players secretely write down how many points (possibly a negative number, but that should be rare) they are willing to pay for the privilege of playing first.  Moreover the price must be a half-integer, which avoids ties.  The highest bidder plays first and his opponents starts with that many VP tokens (and a half :-)).  If both bids are identical then P1 is determined by a coin flip (and the bid is still paid).

[() | (_) ^/]

Say some crazy billionaire Dominion enthusiast was offering $10 million in prizes (split up among the top 16 or so) for a Dominion tournament, but only if it could meet the following conditions:

...

How would you structure the tournament? ...

Wait, is this really a hypothetical?  Just in case it is not, and you happen to be a billionaire (or your friend is), and you're posting this as part of your planning of such a tourney... then please consider this my sign-up.

Even though I'm way early, I'm proud to be the first to register for your tournament, sir.  Anything I can do to help organize it?

[theory]

Say some crazy billionaire Dominion enthusiast was offering $10 million in prizes (split up among the top 16 or so) for a Dominion tournament, but only if it could meet the following conditions:

...

How would you structure the tournament? ...

Wait, is this really a hypothetical?  Just in case it is not, and you happen to be a billionaire (or your friend is), and you're posting this as part of your planning of such a tourney... then please consider this my sign-up.

Even though I'm way early, I'm proud to be the first to register for your tournament, sir.  Anything I can do to help organize it?

I have some Nevada oceanfront property to sell you.

[() | (_) ^/]

Say some crazy billionaire Dominion enthusiast was offering $10 million in prizes (split up among the top 16 or so) for a Dominion tournament, but only if it could meet the following conditions:

...

How would you structure the tournament? ...

Wait, is this really a hypothetical?  Just in case it is not, and you happen to be a billionaire (or your friend is), and you're posting this as part of your planning of such a tourney... then please consider this my sign-up.

Even though I'm way early, I'm proud to be the first to register for your tournament, sir.  Anything I can do to help organize it?

I have some Nevada oceanfront property to sell you.

Sure thing, I'll just need your bank account information so that I know where to deposit the money.

[DStu]

Sure thing, I'll just need your bank account information so that I know where to deposit the money.

If you need help, I have already experience to forward money for former nigerian kings...

[DG]

- How many players per game?
  Early rounds of 4 player games moving into 3 player then 2 player games. Include a repechage for early losers.
- Should players play a single game, two games (each going first), or a longer match (3, 5, 7)?
  As many as you can accommodate in the time, at least first to 3 games for two players matches. First to 5 for a final match.
- If multiple games, should the Kingdom be changed or remain the same?
  Changed. Random kingdoms.
- How will players be matched up?
  Some seedings in early rounds with results from early rounds determining later rounds. Need a consistent rule for start player.
- How do you deal with ties?
  Either share the points or replay the game, either fair. Fair ranking/scoring for four player games will always be more difficult.
- How should time be managed?
  Fixed time period for kingdom assessment before play, then let referees monitor speed at slow tables
- How will Kingdom cards be selected?
  Random, or least random from a selected expansions (Intrigue + Cornucopia, whatever)
- Should players know the Kingdom cards beforehand for any particular round?
  No
- Should players have the same starting hand?
  No.
- Should there be any banned cards, or perhaps a veto system?
  Definitely no

[blueblimp]

Make it two player.

Contentious suggestion:  Goal: Try to eliminate mirror games where players execute the same obvious strategy.  These games are either decided either by the luck of the draw or tactics, but I think the tactical decisions aren't usually that hard or interesting, and so are not good player skill differentators.  Implementation:  Use rejection sampling on kingdom sets.  Both players see the randomly drawn kingdoms, get 5 (2, 3?) minutes to analyze it, and then privately write down a kingdom card that the opponent can't buy/gain.  If they write down the same card, start over.

I like the goal of avoiding boring mirror matches, but there are plenty of kingdoms with a key card where player skill matters. For example, if Goons is there, you obviously would ban Goons almost every time, but Goons engines are interesting and require skill. About the same is true of Ambassador.

There are also boards where there are multiple critical cards to a boring strategy, where the players might choose different ones. Bishop/Chapel--ban the Bishop or the Chapel? (Okay, maybe the Chapel on most boards.)

[Axe Knight]

My major tournament idea from last year:

Invite players.  Good ones, preferably.  Then, take the pool of invited players and divide them evenly into groups.  The groups should try to space out the best players.  Each player in the group would play each other player, a certain number of times.  At the end of the day, there'd be a tournament-wide cut.  The cut would be everyone who "won" their group, followed by some "wildcards" for the remaining slots.  Then after this, you'd have a second day, and maybe a third, with the same format, new groups, and a final cut.  Once this final cut was made, it would go to a standard elimination tournament on the last day.  I like the idea of players waiting around to find out if they made the cut rather than going to straight up elimination at first. 

Let's say there's 16 players remaining after the final cut.  You could start with a best of five (first to win three games), between each player to advance to play the next one, culminating in a best of seven final.

[Archetype]

All I know is, if this actually got off the ground, I would definitely want to compete in it.

[chwhite]

It may take too long, but I'd love to see a tournament with pool play: you play some round robin prelim brackets, and then the top 2 players in each bracket (to guard against seeding mistakes where the two best players are in the same bracket) make it to either playoff round robins, or double-elimination, or something like that.  I say playoff round robins because the more games the better, but again I understand if that isn't feasible for large groups.  Starting with pool play would definitely be best I think.

Prelim matches should probably be best-of-3, raised to best-of-5 (or 7) in the finals.  Either 2p or 3p is fine (4p is not), if it's actually possible to set it up so you play both that would be ever better.

As for choosing the kingdoms, my preference would actually be to do it something like duplicate bridge.  The TD gets DXV or someone else who's really good at Dominion and isn't playing to come up with a whole bunch of kingdoms which are interesting, not too luck-based, have multiple paths, aren't going to take an hour to play, run the whole gamut of published cards.  And then the kingdoms are announced just before play, no time to think about them beforehand.  You could have the prelim players rotate tables (which have the kingdoms out there to begin with), for ease of setup.

[popsofctown]

Make it two player.

Contentious suggestion:  Goal: Try to eliminate mirror games where players execute the same obvious strategy.  These games are either decided either by the luck of the draw or tactics, but I think the tactical decisions aren't usually that hard or interesting, and so are not good player skill differentators.  Implementation:  Use rejection sampling on kingdom sets.  Both players see the randomly drawn kingdoms, get 5 (2, 3?) minutes to analyze it, and then privately write down a kingdom card that the opponent can't buy/gain.  If they write down the same card, start over.

This qualifies as a variant, but is a huge step in the competitive direction

[popsofctown]

I don't like designed kingdoms.  If Donald likes engines , he might design engine boards, but WW has a career of making the best of BM kingdoms.  The tournament should be objective in nature, kingdom selection should be objective.  ( Familiar can still get an objective ban, I'm sure statistics back up its variance.)

Course I just supported a variant last post, so I'm not being consistent at all <_>. The answer to the OP is yes , there is definitely a way to pull it off, even without going variant (banning familiar isn't a variant)

[ftl]

Does it need to be that complicated?

Two-player Dominion with random kingdoms is pretty skill-based as it is. If you make it, say, best 4 out of 7, you can just do straight random kingdoms and trust that skill will prevail over luck of the draw in a series like that. I mean, that's the easy way to deal with luck - just increase sample size. Then you can use whatever competitive structures are already in use for other 2-player games. Use a smaller sample size for lower-level tournaments or rounds, a larger sample size for semis and finals, or something.

[popsofctown]

I'm not sure Swiss can guarantee a trusty winner in 16 hours without kingdom restriction .  I'm being totally lazy and not doing the math though..

[ednever]

I was thinking about this a few months ago.

I dont think it needs to be as ambitious as its made out to be. Ignoring format for a moment, imagine something like this:

The World Series of Dominion

A series of satellite tournaments that can do whatever they want. These tournaments would have to raise enough money to get their winner to the Championship and (maybe) pay there way. There could be online tournaments doing the same thing.

The Championship would have a high entry fee ($500?) and likely be based in Vegas (cheap flights from most places in the US, cheap accommodation, lots of relatively inexpensive venues)
100 players gets you a pool of $50,000. Assume $10,000 to cover costs and marketing. Winner gets $20,000, with another $20,000 divided among the runners up.

The organizer would be taking a little risk the first year, and even if successful wouldn't make much if any money. But, if you could build the brand and grow it from year to year you could hope for an explosion. Poker was a niche until it wasn't.

Problem is I'm not sure how entertaining Dominion is as a spectator event - which is what you really need to make big purses.

Ed

[DWetzel]

A somewhat "simple" solution for early rounds, of a sort:

Duplicate Dominion.

Have a set kingdom, and play it at all tables.  This is probably best with 2 players, but can be adapted somewhat for 3p and 4p setups.

Compare scores not against your opponent at the table, but against the people that are playing at other tables in your position.  Rotate opponents after each round (and new kingdoms, of course).

(It's not as elegant a setup as it is in duplicate bridge due to the vagaries of shuffle luck in Dominion, but over a decent sample of games this will somewhat even out, and everyone understands there's a decent luck element in Dominion anyway.)

[ftl]

Comparing scores is a bad idea. Dominion scores do not correspond well to how well you did in a game. You can win 1-0 by a landslide, or you could lose 100-0 in a close game that could have gone either way.

[^_^_^_^]

You also are all forgetting one thing- RULES. Tourny Rules. Like for instance, what happens if someone makes a hand jester or something that appears to be trying to give advice? What if a parent walks up to the board their kid is playing at and yells YOWZA! or NO!!!!!!!!!! when he makes a bad decision? What should kids be doing when they need help with a situation (rule clarification, etc.). What if I have to go to the restroom in the middle of my game?

[popsofctown]

How many kids play Dominion?
Are you a youth yourself, ^_^_^_^?

[DWetzel]

Aside from the fact that the "100-0 and could have gone either way" bit is a rather edge case, let me elaborate a bit.

It's not as though we're adding up the raw scores for each board and going from there.  Each setup (let's say we play 10 kingdoms for this) would make up 10% of each player's total score.  Let's say there are 22 total players, and thus 11 matchups.  You'd get 1 matchpoint for each person playing your direction that you beat, and 1/2 point for each that you tied, for a maximum on each kingdom of 10 matchpoints.  If you lose 1000-0, well, guess what, the worst that you can do is get 0/10 on that kingdom.

The bad part about this is when you get into KC/Goons setups where someone has the incentive to not end the game even though they're up 500-20.  I'm not sure of the best way to resolve that, but it's not any more luck based than whether you're sitting 1st or 4th when the Sea Hag with no trashers comes up.