Circle Contest- a new footbag competition [OFFICIAL RELEASE]

max · Post by **max** » 31 Jul 2006 06:48

which is why I think that giving a passback if dropped on the very first trick should be encouraged. But yeah that's just me thinking out loud

bigdirtyfoot · Post by **bigdirtyfoot** » 31 Jul 2006 08:18

Saw some of the footage when I was in Paris - it looked pretty cool, and can definitely be developed more later on. As far as passbacks go, I think it should be allowed but not required.

blitz · Post by **blitz** » 31 Jul 2006 08:25

ok, Tom, take it easy. I'm not going to be a dictator about it. If players want to do it, then go right ahead. if it becomes by and large a standard to give a passback in that case, then we will write it (the passback option) into the guidebook, amongst our many other upcoming ammendments.

but yeah, to echo the above post, it should not be compulsory, and I would hate to see someone get booed for not giving it back. Personally, I prefer to play one-touch, with the occasional passback, not the 2-3 tries every single turn method.

bigdirtyfoot · Post by **bigdirtyfoot** » 31 Jul 2006 08:36

Yeah, and part of the "problem" (or issue) is that regionally passbacks are accepted differently. As well as different eras of style. So.... therefore to make a decent compromise, they should at least be optional. But to force players who are not used to a passback circle style to passback would be unfair, I would think.

wolfpac444 · Post by **wolfpac444** » 31 Jul 2006 10:45

I think this comment sort of got lost in the passback mix:

I don't think I saw it in the PDF guide, but how do you determine the overall winner of the circle given the rankings from each of the rounds?

Given a set of rankings, there are a number of different (reasonable) ways to choose the winner, and they do not always pick the same winner.

full nelson · Post by **full nelson** » 31 Jul 2006 11:19

I think the one-touch works best. Showing how good you are on the first try is way better than having to get a passback. That'll show who really owns the circle, the person who can smoke the bag on command.

I don't understand how that makes you not like eachother? If it's in the rules, it has nothing to do with liking eachother or being rude. If the player drops on the first trick, he'll just have to wait until it comes back around. It's not personal and it's not selfish. But yeah, it'd suck if passbacks became a standard and anyone that chose not to do one became an asshole in the eyes of the audience.

I think another reason is everyone's supposed to get the same amount of tries in 5 minutes (correct me if I'm wrong on this. That's how it seemed in the vid). If person A keeps dropping on the first trick, yet keeps getting a passback from person B and then does 30 contact strings the second try. While person B only does 15 contacts on average the first try the whole competition and loses. Person A actually got twice as many tries as person B.

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 31 Jul 2006 14:29

blitz wrote:No rebates.

Word!

I sometimes like to play like this in local, friendly circles too. Relying on pass backs, while fun and cooler stuff is hit, can be a crutch.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 31 Jul 2006 18:08

I did make a ranking after each round but even those results were difficult to work out for all the reasons I put in the other post (I don't have the notes I made on me otherwide I'd put in the rankings I had after each round) - I don't think its a problem - all judging is difficult and this form of competition is no different - when the level of shred is close you need to watch extremely closely and because of this even though you are only ranking players on a short amount of time I found it equally as difficult as judging routines (no doubt its different when you're there rather than staring at a screen!) I think most of the time circle comp would be easier to judge than routines, its just when the level of shred is fairly even across the circle though still different in key ways, it becomes difficult to weigh up.
I don't think you should allow passbacks. It completely changes the nature of the competition because with passbacks you're free to take a gamble on almost every go because you know you'll get a passback. Whereas without it you need to think alot harder about what you're going to do - and think quick too because you need to react to what others hit too. Eg - Ales tries TATW but drops, pass to Jorden who considering his options tries to go for the kill and also tries TATW but drops, the pressure mounts and it goes to Felix who doesn't try for it and instead throws down a sweet run - punishing Ales and Jorden for the risk they took. These are sorts of things that will decide the winner of these comps and if you let players passback it releases this build-up of pressure, and reduces some of the potential for gamesmanship. If you had of allowed passbacks would ALes have tried TATW again? perhaps or maybe he would have hit a run - either way I think it would have taken away from the moment - if he'd hit it second go, its not as impressive as getting the bag under pressure and unleashing it on command, similarly if he'd hit a run does it then becomes a "second chance run" are they to be judged differently from if you'd hit a run first go? They should be otherwise whats the point of being good enough to hit stuff on command - its not rewarded within the competition? One of things that made Felix the clear winner to me was the fact that he almost always hit somehthing - whereas Jorden and ALes and to a lesser extent Honza had a number of goes where they hit nothing. Passbacks would remove this as a mode of differentiation making judging harder and reducing some of the drama of the situation by adding a saftey net.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 31 Jul 2006 18:23

Damn Dyalan, good points. I was on the passback wagon until your post... I totally agree. The build up there was great, and wasn't there another point where jorden hit like 5 or so symp whirls, then felix doubled it or something? These build ups are one of the coolest things about it, and it would suck to lose them. And I agree with everything else you said as well hehe.

shredzilla · Post by **shredzilla** » 31 Jul 2006 18:44

Boy I flip-flopped on this one all throughout the thread! But I'm finally back with no passbacks. Mosher's right, in a circle most people will give you a rebate and it reflects the friendly nature of kicking in a circle for fun.

But in a one-upsmanship contest like this, it's supposed to be over the top action and excitement, and you really should be penalized for going for nemesis and not hitting it. Cuz if you DID hit it first try, then that would be huge, and could give you a boost in the ranking. It's a gamble what moves you choose; if you stay with cool and conservative, or over the top and CRUSHING!

I also felt like 3 5 minute rounds was kinda too much. I've heard that the circles seeding up to the finals are 3 rounds a piece too. I don't know, it got kinda convoluted for me at that point, but maybe it was just cuz I was seeing it for the first time on vid from the audience. It was hard as an audience member to remember what everyone hit by the end of the 3rd round.

Here's a way I would help alleviate that:

I completely agree with Ellis that it should resemble a circle. But if you are gonna go with the rounds, I think that it should be sort of a last man standing thing. Like, you get in the finals and then it's a round, odd man out, round, odd man out. So at the very end you have the two baddest circle kickers in the whole contest battling to a crescendo with the crowd on their feet applauding. I think this would eliminate the convolutedness from a spectator standpoint, and also heighten the excitement even further.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 31 Jul 2006 20:15

shredzilla wrote:Here's a way I would help alleviate that:

I completely agree with Ellis that it should resemble a circle. But if you are gonna go with the rounds, I think that it should be sort of a last man standing thing. Like, you get in the finals and then it's a round, odd man out, round, odd man out. So at the very end you have the two baddest circle kickers in the whole contest battling to a crescendo with the crowd on their feet applauding. I think this would eliminate the convolutedness from a spectator standpoint, and also heighten the excitement even further.

That's how I expected it would go when they said 3 rounds of 5 minutes. (It's been a while since I read the rules) I don't think 3 rounds of 5 minutes is too long, especially as in the video it cut straight from round to round, whereas in the actual comp there would have been a break.

I think either way would work well. I'd lean more towards the elimination method, but I'm sure this is something Ellis and Ianek considered, and there's probably more to it than first apparant.

Ellis: Had you considered this? What do you think of it?

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 07 Aug 2006 23:41

I have a feeling that two rounds of 6 minutes would be a better show.

I am going to be running the circle contest at KICKASS2 and I will try to set the standard for proper execution of this event. (good stage, lighting, MC-ing, etc)

Not to say anyone has done poorly so far, I just think that no one has gotten it perfect yet.

Wow, what an exciting time to be in footbag, I think Circle is going to change footbag forever.

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 07 Aug 2006 23:42

oh yeah and I toooootally flip-flopped all over the place on my stance on passbacks reading everyone's replies, I have nooooo idea what I really think now! hehe

max · Post by **max** » 08 Aug 2006 00:39

oh yeah and I toooootally flip-flopped all over the place on my stance on passbacks reading everyone's replies, I have nooooo idea what I really think now! hehe

Yeah I'm flip-flopping too. But I gues that's OK. Circle contest is in its infancy, trying some rule variations (such as 2 6min rounds instead of 3 rounds for example) will help the contest format evolve. I'll try and push the idea of a Circle-Contest at the next French Open because I *really* want to try this!

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 08 Aug 2006 22:55

I'm not really thrilled with the fact that only one person advances in each round.

With people like Jim or Felix in the competition the people who put the pools together are pretty much determening who will make the next round. I guess this would make sense if the pools were 100% perfectly ranked, but as I've personaly experienced in the pasted ranking often doesn't go this way.
So besides more rounds what would be the harm in having 2 people advance per "non final" pool?

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 09 Aug 2006 05:04

Nate, the problem with that (at least at world's) is that it would just take for fucking ever to get to the finals. Real harsh cuts had to be made to get the comp over in a reasonable amount of time.

At smaller events more people can advance per round.

I had a thought that if each player recieved a score and only the *top scores* move on then it all evens out.

The way it is now everyone gets ranked in their pool by the judges and the top ranked move on.

I think it would be slightly more work for the judges but overall it would be more fair. Alot of hein shredders get knocked out in early rounds when strong cuts are a must.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 09 Aug 2006 17:47

I presume you mean judges would give players a score and then there would be a cut off score so that it becomes possible for more than one player to from a circle to get to the next round. This would make accurate judging impossible- its already a difficult prospect, how can you expect judges to make accurate assements of this sort of shred on some sort of universal scoring scale? Forget it! The people deciding rankings are always going to have a power which will affect, to a degree, the probablitiy of who will get how far.

With people like Jim or Felix in the competition the people who put the pools together are pretty much determening who will make the next round.

I wouldn't go that far, Jim and Felix would still have to do their part, and in larger competitions, once players have had more experience with the format, I thhink there will be plenty of strategies which will make it easier for a player to beat better shredders than themselves. But still, poor rankings is definitely something to be avoided, but rather than change the judging system, how about just striving to make rankings as accurate as possible.
Out of interest how long was needed to run the comp at worlds?

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 13 Aug 2006 16:22

OK my skeptisism was BUNK... This event rocks.

The best part about it is its ability to shape and form to the situation at hand, like how long the rounds, rebates or no, size of circles, people moving on...

Fun stuff for sure!

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 14 Aug 2006 05:01

shreddaily wrote:OK my skeptisism was BUNK... This event rocks.

The best part about it is its ability to shape and form to the situation at hand, like how long the rounds, rebates or no, size of circles, people moving on...

Fun stuff for sure!

Nate first off mad props for taking 4th this weekend in circle.

The final circle was a huge success. The crowd really got into it and even asked for an encore at the end. What's more, after the competition was over, there was a second bonus round where Penkse, Clavens and Moir continued to bust big, including Jorden hitting blazing flux. Definitely the highlight of the tournament for sure.