TO Jam Circle Contest, thoughts.

[jay7]

Why hello there Modified. Before reading this post, I encourage you to follow this youtube link, and take 20 minutes of your time to watch this circle video.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU3Peeiz ... 0&index=11


I feel like this is the best video of circle contest I have ever seen. It features Andrew Grant, Johnny Suderman, Jim Penske, and Jorden Moir. I believe this jam took place around Late May 2008. Some highlights of it were Jim Penske hitting at least 2 beasts, perhaps 3, Jorden Moir stepping out of ducking blenders, and Johnny tossing obscenely high fairy sets, etc, just because he could.

My question to discuss is, "Is Circle Contest too short"?

I notice, for sure, that with our current circle format of 3 rounds variety, 3 rounds density, I hold myself back. When the bag is about to get passed to me, often enough I think to myself that if I screw up once, I could easily be counted out of passing through to the next round. With this in mind, I bail, I do open switches, and often get bored with myself, just so that I know I can have a "long" run. If you have 6 rounds, that means each round is ~17% of your score. Versus, if you have 12 rounds, you have ~8% for each run.

Now look at Circle Finals at TO Jam.. There have been some mighty circles in the last few worlds, and other tournaments I have attended, but no one seems to "bust". Like, some of those Jorden runs are probably the best of his on Youtube all together. Players just seem to really be conservative. I am curious, if circle rounds were longer, if we would get much more interesting results. Was TO Jam simply so marked in my head, because Jorden was just a monster? Or is there merit in a longer circle contest allowing for much better runs? Do any of you think this circle comp was simply too long? Compromise?

Discuss?

Also... Who votes that we get Jim and Jorden here again for T.O. Jam II?

[zachatree]

jay, i dont think i have competed in enough circle contest to have a opinion on this subject, BUT thanks for the vid, it is indeed entertaining.

[Dio]

Like Zach, I've competed in only a few circle contests. I definitely see where your'e coming from Jay but I think the format for circles is good the way it is. There's certainly a feeling of caution during strings but I think this is what demonstrates your abilities to the finest - if someone is confident enough to hit a beast or 5-5-5 in circle, it shows that they've drilled and are confident about hitting it.

You could extend it to 30 rounds and probably have some totally outrageous strings. With 6 strings players have to focus on their strengths which makes Penske's beasts or Jorden's stepping that much more impressive.

And T.O. Jam II please. I'll help

[C-Fan]

I think Dante put it well.

[Jeremy]

I always tell players going to their first footbag competition not to deliberately attempt anything in their routines, shred 30 or sick 3 that they can't hit at least 9 out of 10 attempts. I think the same goes for circle, except that when it gets to the third turn you should try one of your harder moves as the first trick if you haven't had any pass backs yet, and when you hit good length runs (for your abilities) you should start hitting higher risk moves towards the end of the run.

The reason why in a sick 3 comp you often see new players not hit a combo, while older players do isn't because the older players are better (although their combos are), but because the older players play further below their peak ability. Hitting something is better than hitting nothing.

I think even if you extended circle, experienced players would still play to minimise drops.



A few years ago (2004 actually) we had a sick 3 comp with unlimited attempts, which was actually really fun, but we could only do that because we had such a small number of competitors.

[Muffinman]

One positive aspect of more rounds could be that you have less of a chance to fluke win. I think the less time there is to perform, the greater the chance of "accidentally" winning, like Shred 30. You could be really on, and someone else "better" could be really off, and in few rounds this would have a greater impact on who wins. If there were more rounds, it would be more difficult to accidentally do awesome in all of them.

Just a thought.
Also, when it's top players in Circle, it's kind of really disappointing to see it end so soon

[MathieuGM]

I think doing the whole circle concest with lots of round wouldn't make sense. It would take much more time, wich can already be an issue in some tourneys. Also, in the first few rounds of big tournments, the winner is pretty mmuch always obvious.

Still, i think we might extend a bit the finals. Maybe 4 turn per round or something like that. But i think Ianek used to do 8 turns circle contest, if i remember properly! I should just ask him why he changed the lenght of the comp.

Mat

[C-Fan]

Another thing to keep in mind, is that a longer circle contest is also harder on the judges. Judging 6 turns per person for 4 people is already tough. Increasing that by a third (adding one turn to each round) would make it that much harder.