Hello, everybody!

In this topic will be published all the information about Small Maps Groups Tournament.

Here you could watch the list of players ordered by glicko-points score and the tournament filled table.

In attached image you can see the whole structure of the tournament and the award associated to it.

Numbers in A-D Groups means the position of players after the first phase in 1-8 Groups. According to the rules, only the 2 first scored players will pass to next phase.

I hope this will be a great tournament for all of us!

How do you usually seed (sort) different players into groups? Like FIFA does, using baskets? For example, four baskets, each basket contains 8 players with close glicko rating. So, in one group could be only one player from top 10 grands, one player from 10-20 glicko rating, one from 20-30, and the fourt player the weakest one?

We have a ordered list of players on basis of "glicko-points" score.

Players will be included on groups with this format:

Player nº 1 to group 1, 2 to group 2, 8 to group 8.... nº 9 to group 8 too, 10 to group 7, etc.....16 to group 1, 17 to group 1 too, 18 to group 2....24 to group 8, 25 to group 8 too, 26 to group 7 until 32 to group 1.

It is like a "Snake" distribution :)

Have you ever counted the overall glicko rating of such groups resulting from "snake distribution"? May be there is some disbalance? If it is not counted, do it this time - and we`ll see, if there is a big disproportion or not.

Then, in Rules only 10 days are given for the first stage. So, does it mean that I should play all 6 games of first stage within 10 days? As for me, it is a rather hard schedule, because I`m not a young boy spending all time with the laptop.

The tournament is really interesting for me, really, but I can make maximum 2 turns in each game per day, excluding weekend. Maybe it will be enough, 20 turns per 10 days to end a game on a small map? What do you think with your experience?

Snake distribution is only a way for do it, but let us have a clean format...in Group 1 we will have players number 1, 16, 17 and 32 and in Group 4 players number 4, 13, 20 and 29....What is the best balanced group? Both of them in my opinion.

A list with too many high-glicko player and some very low glicko give us a overall glicko clearly irreal. Player number 13 will be closer of numbers 12 and 14 that of numbers 4 or 35, for example, with independence of the glicko.




Time limit is a thing that I always try to explain to "newbie" players on tournaments. The key of the time is the "frozen" hours, usually 23 hours in all the tournaments.
What means 10 days with 23 frozen hours?

It is really simple!. From your opponent's move you have 23 hours for play before your time start to decrease. If you play all the days your time never will decrease! :)
If you play after 1 day and 6 hours from opponent's move your time will decrease in 7 hours....(24+6) - 23
And of course, you have that 23 frozen hours for all your moves!

I hope see you finally in the tournament. Like you can read in other tournament's topics of this forum, players usually repeat the experience and this format was really good in Medium Maps Groups that recently finished with a deserved victory for my friend happygrue :)

Thank you for your interest in the game and tournament!

Thank you for the explanation, tese1969.
Now it is all clear to me regarding the time ruling. If I make a move at least once in 23 hours, I lose nothing of time.It`s rather comfortable for me.
You can sign me for the tournament. I`m in.
P.S. These 10 days are for all the tournament long or are given only for the first stage and then when going to the second stage, they are recovered if some are spent?

You must join the tournament from tournaments section on MAN2 website. If you have some problem for do it, tell me, please.

And of course, each phase start with that time because that is the time when the games are started.

Remember that for pass to next phase in this tournament you must to rank 1st or 2nd in your group :)

Well, my friends....

Finally we are 30 players in the tournament list and therefore there are 2 groups with 3 players. A pity we can't add 2 more players for fill the table.

In attached images you can see the list of players ordered by glicko-points score and the table with the groups included.

Games of phase 1 (Station Thunder) will start on Friday, Nov 3.

Remember that the 2 first scored players of each group pass to next phase.

I wish you good luck and please, enjoy the game!

GL and HF to all!!

SMALL MAPS GROUPS TABLE UPDATED ON: Dec, 10

Hi community,

It is my duty as comoderator to make a few comments on this first round of the tournament :) - couldn't do much more for reasons of job and family taking most of my time and energy: Thank you tese for doing most of the work. I will comment unequally focusing most on the things that caught my eye, those that feel neglected please forgive me - you will get more attention next time :D

In the first round lubkirill managed a win against our most recent champion and winner of MMG, happygrue, and secured second place in the group and qualification. I will take a moment to comment on that - chance clearly plays a role in MAN especially on small maps; a very good player will usually compensate for a slightly inferior position through skill on a larger map but on a small one the space for maneuver is small and some situations are impossible to win against a correct approach from the opponent. Still the other player has to play his advantage correctly otherwise he can still loose - congratulations to lubkirill and all those who managed to do that against players who were at least on paper more experienced and favorites.

In group 2 yours truly was again followed by the curse of Canya :D; after a double defeat on Crateus in the final round of MMG I took another 0:2 on ST; very well done friend, I am glad that after the very good idea of shuffling from tese I will not meet you at least in the next round :)

Groups 3, 6 and 8 went as predicted by rating - I will not say much except to welcome the new kid on the block and DeusEx fan in our community; congrats on your qualifying from the first round of world cup against a theoretically superior player and I hope you will stick arround and be active in many tournaments to come.

Group 4 saw Snook taking first place against the favourite tese who dropped two games; congrats to Mdogg for playing pretty well and beating tese once; unfortunately the roll of the dice against Snook wasn't good and our german player did not qualify - hope to see you in the next tournament, you clearly are making progress.

Group 5 qualified as predicted by rating considering that Darkness went dark (excuse the pun :)); my compatriot didn't cut it this time - hope he will persevere and play in the next tournament as well.

Group 7 was truly remarcable - hotly disputed and finished with 3 russian players at equal score and 3 tie-breaks; a few words on Rem vs Botanik, the last game of the round and one that was played LITERALLY (not figuratively) to the last unit. Rem seemed on the verge of winning most of the time in a very long game but finally had to concede defeat - what he could have done differently in my oppinion would have been to divert some of his army and invade Terra Nostra at some point: that would maybe have given his war machinery the extra fuel needed to close the deal. Will follow the tie-breaks with interest!

For the next round we have a very strong group C with all 4 players above 4k rating; after his double defeat in world cup I am sure tese will strike back against ALEKSANDR and is very eager for this potential rematch; always love to watch RAMBO playing - his aggresive, "in your face", mobility based style with a lot of choppers is a real "eye candy" and Os is a true and very solid veteran. All results are possible and all bets are off - will see who comes on top :D

Group A will see another flare of an older and friendly rivalry of myself and happy and two newer and rising stars :); playing small maps great possibilities of reversals surely exist - we will all fight hard ... :)

SMALL MAPS GROUPS TABLE UPDATED ON: Feb, 8

International effort in the semi finals We meet! We battle!

SMALL MAPS GROUPS TABLE UPDATED ON: Mar, 8

Hi friends,

Short analysis and comments on the previous round: in group A happy and myself swept all opposition and won our red games in direct confrontation which led to tie-break - much better position for myself despite playing green and I managed to finish first in the group.... I guess the times when happy could still beat me from inferior positions are forever in the past . Of note JCDenton beat OBM in both games - nicely done.

Group B saw Snook taking all 6 games and remarkably a very nice round by our simmetrical polish player zxcvcxz who took 4 victories agains Nimzoblanca and Rem and 2nd place in group - congrats, hope to see you do well in the semis.

In group C, by far the toughest, Rambo and tese managed to score 2-0 against Os and respectively ALEKSANDR with the rest of the duels ending 1-1. The most interesting games were those played by tese - in his duel with ALEKSANDR with the green he managed a spectacular ending through map domination with army sizes almost dead equal; great and long defence of Massol by ALEKSANDR with repeated seesaw moves of armies in both corners of the country which actually remained unconquered to the end despite being invaded very early. This was by far the most interesting game of the round ... and with sudden and "unexpected" ending - to watch . Duel with Rambo was also close for tese with 2 very long games, Rambo managed to win at turn 37... tese probably hoped to force a standstill and draw but didn't succeed; in the tie-break he draw the "short straw" and Rambo managed a fast victory and first place - this way we will have a moderators duel in the next round .

In group D our most underrated player showed how strong he really is with 6 victories and Prapor was second.

A few words on the semifinals: we have only one russian player in this advanced phase (by the way I think Prapor means flag and he will probably do his best to keep it flying to the final round ) and 2 americans (probably for the first time they outnumber the russians in a tournament at least per phase) with the rest of the representation being very international.

I was asked to predict who will pass to the finals ... hmmm - off the hat I will say most rated players that is myself, tese, happy and Rambo but butterfly is a very special map with a square grid form and only three 8's for each side and no 12's (probably the most overall symmetrical map in the pool except for Bizzaria). That means playing red is very important and not a lot of space for reversal of inferior positions - I predict a lot of 1-1's in individual duels and a lot of tie-breaks: in the end anyone can qualify .

SMALL MAPS GROUPS TABLE UPDATED ON: Mar, 26

SMALL MAPS GROUPS TABLE UPDATED ON: Mar, 27