EP GRANDE 2023 BPA TOURNAMENT FORMAT
GM: Rob Flowers (epworthian1@gmail.com)
Assistant GMs: TBD
Boardgame Players Association:
In order to play, you must have at least a PBEM (Associate) membership for 2023 at the time of tournament start. This costs $10 and can be accomplished at their website.
Approximate Calendar Period:
- Signups accepted by email (epworthian1@gmail.com) until 6 PM Eastern Time, Saturday April 15, 2023.
- Games will start one week later (April 22) pending BPA membership confirmation.
- Round limits will be tentatively 9 weeks, if delays get egregious, players will be penalized for slow play.
- First round will be 4 simultaneous games for all players, approximately January 22 to March 26.
- Second round will be 4 simultaneous games, approximately March 26 to May 20
- Third round will be 4 simultaneous games, approximately May 20 to July 30
NOTE: A minimum of 25 players are required for this to be run as a BPA sponsored tournament. Should we get less than the 25 required, I may offer to run it as an unofficial tournament.
Website / Games:
We will be using Yucata.
Players must register on Yucata and let the GM know of their usernames. The site is also free of charge.
I recommend that you at least try starting a pickup game to get a feel for the mechanics of how the game interface works.
The site generally allows you to backup and restart your turn if you have not completely finished.
Other Yucata notes:
- The number of the caballeros in the Castillo is public.
- The power cards played by players in previous rounds are public.
- There are no Veto cards in the game.
We will be playing FOUR PLAYER games. This is different than the default run at WBC. (I’m trying this out because it makes the tables easier to set up and the games will be shorter.) My personal strategy advice is that you have to be more aggressive in scoring in four player games. In five player games you have more leeway to “hang back” and let some of the 1 and 2 stack cards pull back an early leader. This is less likely in four player as usually it’s the 1 or 2 stack card that doesn’t get selected each round.
Players should try and check the site at least once daily, when not on vacation.
We will be playing the Standard Full Game (9 rounds):
Reporting Games:
We will use a Google Sheet for reporting game results. The URL will be posted here when available.
Rounds:
First round will be 4 simultaneous games for all players. Players will score
- 1,000 for 1st place finish
- 100 for 2nd place finish
- 10 for 3rd place finish
- 1 for 4th place finish
All players will get also get a tiebreak factor of:
- Winners: your score divided by the second place player’s score, OR
- Everyone else: your score divided by the winning player’s score
I’m actually a little unclear what tiebreak methods are used within individual games in the Yucata implementation. For this tournament, we will go with the following:
- Most caballeros in court
- Most caballeros in provinces
- Highest unused power card
- Random die roll
Players will be ranked accordingly and about 50% of players (or 50% minus 1) will move on to the second round. (Final numbers will be set once we get a confirmed player list)
Second round will be 4 more simultaneous games, will 50% of players moving to third round.
The third round should be about 6-8 people (unless we get insane participation) and play four more games. Players will be ranked to award laurels to the top six finishers.
Round Length:
Round limits will be 9 weeks. Everyone should plan on checking the site daily when possible.
If players will be on vacation without internet access, they must let the GM know and post a message within all their current games. If you plan to take more than one week of vacation, please clear that with the GM before starting. (You can, in addition, set your status on the page to show you are on vacation, if you wish.)
If a player is NOT on vacation and fails to take a move within 48 hours, please alert the GM. If a player has more than two complaints for the game, that player may be penalized points (tournament points) after consultation with the Assistant GMs.
Drop Outs:
Players are expected to complete all games they are invited to.
If a player drops out DURING a game (or doesn’t take a move for at least 1 week with no vacation or other notice), the GM and assistant GMs will consult and decide whether to adjudicate the game or restart the game without the player.
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