drneau.com

[drneau]

I like the fact in v2 that the tournament state is based on history because that helps ensure the history and tournament state are in sync and valid. However, in a crunch during a tournament, it can be difficult to fix an error you made.

So, for v3, I've been going back in forth in my head about the best way to improve this for v3. I'd thought about 2 options:
Option 1: Give you the option of either creating a "history-tied" tournament that works like v2 or a "freeform" tournament where the history is incidental. I worry about this confusing new users though...why are there two types? So I thought of the other option...
Option 2: One tournament that you can put into a "non-history validating" mode when you want to...but I was worried about the complexity of implementing this....plus it might still be confusing to users.

So, last night I came up with option 3 which I think is the ultimate solution...how it works:
- You proceed just as in v2, by buying-in, rebuying, adding-on, eliminating.
- As you go along, items are entered into history, just as in v2...however, the history isn't validated each time an event is added
- If you make a mistake, you don't have to edit history. You just go to that player and either change their state, change their count for an add-on/rebuy, etc.
- Whenever you want to, you can go to the history and tell it to "validate" itself. That will kick off a quick thread to ensure that the history is in sync with the current state of the tournament and report any errors back to you like "Event <X> is invalid: You are attempting to eliminate player <Y>, but they were already eliminated in event <Z> and they have not rebought!" You can then fix the history at your leisure.

The history validation will ensure the following:
- The state of each player (Active, Eliminated, etc) is what it should be.
- The buy-in count, add-on count and rebuy count are accurate.
- The knockout count for each player is accurate.
- The knockout table (new for v3...who knocked out who how many times) is accurate.
- The right players are seated
- The right players are in the finishing table
- Warn you about seating chart events that don't look right

What I really like about this:
- Still gives you a way to ensure that the history matches reality. This is important to me because I like to put the history on my league website.
- Lets you fix purchase/elimination errors in a crunch.
- One way to do it, rather than two ways which each have drawbacks.
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Dr. Neau (not a real doctor)
http://drneau.com
http://home.comcast.net/~jneau

[MissileMan]

Sounds good!

[elefsea]

Seems the best way out but would like to be able to use it for real soon
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LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB 5 X EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS

[csmith]

Nice idea, it can be tough to have to go back several lines in history to make a change that invalidates several more, and all the while it is your turn to deal!
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Lifes too short to play with cheap chips