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Online now: 1 member: scottflodin; 18 anonymousDiscussion: Winter Worlds Scheduling Problems
| Posted | Discussion |
| Nov. 18 BruceAZ Men's 70 155 posts | Dave, I think your customized Scheduling Software has a Virus. I’m a fan of you and what you do and I have been for 17 years but I think you need to bring in a Computer Science intern to fix your software. We spent 14 hours at Rose Mofford yesterday to play 3 games. That was ridiculous, we started with an 8:00 AM game and finished our 3rd game at 9:00 PM. You either had too many teams for a 4 field complex or your schedule software was wacked out. You can do better than that. Bruce |
| Nov. 18 TimMcElroy 942 posts | The 22nd, and final seeding game of the day (between a 1-0 and an 0-1 team) went extra innings, causing a delay in the seedings. The 5:30 bracket game played before yours had a 20 run open inning. Your game included 35-38 runs scored. Please let me know which software program can predict and plan for that scenario? A run here or there matters. Play better defense or a little better offense and your day shakes out differently. Heck, you could have been the #1 seed and earned the night off, or fallen into one of the EIGHT early bracket game slots. I've got my partner's back on this one. Dave isn't to blame. |
| Nov. 19 DaveDowell Men's 70 4321 posts | No worries, BruceAZ ... I don't take it personal because the real culprit was Mother Nature ... She's tough to get a response from, and it's unreasonable to blame adverse weather consequences on the tournament staff ... She deprived everyone at Rose Mofford of the first 16 games slots of the day being played before the actual start time at 2:00 PM ... But that still beats the other venue in the NW quadrant of the Valley ... Sahuaro Ranch Park, less than 8 miles away, suffered a complete rainout and ZERO games played ... Today, you can expect it to be sunny, with a high near 74° ... Good luck!! ... |
| Nov. 19 BruceAZ Men's 70 155 posts | Dave, All games on Friday were on Schedule. One of the problems was there were 2 single games played at 2:00 and 3:30 while the 50s had the other 3 fields. So, 13 teams were done by 2:00 but we had to wait until 5:00 to find out the seedings to see if we played at 5:30 or 7:00. Why do you mix in 2 different age brackets during the same time periods? You have all of the 60 teams (17) there in the morning, if you would have just played only 60s on the 4 fields we could have been done by 5:00. Them the 50s could have all 4 fields and play from 5:00 to 9:00. It makes for a long day when you schedule different age/skill brackets at the same time at the fields. While we're on scheduling, Why can't you change a seed up or down 1 number so that you don't play the same team you just played in a seeding game as your 1st bracket game. No one likes to do that. Another gripe, since I'm griping, when a team gets knocked down to the losers bracket, you should alternate putting them in the top half or the bottom half so that the same teams don't play each other again in the same side of the losers bracket. Ok, I don't think a Computer Science Intern can fix all of these problems but thanks for listening Dave. |
| Nov. 19 DaveDowell Men's 70 4321 posts | Oh, this is a FRIDAY complaint ... Well, that makes it a bit simpler to explain ... All five parks pushed the theoretical maximum of six teams per diamond after we had to discard the Legacy Park option ... They are 4-field complexes, and we balanced the team loads at C. Chavez (22), D. West (23), Papago (22), R. Mofford (24) and Sahuaro Ranch (21) pretty well ... Then it's just making sure the games demand (which in a 5-game guarantee format equals 3.2± per team) fits the game-slot inventory ... In your 17-team bracket, it was obvious that only the #1-Seed was going to get Friday evening off ... Unless you were 2-0 with strong runs-allowed numbers, you were going to be playing Friday and should maybe have planned your time away from the park accordingly ... It was also completely by design to have the 50-Majors slotted into the late seeding rounds ... With their 7-team division, the mathematics prevent playing four games at a time, so they were set up three-wide at 2:00 and 3:30 PM, with only the single games in your division filling out those two rounds ... There's another little twist most folks probably don't think about: Those specific games (for teams #2, 4, 5 & 10) were placed there strategically so that no team would be at a disadvantage because they had to play three games in a row if they seeded themselves into a 5:30 PM bracket game ... That protective scheduling is not by accident ... So that's how and why Friday came together like it did in what we believe was perfectly laid out ... I'd do it again exactly the same way, with or without the assistance of a Computer Science intern with, very likely, exactly zero knowledge or experience in such matters ... Thanks, Bruce, for commenting and providing a context to allow us to explain what we do! |
| Nov. 19 65phantom22 21 posts | I like this question and answer session.... Here is one.... With rain in the forecast.....Why wasn't Saturday morning games played Friday night where fields were available? Proactive instead of reactive? |
| Nov. 19 TimMcElroy 942 posts | A handful of the divisions were already scheduled for 3 games on Friday. Asking them to play a 4th would have been a bit much, IMO. At Rose Mofford, getting all 22 teams an extra game would have resulted in 1:00am finish. Directors arrived at the parks at 6:30am on Friday morning. Expecting them (us) to work an 18+hour day is again, a bit much. |
| Nov. 20 DaveDowell Men's 70 4321 posts | There's also the potential (undesirable) consequence that a team playing four (of the five-games scheduled format) on Friday faces elimination from the tournament in their first game of the day on Saturday ... Playing five in 24 hours and being on the way home as early as 9:30 AM Saturday morning isn't going to be anyone's preferred schedule ... Due to the drop down to a four-game guarantee dictated by the weather, a handful of teams did depart after one game Saturday, but at least it was mid to late afternoon in almost all cases ... |
| Nov. 20 jimperry19 69 posts | We played at Desert West, same story, long delays, shortened games, no guaranteed 5th game etc. But it was a blast, an absolute blast to be playing softball in November in Phoenix against great competition with my buddies. When I was laying in the grass eating a really good cheeseburger during a couple hour delay on a beautiful Saturday evening, chatting with a friend I hadn't seen in a while I thought 'I am really lucky to be doing this'. There are probably a bunch of things that could have been done better to make it more smooth, but I am absolutely not qualified to suggest any of them. Plus the bathrooms were clean. Also, my team was probably one of the reasons the schedule got thrown out of whack. On Friday we gave up 26 runs in the top of the 8th inning to those bullies, the Iowa Demons (really good guys), so that didn't help. Tim, if you had posted that comment about 'play better defense' a couple days sooner it may have helped us. Really fun weekend, thanks Dave and SSUSA. |
