Tournament Formats

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It seems that several tournaments are using/experimenting with different formats. I am curious what your reaction has been and if they are age group specific.

We played in three different types of formats this season. The first type was a 60 minute no new inning, finish the one you are in plus one final inning. The second type was 1:20 no new inning but finish that inning; no drop dead or reversion. The third was 1:20 no new inning, drop dead with a reversion to to the last completed inning.

I liked getting rid of the reversion clause and finishing the inning. The 60 minute seemed to cut the games to short with a lot of time between games (likely lost about 6 innings of play in 8 games. The 1:20 seemed about right and several games got to all 7 innings. In none of these formats did the tournament run behind time but the 60 minute version did have the most time between games for field prep and warm-ups.

We are playing 18U with well played innings taking only a few minutes so the younger age groups could have had much different experiences.

If you were a TD what would use for a format next year?

 

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We played the Parma Tournament and they used the time limit plus play one additional inning. We liked that format becuase it took the stalling almost completely out of the game.

 

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We played the Parma Tournament and they used the time limit plus play one additional inning. We liked that format becuase it took the stalling almost completely out of the game.

That's interesting. So instead of like 1:20 or 1:30, you play 1:10 finish current inning and play one more? Hmm, I kind of like that.

 

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As a TD I like the hour and 20 (15) and finish the current inning. Seems to keep things on schedule and gets rid of most of the stalling tactics. ( I HATE THE STALLING).

My question to the coaches is this, do you perfer a seeded bracket play on sunday or the "cross bracket" method? I personally perfer the cross bracket, that insures that I will be playing at least 4 diffrent teams and most of the time 5 diffrent teams if I advance on Sunday. Your thoughts?????