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Congratulations to Andy Bartalone for winning the Grand Prix for 2002. The Grand Prix was built to encourage travel by Diplomacy players and 2002 tops recent memory of players traveling cross-country to play Diplomacy, particularly in non- Dip Con events, and that is a good thing, a very good thing. Below are the rules that govern the calculation for 2002 that have been adopted and applied for 2003 while at the bottom are the changes followed by some considerations that will not be used for 2003.
NADF Grand Prix ratings will be calculated by Jeff Dwornicki in the following manner: GP events must be published in the Dip Pouch or at the NADF website one month prior to the event taking place. Events must consist of 7 player Standard Dip only. Points are awarded based on the number of total boards played in the four largest rounds of the tournament. The winner will receive 10 points for every board played in the largest four rounds. Every subsequent position will receive 90% of the points of the previous position, 50% of participants will score points. Maximum points awarded for first place is 500. The minimum number of boards an event must have to be eligible for the Grand Prix is 4.
To win the North American Grand Prix, a player must score in two events. All events must take place in the North American Continent, and results must be received by January 15th.
The Grand Prix winner is the player with the most Grand Prix points placing in two or more events. Grand Prix winners receive an embroidered polo shirt, entry on the NADF Grand Prix plaque, an individual plaque and an autographed Allan B. Calhamer book. Awards are made each year at DipCon. Previous winners of the Grand Prix are now allowed to win it again.
2003 Changes:
World Dip Con (WDC) and Dip Con will use .95 to calculate subsequent positions. This will be done to “shrink the gap” for points awarded with the acknowledgement that the pool of players at WDC and DipCon are of a higher level or caliber then regular tournaments , so coming in 2nd or 7th or 14th is much more difficult achievement relatively speaking at these two events, even when compared to events of equal size that are not WDC or DipCon as the guppies tend to stay away while the sharks come out to play for these two specially sanctioned events.
An attempt will be made to exclude ‘house’ cons. While hosting an event at a residence will not automatically exclude it from the GP calculation. The following definition will be used to determine if an event is a tournament or a ‘house’ con. A tournament must have multiple rounds that take place over multiple days along with an entry fee. It must have a scoring system used to ranking the final placement along with some awards given at the end of the event. There must be a designated Tournament Director and the event must be published at the NADF website or at the Dip Pouch as an “open” event to the public one month prior to event itself.
Additional Considerations that were passed over:
There was some comments made to me that the number of events that a player can count toward the Grand Prix should be limited. Deciding on how many events are the correct number of events would be hard enough without stepping on some toes, but it is the ultimate job of the GP to encourage players to travel, not to discourage, so it was passed over at least for 2003.
Designating which events are GP events at the beginning of the year. This idea has a lot of backing and is currently used in Europe’s Grand Prix and Australia/ New Zealand’s Bismark Cup. But the job of picking events that are GP eligible is a political nightmare, and could be a hurdle that new events may find as a stumbling block in growing to the size needed to achieve being GP eligible, sort of a catch-22. Players may not go to the event since they know it is not GP eligible and therefore it may never grow to the size or notoriety needed to become GP eligible. This concept does have legs and may see itself for the 2004 year, but balance and objectivity will be needed to appear to be fair to new events and not seem to be biased for or against either the East or West Coast.
The last consideration was to give an additional 100 points for established events that were GP eligible the prior year. The thought being is that Dip players may be more willing to travel to smaller, established Cons knowing that an additional 100 points was to be awarded to the winner of the tournament. Thus, we could see a lot more travel. When I presented this concept to Diplomacy players it seemed to receive a less then enthusiastic response, which surprised me since it would take away some of the guess work for players who want to try to win the GP on what events they should make an effort to attend along with the bonus of helping smaller events to attract long distance travelers.
Comments or thoughts should be sent to Jeff Dwornicki at [email protected], as I am really interested to receive feedback from players on the changes and items that were considered because we are always looking to improve the Grand Prix.
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