Hi Jammers, 

I wanted to thank everyone for coming to Austin Winter Series and share a little bit about the experience. First, I have to thank everyone who made it possible. We started planning in late November and I can hardly believe everything that came together so quickly. It could never have happened without the hard work of Charles Logan, Chris Baker, Michael Stoneking, Chris Delavoryas and the Austin jammers. Everyone came in to help however they could and put together something beyond what I could have imagined. I also have to thank our personal and public sponsors: Disc Nation, Trudy’s Restaurant, Pfluger and Associates, Commercial Flooring System, Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar, Michael Stoneking, Charles Logan, and Chris Baker. 

For me, the greatest part of this tournament was all of you. I cannot express how meaningful it was that so many of you came out without hesitation even though we had so little to promise two months ago. I am always astounded at what our community is capable of and I’m happy to know that my friends are there when it counts. All I had to do was ask and everyone came to make it happen. 

Fortunately, Rodney Sanchez wrote all the days’ summaries so well that I don’t have to, but I want to share a little bit about the structure of the tournament and the things we learned from it (skip to the bottom for results and video links). Our goal was to complete a two division tournament on one day with four rounds: two rounds of open semis, one round of seeded hat, and one round of open finals. We struggled to stay on schedule due to weather watch and “frisbee time,” but we did manage to complete all the rounds quickly and efficiently thanks to a modified ranking system that allowed for quick tabulation. 

The Open Division judging system was split into the three traditional categories: Execution, Difficulty, and Artistic Impression. Difficulty and Artistic Impression were judged on an “organic” ten point scale based on the criteria in the FPA system. Execution was modified so that the scale was reduced (a range of .1-.3) and the maximum point value reduced to five. Each judge scored every category and totaled them up for a raw score, which was converted into a ranking for a quick tabulation. 

The reduced raw value execution was meant to introduce the idea of a “drop cliff.” The idea was that if a team entered into “Frisbee hell” and maxed out their execution point loss they could stop worrying about execution and make a desperation bid in difficulty and a.i. In practice, nobody reached the drop cliff, so we could not test its potential, but I would be interested to see how other tournaments could use this idea. I think it incentivizes high execution and difficulty (especially after the drop cliff) without overemphasizing execution. If the cliff is set at the right point, teams will fight to stay on the right side of the cliff for those points, while teams on the wrong side of the cliff have an alternate route in the finals. Even on the right side of the cliff, it could provide a flexible balance between execution and difficulty that could be set depending on the level of competition.

The seeded hat tournament was a bit of an improvised affair. Our goal was simply to keep the teams as fair as possible and give newer players the opportunity to play with more experienced ones. First we divided the players into two hats at a 1 to 2 ratio so that hat A, which held the “top” players, held half as many players as hat B. Then our volunteer mathematician and score tabulator Chris Delavoryas randomly sorted the teams. There was only a slight, but encouraging complication—there were a handful of top players that had to be pushed into hat B. The initial teams were still somewhat fair, but two teams had a considerable advantage and one player scratched, so the teams were slightly modified by committee, introduced at a players meeting, and approved by consensus. The teams played in a random playing order and eighteen judges were selected from among the competitors. The judging system used a 3-2-1 Berlin multiplier to generate a raw score, which was then converted into a ranking. The results showed that most of the teams received rankings within one or two places of the final result (when factoring which teams each judge considered) and outliers occurred within only one or two “aberrant” judging sheets. The most contentious places were between 2, 3, and 4, which seemed to be interchangeable (their average rankings were 2.92, 2.91, and 2.95).

The full results for both divisions are below:

Open Semis Pool A:

  1. James Wiseman, Randy Silvey
  2. Bob Boulware, Toddy Brodeur
  3. Bill Wright, Jonathan Willet
  4. Michael Galloupe, Johnny Trevino
  5. Doug Korns, John Titcomb
  6. Glenn Whitlock, Lou Sumrall 


Open Semis Pool B:

  1. Jake Gauthier , Arthur Coddington
  2. Larry Imperiale, Ryan Young
  3. Dan Yarnell, Jakub Matela (Mistiq)
  4. Charlene Powell, Steve Hayes
  5. Rodney Sanchez, Bethany Sanchez
  6. Charles Logan, Eric Gibbons


Open Pairs Finals

  1. Jake Gauthier, Arthur Coddington
  2. Randy Silvey, James Wiseman
  3. Larry Imperiale, Ryan Young
  4. Toddy Brodeur, Bob Boulware
  5. Jonathan Willett, Bill Wright
  6. Dan Yarnell, Jakub Matela (Mistiq)

Hat Finals

  1. James Wiseman, Matt Hull, Jonathan Willett
  2. Bill Wright, Joel Rogers, Johnny Trevino
  3. Ryan Young, Rodney Sanchez, Charles Logan
  4. Larry Imperiale, Doug Korns, Michael Galloupe
  5. Toddy Brodeur, Charlene Powell, John Titcomb
  6. Jake Guathier, Jakub Matela (Mistiq), Eric Gibbons
  7. Randy Silvey, Chris Baker, Steve Hayes
  8. Arthur Coddington, Lou Sumrall, Bob Boulware
  9. Dan Yarnell, Bethany Sanchez, Glen Whitlock

Videos of the open finals are already up here: www.youtube.com/austindiscclub There was a bit of a snafu on semis and hat rounds and we only got footage of a few routines. If anyone has footage available please let me know and I will post it. Thank you. 

I hope that this tournament will be a yearly event on everyone’s calendar. Thanks again for coming out and supporting us.

Spread the jam,

James and the Austin Jammers

 
Hi Jammers!

Welcome to the new site! The Austin Disc Club is expanding our operations. We are excited to host this year's first American Winter Series tournament. We thought a new website might make is easier to spread the word and provide everyone with one place where they can find out everything they need.

The site is still a working progress, but we are open to suggestions and content ideas. Just let us know what you want to see and we will make it happen! For now, look around and enjoy! 

Spread the jam,

James