There have been Scrabble tournaments on CC before, but this one is quite different in conception. I will initially run this for 16 players. If it works well and I get positive feedback I will run larger tournaments with the same system later. Feel free to continue signing up even if the tournament is full -- I will use that as a barometer for how large to make the tournament next time.
Settings for all games in all phases will be Automatic, Sequential, Chained, Escalating, and Sunny.
Phase One:
16 players will play a round robin of 1v1 games against each available opponent. (Thus, 15 games at once.) The maps will be Random Map.
The first letter of the map that comes up is the letter you are playing for. Thus, if the game begins and you're on "Europa" you are playing for an E. The maps are exactly as they are spelled on the "browse maps" page, so "The Citadel" is a T and not a C. If you win the game, you have drawn that letter and can put it on your tray. If you lose, you get nothing.
A few exceptions:
CC currently has no maps beginning with Q, X, Y, or Z. However, there are two maps (13 Colonies and 8 Thoughts) that start with a number instead of a letter, there is the Classic map which is not listed in its proper alphabetical position, and thanks to WW II, there are a lot more Ws than anyone could plausibly use.
So, we will use "Classic" to represent Q. (Start thinking of it as Qlassiq!)
We will use 13 Colonies to represent X.
We will use 8 Thoughts to represent Z.
The various WW II maps will all be W, but the four non-WW II Ws (Wales, Waterloo, Woodboro, and World 2.1) will be considered Ys.
Phase Two:
Once all the phase one games are complete, each player who has more than seven letters will decide which seven letters to protect, and the remainder are open to challenge. (Post your list of seven protected letters in the tournament thread within 72 hours after your last Phase One game ends!) So, for instance, if I have P, Z, L, O, O, O, Y, G, then I would probably decide to keep the last seven and put "P" up for challenge (because I'm thinking ZOOLOGY is the best word I can make with the letters I have.) Think carefully about what letters to protect -- this is your best chance of winning!
Players who have fewer than seven letters can challenge the players who have more than seven to get their unprotected letters. Players who have seven or more letters cannot issue challenges. Players can only issue as many challenges as the number of letters they are short for a complete tray of seven, so a player with three letters could issue a maximum of four challenges.
If more than one player wishes to to challenge for a letter, only the player with fewer letters can do so. Thus, if a player with 3 letters and a player with 6 letters both want my P, only the 3-letter holder will be allowed to do so. (Disallowed challenges do NOT count against your total. Thus, the 6-letter player in this example who wanted to challenge me for my P but was not allowed to do so, can still challenge someone else.) If multiple players with the same number of letters want to challenge for a letter, their order of priority will be decided by their current points, with the lowest-ranking player being allowed to make the challenge.
Nobody can challenge you for the seven letters that you have protected -- only for your extras.
Once a challenge has been issued and allowed, the game will be played on a map of that letter. If that letter is represented by more than one map, the defender decides what map to defend on. Thus, if I am defending my P, it is my choice whether to play on Philippines or Puget Sound or Poker Club. It does not matter what map the letter was originally won on. If I won it on Portugal but I want to defend it on Puget Sound, that is my choice.
There are no second chances for failed challenges. If you have 3 letters, challenge four players for four more, and lose all four of those games, so be it. You have 3 letters.
NEW: There will be a second challenge round. Due to the disqualification of DJENRE (for details check here), there are now more letters available for challenge. Rather than just give the windfall to those players with less than seven letters, I will allow EVERY player to make one extra challenge, including those who are not otherwise eligible. To keep it simple, we will have all those extra challenges be a separate round.
Phase Three:
With challenges over, you may replace any of your seven protected letters with any of the ones that you successfully defended. Make the best word you can (maximum of seven letters) with your letters and post it in the tournament thread within 72 hours after your last game ended. The word must be in the standard Scrabble dictionary. It will score according to standard Scrabble point values (no double or triple bonuses apply.)
Nota Bene:
When I wrote "standard Scrabble dictionary" I meant "the Official Scrabble Dictionary as published by Hasbro" which is what we are accustomed to here in North America. However, I didn't specifically say so. The rest of the world plays British Mattel version and thinks of that as being the norm, so it makes sense that our British and other worldwide players would interpret "standard Scrabble dictionary" to mean either the Chambers dictionary (OSW) or SOWPODS. Therefore, any of these are acceptable.
(You can read the debate we had in the thread, starting from here and continuing on for roughly a page and a half.)
Feel free to use any resource (online thesaurus, etc.) to make your word. (Yes, it would be nice to have a rule that everyone can only use their own mind, but there's absolutely no way to enforce such a rule, and absolutely no point in having rules that one can't enforce.)
The winner will be the person with the highest-scoring word. In the extremely unlikely event of a tie, we will have a best-of-three playoff series. If it is a two-player tie, the games will be 1v1, but if more than two are involved it will be multiplayer standard.
(Note for my archives: this is my fourth tournament.)
