Breaking news – a trustworthy source told me that the annual Cromwell regional tournament will no longer be held at the Red Lion Hotel! That conflicts with the email I received from Mike Wavada and District 25 just last week. It also conflicts with the latest tournament flyer and the nebridge.org webpage.
(Edit: Confirmed, Red Lion Cromwell has been knocked out – updated location to be announced very soon).
Edit: The Hartford Courant, WFSB, and Middletown Press report the abrupt shutdown occurred last Friday over some sales tax issues. Also, locals heavily impacted – we wish the best for the town and impacted employees . Updates from D25 coming soon.
Calling The Red Lion
I called the phone number for the Red Lion Hotel Cromwell. No answer twice. That’s not the best sign for a hotel with over 200 rooms. Granted, it was 12:30am Eastern Time, but it isn’t THAT late for what should be a 24/7 establishment (no voicemail either).
We will keep digging to find out more. Maybe there is a perfectly good explanation…
KIKO Format and Monster Knockout
Because we haven’t yet talked about it, Cromwell features both regular knockouts and Knock In Knock Outs. The regular knockouts are called Monster Knockouts, because they traditionally attract a monstrously high number of teams and brackets for a regional event. If you are knocked out Saturday, you can join one of my favorite formats, the choose-your-flight swiss teams day (Gold Rush, Mid-Flight, A/X Swiss).
So what is KIKO? Earlier we talked about the Tarrytown Knockout In A Day held in the upcoming Tarrytown / Westchester regional.
In constrast, Knock-In Knock Out is a two-day event where the first day is a qualifying swiss, and the second day completes a Knock Out with seeding based on the swiss victory point results. Specifically, directors form many brackets of about 8 teams, all with similar masterpoints. The top four teams advance to the next day and play semi-final knockout matches (then finals if they win that).
KIKO solves the two primary Knock Out problems – if your opponent in the first round happens to be a much stronger team, you will get tied last place for losing right away. And problem number two, if you lose in the morning, you suddenly need to fill your day with a single-session event (or go home early). With KIKO, the opening swiss ensures you play All day against most of the teams in your bracket, hopefully reducing some randomness and eradicating the early elimination possibility.
Good Practice for Grand National Teams
All told KIKO is a very exciting and fair format, and closely mimics the Grand National Teams District 24 Finals. For those practicing for GNT, you might give KIKO a try! The NABC GNT finals is also very similar, just at a larger scale. The “Knock-In” is a massive swiss with 1 or 2 teams from each of 25 districts, and then 16 surviving teams enter a knockout.
The Soloway KO Teams also incorporated two days of swiss “Knock-In”. The main benefits are knockout brackets are no longer seeded by masterpoints, but through the swiss knock-in day. It allows teams with lower masterpoint totals a better chance to progress, because they aren’t stuff playing top pros in the first round!