STAR Tournament Director Guide
The following rules must be followed for a tournament to be sanctioned by the STAR Tournament Association:
1) STAR is non-profit. No one associated with STAR is permitted to profit from their involvement.
2) Tournament information must be posted to the STAR website at least one month prior to the event. The posting must include the date and draft start time for the tournament. The posting must also include the name, phone number and e-mail address of the Tournament Director (TD) and City Host (if different). The format that will be used for the tournament should also be posted to the website or otherwise communicated (in advance) to the tourney participants. When Round Robin Format is used, the Tournament Director shall advise everyone that they must complete their RR schedule and play their best to win every game when playing someone who is in contention. Failure to do so could result in suspension.
3) The TD must be approved by the appropriate STAR Regional Director.
4) The TD must adhere to and enforce the provisions covered in this document as well as the STAR Consolidated Rules document.
5) The TD will review format specifics before the tournament including the number of games to be played before the play-offs and how the match-ups will be determined. Also, the TD will review how various tie scenarios will be handled (shoot-outs, 1-game play-offs etc.). Also, the play-off details (# of rounds, # of games per round), how byes are determined (if any) and how home/away is decided will also be reviewed by the TD before the tournament begins. When Round Robin Format is used, the Tournament Director shall advise everyone that they must complete their RR schedule and play their best to win every game when playing someone who is in contention. Failure to do so could result in suspension.
6) In general, prior to the playoffs, matchups will be within your own drafting pool. Crossover matchups are limited to scenarios where there are at least two pools with an odd number of players. In this case, one player from each of those pools will ‘cross over’ to play an opponent from the other pool. No player will cross over more than once per day on Saturday and, with the possible exception of the final matchup before the playoffs, no more than once per day on Sunday either.
7) Tournaments must have at least six participants. Draft pools (divisions) must have between 8 and 14 drafters (possibly including 1 or more DSIMs). DSIM will be used to balance divisions but no more than one DSIM may be used per division. Exception1: If you have only 6, two DSIMS must be used to get to the minimum of 8. Exception 2: If you have 13, you have the option of splitting into two divisions with one of those divisions having one DSIM and the other having two.
8) 10/700 Rule. Unless prior approval has been granted by the Star Board, no tournament may be scheduled within 10 days of another tournament if that tournament is within 700 miles of any other sanctioned Star tournament. This is intended to prevent one tournament from significantly hurting the attendance of another.
9) The Tournament Director is responsible for ensuring that $5 for each player in the tournament is sent to the STAR Treasurer. The TD is also responsible for forwarding a signed copy of the Player Agreement Form for every player who has not already signed it. The TD is responsible for forwarding copies of each draft to the STAR Statisticians (DSIM output is preferred). Also include the names and final records (include bye wins and losses) for each player and the points that each player earned. For OPEN and Joint tournaments, the players preferred region must also be specified.
10) The maximum number of games for a two-day STAR
tournament shall be 37 (40 if you have a Friday-night draft). This maximum assumes best-of play-offs go the
distance (e.g. a seven game series goes the full seven games). This maximum also assumes that bye-round
games count as played games (e.g. if you had a 24-game schedule before the
play-offs but actually only played 21 games due to a bye, it is assumed that 24
games were played for purposes of this rule).
If tie-breakers (shoot-outs or 1-game play-off) are needed to determine
who advances, these games are not counted toward the 37-game (40 for
Friday-night draft) maximum. The purpose
of this rule is to avoid tournament formats that extend play late into the
evening and early-morning hours. Some
examples of acceptable formats include
11) For any sanctioned tournament: Prior to the playoffs, players receive one point for each win and one point for each game over .500. Players who make the playoffs receive two points for each play-off win. The winner receives one point for each entrant in the tournament. The player who comes in second receives 1/3 point for each entrant (round down). For purposes of point calculations, wins and losses are awarded for byes as follows: 1-1 for 2-game series, 2-1 for three-game series and 2-2 for four-game series. For players who earn a play-off round bye, they get two points each for the number of games they would have won (for example, if the first play-off round had 5-game series and they had a bye, they would get six points).
Some tournament formats use a 1-game play-off or shoot-outs to break ties. These games do not count for points.
Example: A player went 14-10 and made the playoffs. He then went 3-2 to win in the semi-finals and was then swept (0-4) in the finals to finish in second place in a 20-person tourney. He earned 18 points prior to the play-offs and six points during the play-offs. Plus, he earned a bonus of 6 points for finishing second. His total points are 18+6+6 or 30 points.
Some tournaments (including the Worlds) will have consolation games for those that do not make the playoffs. For these games, one point is awarded for each win and one point is deducted for each loss. For these consolation games, no points are awarded for byes.
Players may play as a team in a tournament but points are only awarded individually. The team members must declare beforehand how the points are going to be awarded (all for one or split 50/50). Players must be physically present at some point during the tournament to receive any points.
Regional points are the sum of a player’s best three tournaments in a region plus the points earned in the Regional Tournament. Before a date specified on the website, a player may move the points (from one tournament) from one region to another for the purpose of bolstering their point total for that region. The champion from each region will be a pool selector (papal room) at the National Tournament (Worlds). Points may not be moved to or from the Internet Region.
Some tournaments are OPEN tournaments. Points generated from these tournaments may be applied to any region (except the Internet Region). Some tournaments are Joint tournaments (like a Jasper-East event). Points generated from these tournaments may be applied to either region. Prior to the draft, participants must tell the tournament director which region will receive their points (default is the host region for OPEN tournaments and the first region listed for Joint events.)
National points are the sum of the points for the player’s best three regular season tournaments plus their best Regional Tournament plus the National Tournament (Worlds). National points are also used to determine the at-large papal room selectors for the Worlds. Internet Region points are not counted toward National Points because Internet tournaments are able to play more games and generate more points.