Dart Tournament

July 14, 2016

PPD TOC, Vouchers, Remote Leagues, etc.

We are proud to be a part of the Partners Promoting Darts and again have Vouchers for the TOC in 2016!

PPD is a group of operators that run a series of Tournaments and Remote leagues and the big Tournament of Champions that you may have heard about. The group is called Partners Promoting Darts (PPD), and they run the Pearl Vodka Lady Bligh Rum Lord Calvert Whiskey Leagues and Tournaments.

HOW TO EARN A VOUCHER - 7/15/2015-7/14/2016

To Qualify For A Voucher: The league operator (Midstate Amusements) certifies the player has participated in a minimum of 350 league games by 11:59 PM July 14, 2016 in any combination of cricket and 01 where the league operator has retained statistics that can be shared with officials in which statistics demonstrate the player has achieved a minimum average Mark Per Round (MPR) or Point Per Dart (PPD).

     Men: 2.5 MPR or 25 PPD or higher                            Women: 1.65 MPR or 16.5 PPD or higher

Players earn points the following ways in a PPD year between July 15, 2015 and July 14, 2016:

The number of points per week will be the number of games played for all traditional traveling and remote leagues. For example, if your traditional league plays 8 games of 301 and 8 games of cricket, you’ll receive 16 points each week you play. If you play in a PPD remote doubles league with 15 games, you will receive 15 points.

Some leagues that we want to promote will earn 5 bonus points in addition to the base game points. For a qualifying league playing 8 & 8, you would earn 16 points plus 5 additional points, actually earning 21 points each week of league. These include:

Any official “Masters” League. This must be a true Masters League, not just a Division 1 league. Masters Leagues that qualify would be completely non-handicapped and must have all participating players master or double out.

Fond du Lac - Thursday team (or doubles if not enough interest).

Sheboygan - Co-Ed Alternate Fridays (this leagues plays every other Friday night, choice of Friday start date, and rotates throughout the whole league season. You actually play anywhere from 9-15 weeks, depending on the number of teams).

Oshkosh – Monday team

The Remote Leagues that Midstate Amusements run on Wednesday (4 person) and Thursday (doubles). These are remote leagues that we run here at Midstate and with a few other operators nearby, not through PPD, against teams from around Wisconsin. These two remote leagues are WAMO, NDA, and PPD sanctioned leagues.

In-house bar leagues (non-WAMO sanctioned and only plays at one or two locations) will also receive some points if run by us through the Arachnid software. They will receive ½ of the points a traditional traveling or remote league would receive. For example, if your in-house bar league plays 6 games of 301 and 2 games of cricket, that is 8 games, and you would receive 4 points for each week you play.

Leagues matches must be played between July 15, 2015 and July 14, 2016. Extreme Team Remote leagues run all the time, so if you need more points, that will be a great option. See the Darts TOC website for more details. League games played through another operator other than Midstate Amusements will not count towards your games or points here. You may qualify for a voucher with more than one operator, however, by meeting their requirements separately. Of course, that's over 700 games, but if you want an extra voucher, you are certainly welcome to do so!

More about the PPD and TOC:

For leagues, they run an amazing amount of remote leagues. These are known on their website as “Extreme Team.” Players go to the website http://www.dartstoc.com and sign up for either 2, 3, or 4 person teams at the G3 Bullshooter location of their choice. Sign up for this under the 2015 tab under Extreme Team on their website. Then they choose their day of the week and time. This allows us to offer more league options on different nights and against different people! It's great for our G3s out in the middle of nowhere where there is no league, for players in cities looking for more competition, for small towns that only have leagues 1 day a week, for summer when we don't have too much going on, and for players who want to do just a doubles or 3-man league for a change, too. It just gives everyone more choices. Games and Length: 6 teams play 20 weeks (5 rounds), 7 or 8 teams play 21 weeks (3 rounds), 9 or 10 teams play 18 weeks (2 rounds). There are express leagues that shoot less and standard leagues at run a playoff series at the end. You play 501 freeze rule, Cricket, and 501 stacked. All Open In/Open Out. 4 person teams play 15 games each week - each person plays 9 games, last game is 701 stacked. Triples play 12 games. Doubles play 15 games. If there is a conflict with regular traveling leagues, you will be notified as soon as possible to choose a different day of the week, time, or location. Please be aware of the local traveling leagues when you sign up for an Extreme League so that there are no conflicts.

For tournaments, PPD runs a monthly Saturday tourney - their All-Star Series. Players can sign up on their website ahead of time for them, then go to the bar of their choice with a G3, and plug the board with the entry fees. PPD deposits their winnings through PayPal or mails them their winnings (along with some occasional prizes and swag from Pearl Vodka and other sponsors). To qualify to play in the monthly All-Star Series, you will need to play in one of the aforementioned PPD (through the http://www.dartstoc.com website) remote leagues for 24 games.

Then there is the huge Tournament Of Champions. This was Pearl Vodka for 2014 and is now the Lord Calvert Whiskey Tournament Of Champions. 

The Tournament of Champions (or TOC) is the thing a lot of players have been talking about. The Operators (like Midstates) buy vouchers for their players to "earn" during the season (July 15th to July 14th) to go to the TOC in Kansas City in November that year. The eligibility period for the November 2016 TOC starts July 15, 2015.

All PPD remote games and league games played after July 15th will count towards the 350 game requirement to attend the tournament. All Extreme-Team remote league games count for TOC and All Star Series eligibility requirements for players of PPD member/vendors who own TOC vouchers. Midstate will have vouchers for 2016's TOC which 2016 TOC statistical year starts on July 15th 2015......so all games after that date will begin to count for 2016's TOC eligibility. Meanwhile, all remote league games count for the 2015 All Star Series eligibility.

Vouchers – what are vouchers? Vouchers are how we are able to send 16 men and 8 women to the TOC in October of 2016. To be eligible to earn one of our vouchers, you will need to play 350 games in league. You are able to track your progress on the PDD website http://www.dartstoc.com under the Pearl Vodka box, choose 2016 (or choose 2015 if want to see who will be going to the October 2015 TOC), and choose male or female. Now hitting 350 games just makes you eligible for a voucher. To actually win a voucher, you must have the most POINTS. You will need to be in the top 16 qualifying men or 8 qualifying women. The point system to show you how to earn a voucher is listed in detail on the DartsTOC website.

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If you want more information, here is the new "official" (and only 2 minutes!) YouTube clip from PPD showing you how to sign up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7eTHAjtr9I&feature=youtu.be

We’re excited to be a part of the PPD group and look forward to getting you in on these great events! The PPD website is http://www.dartstoc.com and Facebook Group (which I encourage you to join!) is https://www.facebook.com/groups/644094115665517/

If you have any questions about PPD, the TOC, or anything regarding these leagues or point system, please contact Emily at epickart@midstateamusements.com.

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UPDATE:

TOC 2016 Oct. 15-19, 2016.

KEY things to know:

1) We’ve eliminated Tuesday evening Qualifiers altogether to enable 1, the Finale Drawings to occur between 4 pm – 6 pm. We want players to draw for themselves. This will allow for that and not hold things up on Finale day. 2, The Hard Luck drawings to occur between 6 pm and 8 pm. Doing the drawing on Tuesday evening will mean we can sort out who goes where (if we need to move men or women out of Hard Luck back to Finale) and this scenario will allow anyone who thinks they did not make the Finale to register for the Hard Lucks as the week goes along. Doing these drawings on Tuesday evening enables us to deal with other things like eliminating byes in the Finale and the issue of setting limits on the number of vouchers a single player can earn (see further below).

2) We have said for months we are taking 128 women to the Finale in 2016 – regardless of how far we have to go down into each Qualifier. We will do the same for men in 2016 too. Doing this will spread our prize money out to many more women and men because many more will make the Finale in 2016 and win at least $500 while having a chance to win $20,000. With the number of players we have now, the skills of all who make the Finale are good enough to be fair to all who draw. If, as the week goes along, we find that we still have byes to fill on Tuesday then we’ll go as far down in all Qualifiers in all timeslots, as it takes, to fill the Finales. For example, we can presume we’ll need, as many as, the top 9 or 10 women from each Qualifier in each timeslot to get to 128. We won’t know for sure until we see how many qualifiers we have at the end of registration (Oct. 1, 2016 - just like we did in 2015 for men). After we know exactly how many Qualifiers we have in each timeslot we will then determine the exact number of men and women we need from each Qualifier timeslot…

3) These things will impact the “multi-qualifier voucher” issue enough – that we feel we do not need to limit the number of vouchers any one player can earn. The multiple-Qualifier players won’t get the extra $600 prize check(s) for finishing top 8 in 2016. Players will still want to earn every Qualifier voucher they can get because they will want more chances at making the Finale. However, those multi-voucher players will only earn the posted Qualifier prize-money for each Qualifier position they win…. Multi-voucher players will not create byes in the Finale and they won’t block out some of the other lower-finishing Qualifier-players as in year’s past. This is enough to resolve the concerns about the multi-Qualifier players without us having to limit our vendors from giving their vouchers to whomever they desire among those who are eligible as found on each vendor’s TOC standings page.

a. For further example, if we have 14 Women’s Qualifiers as we did in 2015, we’d need the top 9 women from each (9 x 14=126) plus 2. As we did for the men in 2015, we’ll take the extra 2 in the earliest timeslot possible. Then, 9 women from each subsequent Qualifier in all the remaining timeslots. When repeat top 9 players begin to happen (multi-Qualifier entrants who finish in top 9), to ensure we do not go too far down the list in the earlier timeslots we will not go beyond the top 12 to get our 9 new players from each Qualifier and we’ll break any ties the same as we did for the men in 2015 too (by highest player rating of those tied). Then, if we begin to see any rollovers to the next timeslot before we get to Tuesday, or on Tuesday, either way, we will go back to the earlier timeslots to take whoever else we need from all timeslots prior the last - to ensure we get to 128 unique players (for both men and women) – all of whom will have finished in the same minimum Qualifier positions. Again, if we find we are short on Tuesday, we’ll go to the next positions in all Qualifier timeslots to get the number of players we need……for both men and women – to get to 128 in each Finale. Moving them back from Hard Luck if needed (presuming some may have registered for that during the previous days of TOC). Note: for the men we can estimate about the same number of Qualifiers as 2015 (24) This equated to top 5 plus – so we can still presume taking top 8 in any one timeslot but wait till Tuesday to see if too many repeaters caused a shortage (like happened this year) to then go back and take whatever next positions needed (top 9 or top 10 – whatever it takes) to get to 128 men for their Finale.

b. As a reminder, don’t forget, Currently we have 96 Pre-Qualifier vouchers shown on the All Star Rand List for remote PPD league players who are highest in All Star Rank list points. Pre-Qualifiers will be treated the same as in 2015. Extreme-Team remote league play and Pre-Qualifier competition is the only way to know you are in the TOC Finale before going to the TOC. We will advance the top 8 from each “Pre-Qualifier” bracket in August 2016. We will add more Pre-Qualifier vouchers to the All Star Rank List when/if the number of remote league players exceeds 2,000. This means we will have at least 2 male Qualifiers and 1 female Qualifier - sending 16 men and 8 women, at minimum, directly into the October Finale drawing from the August 2016 Pre-Qualifiers. If/when we exceed 2,000 players, in remote league play, we will double these Pre-Qualifier voucher opportunities. And don't forget the "Double your TOC Prize-money" opportunities for these remote players in 2016! The "Double TOC Prize-money" promotion made a HUGE difference in the 2015 Finales and it will in 2016 too.

4) We will have more men’s and women’s Qualifiers in morning timeslots as a result of eliminating Tuesday night’s timeslot – so we moved the Triples events to the mornings to balance the board inventories.

5) We have moved $32,000 from the Finales to the added money for the Hard Lucks – doubling from $8,000 each to $16,000 ADDED to each Hard Luck. Same top 3 prizes in each Finale $20,000, $10,000, $5,000, slightly less in 4th – 10th and $1,000 payout to the 11-64th place teams instead of $1,200. This helps spread our prize money out to more players while creating new, more attractive, top prizes in the Hard Lucks @ $5,000, $3,200, $2,400 and so on.

6) We will use 16-team brackets for the TOC Doubles and Triples instead of 32-team brackets.

a. We'll add $750 to each 16-team Doubles bracket and $1,125 to each Triples bracket….so, the net result is the same money added per team – per bracket as we did in the past.
b. This tightens up the skill range in each bracket, making for fairer competition in every bracket and twice as many winners.
c. 16-team brackets will add valuable time we can use to allow ADDING MORE CRICKET games in both formats (Doubles and Triples). Players love cricket and want more cricket. We will use the same formats for both Doubles and Triples as our monthly All Star format (for consistency).

7) We have added two additional flights to our Mixed Doubles Invitational (MDI) Winner Take All concept. We’ll keep the main MDI (Gold) $50,000 Winner Take All for 1st w/$5,000 for 2nd on Sunday morning - to provide a great streaming content opportunity and to ensure everyone is in the room on Sunday afternoon to see the culmination of this ground-breaking high-stakes competition. Then, we’ve added two new brackets (Silver @ $10,000/$1,000 and Bronze @ $5,000/$500) on Tuesday evening while we are drawing our Finale and Hard Lucks - to replace some of the Qualifier competition in that timeslot.

8) We have moved forfeit times to 10 am and 5 pm to enable a bit more rest in the mornings for everyone. We believe Compusport proved out well and enables us to move these times and not worry about getting out before midnight each night. Notwithstanding the adjustment to 16 team brackets in Doubles (in the evenings) and (Triples in the mornings), we believe those changes with more cricket, but just 16 teams per bracket will still fit within the 7 hour windows we have each day.

9) Women’s Doubles will be offered in each “Open” timeslot in 2016 (Sat. & Mon. @ 5:00 pm) . This is not shown on the flyer because it will be controlled by the tournament set-up page itself.

To Earn a Pre-Qualifier Voucher from the All Star Rankings, you have to be in one of the top 96 All Star Rank list point positions... 64 men and 32 for women.



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