How battles and voting are conducted

1) The first battle of the contest is Solid Snake vs. George Kasler. I create a poll and post it in my LiveJournal. At the same time, I create the same poll in Late to the Party. There are now 2 polls for the same battle.

2) You, the entrant, go to my LiveJournal, and vote for whomever. If you can also access Late to the Party, you go there. Polls will be right on the main page. Once you vote, it is locked and cannot be changed. I encourage people to take advantage of this system, which allows you to vote a total of twice per contest day.

3) At the end of the day's voting, I then tally up the votes for the battle. The total is the sum of the two polls. Example:

Here, Snake wins, and advances to the next round. It doesn't matter that the LTTP poll ended in a tie, because it's the combined total that matters. Again, this is why I encourage people to vote in both places.

4) In the event of a tie at the end of the voting, what I do is then scour my IM buddy lists and find someone who is not in the contest, and ask him or her to vote. If you want to be a tiebreaker for the contest, let me know. Once their vote is recorded, the battle ends. If that doesn't work, I will just keep the battle open until we get a winner.

The wonderful, generous point system

Ah, yes. The point system. Exactly what is it and how does it work? For these contests, I use what I call a full and partial point system. This and the bracket-making sections are typically the two most confusing areas of this whole thing. I promise you, though-once you see it in action, it's less confusing than it actually is.

1) For each correct prediction you make on your bracket, I give you points. Every wrong one, you get nothing. Simple. And in Round 1, it is simple. For each correct prediction, you get 25 points. If you're wrong, 0.

2) In Round 2, the partial point system comes into play. For each completely correct prediction, I give you 50 points. If you're half-right, I give you 25 points. Confused yet? Well, here's an example, using sample battles. The characters in bold are your predictions. Italics represent a character who won the battle. Let's look at the graphic below.

Let's just say, for example, that Snake and Rosemary win their battles and advance to Round 2, as shown here. This means that it will be Snake vs. Rosemary in Round 2. Since your predictions for Round 1 were correct, you earned 25 points per battle. Now, because your battle predictions in Round 1 made it to Round 2, you can possibly earn the full 50 points, should Snake win. If he does, you get the 50. If not, 0.

The graphic below represents a different situation. Now, here's a situation where you can be half-right. Again, bolded characters are your predictions, italicized represents the characters who actually won.

In this example, George beat Snake to advance to Round 2. You predicted Snake, but he lost, which here would be a major upset—especially if the 32nd ranked player beat the #1. Therefore, no points there. Rosemary, whom you predicted to win, advanced. So, it shall be George vs. Rosemary. You predict Rosemary, and she wins over George. Because you predicted the correct winner, but did not have the correct pairing, you get 25 points. And of course, if you're wrong altogether, 0 points.

The later rounds all have the same system, the only thing different is the point values. Here's the point system for all rounds, in all divisions. There are no changes to this system from the last contest.

Round 1: 25 points for correct, 0 for a wrong prediction.
Round 2: 50 points for a fully correct, 25 for getting just the winner.
Quarterfinals: 100 points, 50 points.
Semifinals: 250 points, 125 points.
Division Finals: 500 points, 250 points.
Losers' Match: 1000 points, 500 points.
Championship Battle: 2500 points, 1250 points.

At the end of each contest day, I tally up the votes and administer points as needed. In the past, I have posted the current leader board and winning results every night, or nearly every night. Depending on the amount of entries, I may end up doing it every other day, or once a week. It depends on my mood that evening, as well as total turnout. That will be determined when the contest starts. While I will attempt (and am usually good about) to post the leaderboard nightly, sometimes there may be circumstances beyond my control in which I can't do it that night, especially if this contest ends up with a large turnout. If nothing else, the leaderboard will be posted every weekend of the contest.

Prizes! OH GOODIE!

Prizes. The object of this contest is to get the most points and win. Prizes will be given to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers. The top 3 will have a choice of prizes to choose from, of which they pick ONE.

1st Place: Pick ONE of the following:
-ONE video game of your choosing!! (please specify the console, and if it's NTSC or PAL coding)
-$50 gift card to EBGames/GameStop/Hot Topic
-$50 check/money order/PayPal

2nd Place: Pick ONE of the following:
-Video game of your choice--$25 or less
-$25 gift card to EB/GameStop/Hot Topic
-$25 check/money order/PayPal

3rd Place: Pick ONE of the following:
-Video game of your choice--$20 or less
-$20 gift card to the above
-$20 check/money order/PayPal

If you land in any of these places at the end, email me with your choice of prize. Note to people playing who live outside the USA: EB and GameStop do not offer gift cards for use on their websites. Hot Topic does, however. If you're an international player and you happen to place in any of these 3 places, talk to me and we can work something out, whether it's a video game or something from Hot Topic, for they do ship internationally.

Note for anyone who places in the top 3 and want a video game: PLEASE tell me the console and whether I need to purchase a PAL or NTSC version of the game.