Event Regionals - how does scheduling work?

snoopy369

snoopy369

Aspiring Trainer
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I'm about to go to my first regional at Collinsville, along with my 7 year old son, and as they haven't published (that I've seen) an exact schedule yet, I'm curious how Day One works. (I'm not worried about Day 2, as I think it's < 10% for me to make that and < 5% for my son to.)

We get there at 8, opening ceremony at 8:30, I assume round one goes at 9. Then new round on the hour every hour for 9 hours? (So 9am-6:50pm) Or is there a lunch break?

If my son is playing in Juniors, and I'm in Masters, assuming we play nearly the whole 50 minutes (we're both new to this, so, probably will), will we have a chance to meet up between rounds? Or will he be on his own for however many rounds he plays?

Finally - how many rounds do juniors usually play? I understand Masters play 9, are Juniors usually 7? If 7, say, does that mean they're concurrent with Masters rounds 1-7, or do they have a (longer) break in the middle?
 
Hopefully you catch this before tomorrow, as I just saw this and had these questions when I went last year!

Scheduling at the tournaments is very flexible, so the opening "ceremony" at 8:30 is probably as fixed a time you'll get all day, unfortunately. This is mostly because the tournament wants to run as quick as possible, but every round people go to time and sometimes those 3 turns after time take a long time. I want to say that ideally it takes 10 minutes after times is called to wrap up turns and get match slips submitted and another 5 minutes before results are processed and posted, but I'm pretty sure some rounds took 20-25 minutes, so that's why a full day schedule isn't posted.

As far as I remember, TCG across all divisions were pretty well in sync, so I'd bargain pretty well that getting a lunch break with your son would be easy. I know the food options at the venue are quite limited, so if possible organizing your own lunch or finding somewhere nearby may make the day go a little easier. I believe they give about an hour or hour and a half for lunch (after round 3?), but again this is mainly announced the round beforehand.

As for rounds for Juniors, this is due to attendance. I see about 72 Juniors as of yesterday, so I believe it would be 7 rounds. Again, I believe they're fairly close to Masters Rounds, so they would have the same lunch break.

A lot of this information is trying to remember from last year (although I definitely tried to retain specifics as I was going to Madison shortly after and it was my first regionals), but I'd say the best thing you can do is to make a gameplan to meet up at a spot after rounds and listen carefully to overhead announcements.

Hope this helps and good luck!
 
Cool, thanks!! Much appreciated! If you’re going to Collinsville we should wave at each other at some point!
 
The tournament went well, and my son made it through all 7 rounds (3-4, respectable for a 7 year old!). We ended up just having him stay at his table until I got him, with a secondary option of walking over to the hive and asking a staff member for help finding me if he got worried (almost did the one round where I went well over time due to a judge call delay. Protip: don't shuffle your discard pile into your deck).

Only one round wasn't exactly the same timer junior/senior/masters (one round was slightly delayed for masters because someone dropped due to losing his deck, but they found it right before start), and that was close enough it didn't matter. Lunch was after the 3rd round, total 2 hours for 3rd round + lunch (3rd started @ 11:30, 4th started @1:30).

Juniors went 7 rounds, masters 9, and there was _not_ a specific place for him to hang out for the last two rounds. Mom ended up getting him, but if she hadn't, he would've had the choice of going to the streaming area and watching streams, going to an area where they had video games to play, or hanging out at a higher numbered table they weren't using any more. Next time I'll bring an iPad!
 
Glad that it went well! My question for you, how was the food situation over there around lunch time? I remember that last year I didn't check out nearby restaurants and the venue didn't allow outside food and they had like 2 lines for food counters. Was that about the same this year?
 
TorchHG said:
Glad that it went well! My question for you, how was the food situation over there around lunch time? I remember that last year I didn't check out nearby restaurants and the venue didn't allow outside food and they had like 2 lines for food counters. Was that about the same this year?
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Same rules re: outside food. Lunch was busy but not too insane (perhaps helped that our round 3s were both over ten-ish minutes before time). We went to the "outside" lunch place (not the one inside the big room, but the one just outside it near the front entrance). I heard lots of requests over their walkie talkies for more food, but I didn't have trouble getting any (maybe 3 people in line). I'm also not sure they meaningfully enforced no outside food, though I didn't see anyone flaunting it.

There's also like 3 fast food restaurants within a ten minute walk, if you can tolerate mediocre fast food (White Castle is the closest, like 2 minutes away, and that's our Pokemon treat b/c the closest White Castle to us is across the street from our pre-release gamestore). If we had dressed a bit more warmly we'd probably have gone to that instead. Also an Arby's right by that and a few others within sight of the center.
 
Yeah, I definitely snuck in food last year and snacked throughout the day. Good to know it wasn't too crazy, might actually eat a meal next year :p
 
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