The time has come to open up competition between clubs and individuals across a broader geographical region. The NCA’s attempt at this noble goal has major deficiencies. The largest being that it attempts to absorb indirect competition into a system designed for direct competition. Grafting three, linear, arbitrary point allotment scales onto an existing one only exacerbates the issue. Linear, arbitrary point scales work perfectly well where the same core group of players can compete directly on a consistent basis as is the case with the NCA and UK tours. It makes no difference whether the winner gets 100 points, 50, or 500 as the weight of the effort to achieve the result will remain consistent as the competition will remain essentially consistent over the course of the season. The players competing in the Elmira tournament are the same ones you will find competing in London, Turtle Island, and the WCC. Hence, they are worth the same number of points. Anyone joining the tour will have to complete directly against those same players. Once you start to incorporate tournaments that don’t include that consistent core group of players the system falls apart. The linear, arbitrary point allotment scale becomes incoherent and impractical when attempting to weigh the results of different players playing different competition. This is why it isn’t done this way in any other sport. AHL teams do not get points in the NHL. Japanese baseball teams do not appear in the standings of MLB. Golfers playing on the Asian and European tours do not appear in the standings of the PGA and so on.

     Thankfully for crokinole, the problem of how to compete indirectly has already been solved and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The solution is a weighted point allotment scale which awards points for results as a function of the strength of competition faced. The way it works is that each player’s skill is objectively quantified into a number, the skill numbers of those participating in a tournament are then summed to produce a pool of points. Those points are then allotted to the field. In this manner a player would receive more points for a given result if they played in a tournament with strong competition and a large point pool than they would have if they participated in one with weaker competition. The NCA attempts to head in this direction by tiering tournaments. Unfortunately, a tournament’s tier is not necessarily reflective of the participants’ skill level. The question then becomes “How do we quantify skill”?

     There is no obvious statistic or metric to measure this by with respect to crokinole. The most practical way to do this is by laying out the strata of crokinole achievements and categorizing players based on their accomplishments within those strata. Being that the NCA is recognized as having the highest concentration of skill, we will use succuss in the NCA as the standard for measuring a player’s skill and the basis upon which they will be awarded their initial tier. In this way, instead of tiering tournaments, we will be tiering players.  I’ve identified 10 different levels of accomplishment in competitive crokinole. Players will be placed in the tier that corresponds to their highest level of achievement within the past 24 calendar months, or 5 years for WCC winners. The tiers will be designated as follows: 

Tier S: Players who have won the World Crokinole Championship (singles) within the previous 5 years.

Tier A: Players who have won a NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last two years.

Tier B: Players who have finished amongst the top 25% of competitors in a NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last 2 years.

Tier C: Players who have finished amongst the top 50% of competitors in a NCA tournament or the have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last 2 years.

Tier D: Players who have finished amongst the top 75% of competitors in a NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last 2 years.

Tier E: Players who have won a Non-NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players within the last 2 years.

Tier F: Players who have finished amongst the top 25% of competitors in a Non-NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last 2 years.

Tier G: Players who have finished amongst the top 50% of competitors in a Non-NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last 2 years or players who have finished amongst the bottom 25% in a NCA tournament.

Tier H: Players who have finished amongst the top 75% of competitors in a Non-NCA tournament or have beaten 2 such players, head-to-head, within the last 2 years.

Tier I: Players who finished amongst the bottom 25% of players in a Non-NCA tournament/New Players.

*NOTES: 

1. In light of NCA restructuring, the term “NCA tournament” shall henceforth mean the competitive division of a Tier I NCA tournament held within the traditional geographical boundaries of the present day NCA.
2. The term “Non-NCA tournament” shall henceforth mean any qualifying tournament that does not meet the definition of a “NCA tournament” as defined above. This would include the recreational division of a NCA tournament.
3. The skill level of the bottom 25% of a given tournament is difficult to quantify by this method. The only objective statement that can be made is that players that fall into this category are lower in skill that those in the top 75%. There is no way to objectively state how much lower so for the purpose of this scale those players whose best result was to finish in the bottom 25% of an NCA tournament shall be placed in Tier G. 

4. Each club will be responsible for initially tiering its own players based on the results of its previous singles tournaments. In the cases where a club has a seasoned player or players whose skill level is known but hasn’t as of yet competed in a singles tournament to establish their tier, those players may have their initial tier designated by their club president to correspond with their known skill level not to exceed tier F.  The notation “President’s Designation” or “Pres” will be used int the achievement columb.

    

5. A Player’s tier will be based on the highest achievement they have achieved within the previous 24 calander months (with the exception of tier S which is with in the previous 72 months).  If a player has no record prior to those 24 calender months then their tier shall remain the same.
6. “Head-to-head” is defined as an elimination match that takes place in a qualifying tournament that is played to a specific number of points. This does not include matches that take place within the confines of a round-robin pool.

Each participating club shall record their players’ names, highest tier achieved, the latest tournament in which they achieved that tier, and the year and month of achievement.