I hosted a pong tournament, monikered Summer Slam, in June. If you don’t already know what pong is and want to catch up, good luck!. You’re behind by, ballpark, 20 blogs and podcasts.
For everyone else: Let’s get started.
Format & Outcome
Six teams entered, competing round-robin to qualify for a single-elimination playoff. The original idea was, with each team squaring off against every other, the standings would shake out so two teams would be, by record, clear candidates for a one-game final.
Here’s how those games played out.
As the close reader will note, things didn’t quite work out as imagined, with Ezbour, NogJL, and Lamarver finishing tied at 4-1. Since only slim margins in point differential separated the teams, we added Ruzi – fourth in the standings – to a semi-final bracket. A pre-tournament long-shot, they ended up making it to the final, before their Cinderella story was put to bed by your tourney champs, Jerf and Raoss.
Big ups to those two. Congrats on the chip!
But you already knew all that. Let’s get into the new stuff.
Missing No. (71)
Every stat we’ve ever collected, this tourney and before, was generated by watching videos post-game and manually entering each data-point. For those interested in truly diving deep, here’s the raw game data from this year’s event:
While this process has begat incredible and robust results over the years – far more than anyone would have a right to expect – its results haven’t always been perfect. Typically this was due to human error – I mistyped, we screwed up the score mid-game, etc.
This time, however, technology was the culprit. My video of the Ezbour-Croutons 2010 clash was, somehow, corrupted beyond repair; the footage, and thus “Game 71,” is lost forever.
Sad!
Straight Stats
Alright, it’s time. Let’s cut to the chase. Here are your stats, across both “regular season” and “playoff” play. Reminder:
- Shot Value = (Hits + Sinks – UFEs) / Shots
- Net = Hits + Sinks – UFEs + SavesRSaves
| Player | Hits | Sinks | Events | Saves | UFEs | Shooting % | Save % | Net | Shot Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nog | 5.5 | 2.5 | 15.0 | 3.2 | 1.0 | 18.9% | 44.2% | 7.5 | .088 |
| RJL | 3.3 | 2.0 | 10.0 | 2.3 | 3.3 | 12.3% | 30.4% | 2.7 | .025 |
| Bullets | 5.0 | 1.8 | 9.5 | 2.3 | 1.5 | 14.2% | 25.7% | 5.5 | .079 |
| Crouse | 1.3 | 1.5 | 5.0 | 2.3 | 3.8 | 7.9% | 27.3% | -1.0 | -.016 |
| Kambour | 8.0 | 1.8 | 15.8 | 6.8 | 0.6 | 16.3% | 72.3% | 9.8 | .095 |
| Ezra | 4.2 | 1.6 | 10.6 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 11.1% | 40.4% | 2.0 | .017 |
| Lambie | 5.0 | 1.6 | 9.4 | 2.3 | 4.4 | 13.4% | 40.0% | 2.3 | .030 |
| Marver | 6.0 | 2.4 | 13.7 | 3.9 | 2.4 | 19.2% | 55.1% | 6.0 | .084 |
| Sagar | 5.2 | 2.0 | 10.0 | 4.0 | 3.2 | 13.6% | 44.4% | 4.0 | .054 |
| Tufts | 3.4 | 1.6 | 8.0 | 6.2 | 3.0 | 10.8% | 56.4% | 2.6 | .027 |
| Uzi | 4.7 | 1.9 | 11.1 | 6.4 | 2.4 | 13.0% | 53.6% | 4.6 | .048 |
| Rup | 5.0 | 1.3 | 9.4 | 5.3 | 3.7 | 10.8% | 48.1% | 3.0 | .030 |
While I feel guilty doing so, it’s not really my doing; the numbers are what’s crowning me MVP. I finished first in 7 of the 9 categories above, including arguably the three most important: Shot Value, Save % and UFEs. The last two, I lead by a substantial margin.
Saving, specifically, was really where I separated from the pack. For evidence, we can look to our old stalwart, S.A.R., which tells us I made 12.9 more saves that day than the average player would have, facing the same number of opportunities. Tufts was #2 at 7.4.
I think you could argue for Marver, a stance bolstered by him and Lambie winning it all. The position would be strong, for sure, if he’d kept the UFEs below 2/game; that would have helped his correlated Net Rating and Shot Value, too. As things stand, though, his stats are closer to a toss up with Nog than either of theirs are to mine.
@ me if you disagree!
Climbing the Ladder
As is inevitable, every player out- or under-performed his pre-tourney statistics to varying degrees; Sagar, for instance, shot a little better but saved a little worse than his norms. Ultimately, this all evened out – or at least was trumped by the larger volume of historical data – with the outcome being that our overall Player Power Rankings stayed largely pat. Basically nobody moved in our hierarchy.
The one notable exception to this was Andrew “The Teapot” Uzi, this tourney’s big winner in our 2K ratings. Having had a rough first Nogfest and failing to log any subsequent games to offset that, Uzi entered the weekend ranked 19th of 22 players.
After a much stronger performance this time around, he leapfrogged a full 10 players and is now sitting much prettier, at 8th overall.
Mazel tov!
Snap Back to Reality
In this tourney’s lead-up, hype got out of control. I was guiltier than any, for sure. But ultimately our love of the game, overall a good thing, had us leaning a little too far toward treating Pong like a true sport. To wit:
- I bought custom DKE Lion trophies for the winners, and held an opening ceremony
- Given our historical struggles during live play to keep (1) track of the score and (2) the serve rotation in sequence, we instituted Score Keeper policies
- To optimize their chances, players warmed up, stretched, practiced ahead of time, studied game tape, developed mental strategies, etc.
- Disappointed with the atmosphere of previous Finals, we mandated all participants be in attendance this time around
- Burned by slow play in previous competitions, we established Beer Clock rules, and consequences for breaking them
It was a little overkill, in hind sight.
The beer clock rules, in particular, ended up being completely unnecessary. Fankly, despite Saturday’s competition lasting ~12 hours, we probably would have been better off with a slower rate of play, considering the one factor we failed to truly anticipate.
Alcohol.
B.B.D.A.S.
Previous tournaments bred sideline impatience; with 8-9 teams on a single table, the wait until your next game – of which there were fewer – felt interminable. This time, fewer teams playing more games meant far less rest between matches. Often, the moment your game ended, you were instantly Up Next.
We combined this constantly-on-deck dynamic, and its correlated lack of recovery/down time, with a substantial uptick in per-game drinking. Case-in-point: Ruzi v NogJL broke the combined single-game beers record, sharing half a keystone short of a 30-rack before the latter claimed victory.
There was just something in the water that day, as our Sink:Event ratio – normally ~12% – skyrocketed to 17%. And whatever your theory is as to why that was, the result is hard to argue.
I mean, look at what people averaged drinking per-game:
Ez, this is some bull-shit.
And if you don’t think that mattered – across ~5.5 games apiece – look at which team finished lowest on that list.
To be fair to the champs, outplaying your opponent means you should drink less, on balance, and so from that standpoint, that sub-4.0 total was earned, rather than lucked-into. Regardless of the chicken-or-the-egg, though, those increased numbers had huge ramifications everywhere.
One example? Our first semifinal, in which Nog and RJL failed to make a single save, going 0-for-12. Considering their pedigree, it’s legitimately shocking. Combined, they and Lamarver only saved 5% of their opportunities! The record low before that? 15%. Yikes.
Another example? The Final.
The Worst Game Ever Played
All of our previous winner-takes-all Finals have been lackluster affairs, even going back to Brother Pi:
- B-Pi: Ezbour (21) v NogJL (13)
- Nogfest #1: NogJL (21) v Team Ryan (11)
- Nogfest #2: NogJL (21) v Team Ryan (9)
Entering this weekend I’d really been hoping for a climactic, back-and-forth bloodbath. We were due. Yet what did we get? Lamarver and Ruzi whiffing their way to a single-game record of 18 UFEs.
Sloppy.
Understandable? Yes. A true Comedy of Errors? Yes. No doubt. But Kambour, come on. Did we really reach the point where we should ask if it’s the worst game we’ve ever logged?
Yes, because it is.
- Net: A laughable -3, tied for worst ever
- UFE-Point-%: 56%, 2nd worst ever
- Serve UFEs: 5, T-2nd worst ever
- Total UFEs: 18, tied for worst ever
- Events/Point: 0.7, 3rd worst ever
- Shooting: 9.1%, 3rd worst ever
- Sinks: 1, tied for worst ever
- Beers Drank: 6, 2nd lowest ever
- Serve %: 0%
- Differential: 10
Ezra and my 21-3 rout of BSG-Paro – the only dot father-right on that chart – was both the biggest ever blowout and our record for UFE:Point %. That’s the other alternative for our nadir, at least in terms of numbers.
Beyond statistics, though, what sets the Final apart is that neither side rose to the occasion, equivalent to The Losing Edge South Park episode where all the boys try to lose. In that “Game 19” against BSG-Paro, at least Ezra and I kept it clean; hell, Ez even posted a Flat Hat!
Whatever your take, it certainly was a far cry away from the paragon we strive for at the other end of the spectrum.
The Greatest Game Ever Played
Picking the pinnacle our 75 logged games is, unsurprisingly, a complicated endeavor. Even if you examine that question merely through the lens of “Most Skillfully Played,” it’s still difficult because many of our core statistics influence each other; my Shot Value, for instance, will look great if my opponent has a terrible saving performance.
That “Best Played” interpretation is also too narrow, failing to fully encompass the “Greatest” descriptor; after all, hyper-efficiency doesn’t necessarily equate to “compelling,” which Great surely must include. That’s why a stat like Shooting % isn’t a perfect barometer of this label; while it’s useful for rating execution, and can add general color, it doesn’t make a game more dynamic in itself. We need quality play, but we also need entertainment.
Really, there isn’t a single data point that can make this ruling on its own, which is why I narrowed down our candidates by filtering our list through a few criteria:
- Differential: Margin of victory, 5 points of less. Anything more, the game just wasn’t that competitive, through to the finish.
- Sinks: Sinks are momentous, valuable, and climactic. The pinnacle of offensive performance, they’re not only a great gauge of efficacy, but they also create entertainment value both on-table and off. It wouldn’t be a truly great game without them. Minimum threshold: 8 total sinks, an average of 2 per player.
- Events / Point: While, largely, this metric is important only in this context, it still serves proxy for the density of action on the table, and by extension the dynamism and excitement of gameplay. By including here only games 1.3 or higher in this category, we’re left with the following:
Incredibly, five of our eight remaining are from Summer Slam. Nice!
Now, to be transparent with you all, I started this research assuming “Game 64” would take the belt; truth be told, making that case and discussing that match was why I wanted to look into this topic in the first place. Not only did it break the combined single-game sink record AND set the Events/Point pace among this group, the across-the-board Save Quality reached a level I don’t remember seeing. The highlight reel is truly something else.
Please check it out. Particularly toward the middle, it’s as wet and webgemmy as you’ll ever see:
We only get this game with a perfect storm. A harmonious blend of tough-but-possible bounces, a bit of luck, and two title-winning teams, saving at the peak of their powers. It’s a strong resume, and I’d still offer it up as the best defensive, and most spectacular, game yet. Eventually, though, I had to reconcile what I wanted with the truth, and pronounce this not our peak, but our penultimate overall game.
Because instead, the crown must go to Game 67, NogJL’s 29-27 nailbiter over Ruzi. Here’s why:
- While they didn’t shoot quite as accurately, they made an incredible number of saves (40, #2 Ever), many of which were stellar
- They dropped in 11 Sinks, and 1 Rebuttal
- One data point we haven’t tracked, but this game would surely place high in, was Lead Changes. Both in regulation as well as overtime, the teams seesawed back and forth. That’s just better drama!
- It broke all sorts of records, including Most Events, Most Beers Drank and Highest Score.
If you drafted metrics critical for an exciting game, those three would be among the first off the board. A truly incredible match. Props to those boys.
Prop Bets
Speaking of props, ahead of the tournament we had a lot of fun predicting what would happen, each player allocating “$200” across various possible bets. Here are the wagers people cashed in on:
With those results in, our top three sharps were:
- Sagar – $983 profit
- Marver – $969 profit
- Lambie – $893 profit
Lambie and Marver, each placing $40 stacks on themselves as a dark-horse to win it all, made bank the instant they brought the title home. Sagar, though, made out better than anyone; despite otherwise being in the red, he hit paydirt on a 100-to-1 long-shot, laying $10 on the single-game Team Events record being broken. Savvy.
Records
Speaking of records, we broke a ton of them. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains.
And actually, one of these was a prop that nobody took, available 50-to-1: Nog’s single-game Events record of 25, which ended up being broken by … Nog, who put up 29 in our previously-spotlighted greatest match ever, Game 67.
Boy, oh boy, that game – on its own it surpassed a whole bunch of records:
- Player Events: Was 25 (Nog), Now 29 (Nog)
- Team Events: Was 43 (Tungerlekar), Now 50
- Game Events: Was 73 (Tungerlekar v Ezbour), Now 81
- Total Points: Was 50 (Team Ryan v VrachJowks), Now 56
- Player Shots: Was 140 (Tufts), Now 154 (RJL)
- Team Shots: Was 278 (Tungerlekar), Now 305 (NogJL)
- Game Shots: Was 535 (Tungerlekar v Ezbour), Now 595
- Game Beers: Was 28.8 (Team Ryan v Lamarver), Now 29.4
Here are all the other records broken tourney-wide, at least that I could find:
- Player Net: Was 15 (Kambour), Now 19 (Kambour)
- Player Hits: Was 15 (Kambour), Now 16 (Kambour)
- Team Hits: Was 17 (Lamarver), Now 20 (Ezbour)
- Game Hits: Was 29 (Kolverson v Nogrup), Now 33 (Ezbour v Ruzi)
- Game Sinks: Was 11 (4x), Now 12 (NogJL v Ezbour)
- Game Serve Points: Was 6 (2x), Now 8 (Ezbour v Tungerlekar)
New benchmarks to run after. Let’s go.
Possible Worlds
Broken records, beer volume and betting aside, Summer Slam will forever be defined in my mind by how delicately its outcome hung in the balance. Had any one of myriad coinflips landed heads, rather than tails, seismic shifts would have occurred.
My case in point? This infamous rally, which began with Rup serving for the match, up 26-25 against NogJL.
Had RJL not succeeded on that throw-save and put his foot through my drywall, the entire course of pong history would be different:
- NogJL finish the round-robin stage 3-2 instead of 4-1
- Ruzi finish the round-robin stage 3-2, instead of 2-3
- No semifinals are played
- Lamarver and Ezbour, both at 4-1, advance directly to the Final
And that wasn’t the only beat of a butterfly wing, by any means:
- Lamarver was down 15-20 against Tungerlekar, before rallying back to win in OT. They lose, they’re out, as is Ruzi.
- Lamarver was down 17-12 against Ruzi, the first time around. They lose, they’re out. As is Ruzi, ironically.
- In the semifinal, Ezbour had two match points in OT against Ruzi, but couldn’t pull out either.
- Tungerlekar was down 19-Point against Ezbour; Croutons was down 19-Point against Ruzi. Either of those teams pulls out the minor comeback, everything is different.
Any one of those – each with odds ranging from reasonable to favorable – playing out differently; that’s all it would have taken. A UFE here or a throw-save there, and the seas of standings would have changed. It all was really that freaking close.
That’s dope, and how it should be. After previous tournaments – a few early surprises, aside – were uncontested chalk by the playoffs, it’s great we saw a true battle royale.
Until next time: RIP Saxe, and ITB.