ASL UK
Crusaders ASL Open Tournament Ladder
(Based on play at UK ASL tournaments since 1995)
Background
Welcome to the Crusaders Open ASL Tournament Ladder Page. The 'Crusaders' is the British ASL players association and is run by Neil Stevens and Pete 'View from the Trenches' Phillipps. All players participating in a British ASL tournament receive a ranking and all games played at the tournament (both competition and friendly - playtest scenarios excepted by mutual agreement) are used in calculating the rankings. Players are given an initial rating of 3000 points and these are then added to and lost following a scheme very similar to that used by the old Avalon Hill AREA rating system. The ladder rules and scheme for gain/loss of points can be found here. The rankings shown here are based on play at the fourteen Intensive Fire tournaments (1995-2008), the seven Berserk! tournaments (1997-2003), the six Heroes tournaments (2004-2009) and Double One (2006-2008). The next rated tournament will be INTENSIVE FIRE 2009 to be held in October 2009.
The OPEN part of the ladder title I take very seriously and for a tournament to qualify for the Ladder it must be widely advertised with a substantial number of participants drawn from around the country. If anyone is thinking of running a tournament and would like to discuss whether their event qualifies then I will be happy to hear from them.
260 ASLers have played in the thirty tournaments staged to date. Typically Intensive Fire attracts around 50 participants and there were also ca. 30-35 players in Blackpool at Heroes in March and 20-25 at Double One in June
HEROES 2009 Update
Double Champion - Dominic McGrath
HEROES 2009 was the 30th British ASL tournament and there are now over 2800 results recorded on the ladder and we now have 260 players who have participated at least once. At any one time there are about 90 ASLers attending tournaments on at least a semi-regular basis. The largest number of games played over the history of UK ASL tournaments has been racked up by Brian Hooper, 152, and there are nine players with over 100 games recorded, and another eighteen who have played 50+. The top 10% of players have ratings of 3280+ while the upper quartile are rated 3160+. Those in the lower quartile have ratings below 2810 while the bottom 10% of participants are rated 2665 or less. These numbers have remained essentially invariant over the last ten years and the distribution of results is essentially Gaussian about 3000.
Dominic McGrath repeated his Intensive Fire 2008 win with a 5-0 record at HEROES 2009 and back-to-back tournament championships. Over the weekend there were quite a number of results that went contrary to ladder standings and hence we have quite a number of player who have lost/gained more than 200 points. The most points gained over the weekend was recorded by Bill Sherliker who went 4-1-1 and gained 350pts promoting himself by 115 places in the process and leaving him 15th on the active players list. Some way behind was Trevor Edwards who went 5-1 and gained 275 points ending up 7th on the active player list. Almost as convincing was Andro Dando (+260 pts, making his first tournament appearence since Intensive Fire 2002) and Ulric Schwela (+255 pts).Ray Porter has previously been holding up the entire ladder on 2105 pts but who by luck or design managed two wins at HEROES and gained 235 points and lifted himself to second lowest player on the ladder ! The final player to gain over 200 pts was Neil Brunger who went 3-2 and gained 220 pts moving him from 220th the 144th - nice one Neil.
Of course we also had a number of significant losers over the weekend as well. Two tournament newbies Damien Maher and Paul Jones got to see the cold light of dawn losing 405 and 365 points respectively. Only slightly less embarisingly Martin Mayers and Gerard Burton lost 260 and 245 points respectively moving them from mid table respectability to lower table obscurity and perhaps surprisingly two rather highly rated players also dropped significant points, Dave Schofield (-220 pts) and Sam Prior (-200 pts). Lets see if you bounce back next time guys.
Over the last few years several players have asked to see a ladder which reflects only current players. Therefore there are now two ladders available. The full ladder of 260 rated players is available, as is an alternative ladder of the 90 active players (defined as having participated in at least one of the last six tournaments).