Bounty Hunter. Conditions: All players begin with a Bounty of 5 All games will be Half court singles to be played to 7 points Winner adds losers bounty to their total Losers bounty is halved and rounded down to nearest whole number You must accept a challenge if the players bounty is within 4 points of yours. You may decline the challenge if the gap is more than 4 points or strike a deal before playing. Your bounty will be reset to 5 if you go below 1 I tried this last night at the Junior Club. Normally getting the kids to play half courts singles is almost impossible. This worked incredibly well, all the players were challenging eachother, negotiating bounties up for grabs if the gap was more than 4. Upon reaching a Bounty of 100 the player could challenge the coach to a game! I've got a simple spreadsheet available which I could upload sometime or email to you if you PM me. Any questions please feel free to ask
Quite often the players stay in their little groups and don't mix with others. Games like the above encourage social interaction and a high turn around of court usage
Try as I might, I can't picture the progression. Let's say Stacy beats Richard. Applying 'Winner adds losers bounty to their total', does Stacy go to 10? And applying 'Losers bounty is halved and rounded down to nearest whole number', does Richard slip to 2? Am I misunderstanding something?
Yes Sir. At least that's how I perceived it. Now Richard must accept challenges only from those with bounty of 6 below (2 + 4), otherwise, he may have to strike a deal ... I think. How does it end, though?
Er, I don't think that's how it works! If that's indeed how it goes, then at the end of the first set of encounters: 1. half the group will have a bounty of 10 2. the other half would have a bounty of 2 That'd be an absolute disaster... because: 1. only the 10 can play a 10 2. again, half move to 20 and the other half slip to 5 That would put any two-game winner out of reach of someone unlucky enough to meet one of the better players in the first game! I'm sure Coach Gary has a different explanation.
I'm assuming that courts are not available for everyone to play. Therefore, there would be others with a bounty of 5 waiting. Those who got 10 could still challenge those with 2's or 5's who, in turn, have the option to decline or strike a deal. Coach Gary said that you must accept a challenge, I guess without declining, if your score is within 4 points of your opponent's. But you're allowed to decline (or make a different deal) if the gap is larger than 4. At least that's how I understand it.
But I still think that this is difficult because not all the players in our club have the same level. The strongest player would definitely have the advantage. No one would dare challenge him. However, if the gap is within 4 points, I guess you have no other choice. Then again, if you're wise and good at making bargains (a haggler by heart), I guess you have as much a chance of getting 100 points simply by dealing with the right opponent and avoiding challenges from players near your score. Outwit, outplay, outlast. Hahaha. Survivor!
I have 4 courts available with upto 35 players. Wednesday night was the first time I used the idea. Granted, the best players will tend to have a higher Bounty most of the time. My son aged 8, still managed to claim some bounties and challenged another member even though he knew he would probably lose. On paper I admit it doesn't sound inspiring and there are times when the games may not be competitive, however, at least it gets the players mixing together and playing half court singles. You could easily adapt it for doubles. The good thing with it is it runs itself with limited supervision. Put the recording sheet on the board for a few weeks and let the players have a go. What I do need to do is alter the spreadsheet somehow and number the players so that they could record individual results against different players. I'm not too good with spreadsheets and will need to experiment some more. I posted the idea here so that you can have a go and feedback your thoughts. It was rather cobbled together 1 hour before the session. The kids loved it!
i thinks its a great idea for the juniours!! it doesnt have to make sense its only for kids, the main goal is to get kiddies mixing and getting some good singles practice in. Fantastic idea gary
I've had some excellent feedback from a couple of parents today. Apparently their kids didn't stop raving in the car all the way home!
That's great. I think this is actually a fun thing to do. Not only do you get to play with the rest of the players, you also get to strategize who you're gonna play with.
Just thought I'd add details of a little game I used to do back in my days of junior coaching. We would use a pack of playing cards, the 2 players would each pick a card and keep it to themselves, the value of the card would be the number of points they needed to win a game 2-Ace, 2-11 points, picture cards 10. Good fun for the kids, not knowing how many points the opponent needs to win encourages them to cut down on errors and if there are a lot of people and not many courts you can get a quick turnaround on court.
fun/painful game i learnt at nationals lol. play a game of doubles or even 3vs 3 and just go crazy. everyone has 4 lives. if u make a mistake you lose a life. when you lose your lives the next mistake you make you have to stand in front of the net with your back facing everyone and bend over. Each person gets a shot at your backside from the baseline haha. good fun but hurts if you get smacked like i did by a couple of the international guys lol. and yes this is aimed at seniours and much more decent/advanced players.
