New Team PEI Qualifier Format and PEI Player Ranking System Following 2024 AGM

Prior to this year’s AGM, PEIDA members were offered the opportunity to submit suggestions for updating the Team PEI Qualifier format and player rankings/seedings for those events. At the October 27 AGM, members were presented with all options submitted and a vote was held in order to determine the new format that will be implemented for the 2025 Team PEI Qualifiers.

The “Best 2-point totals out of a maximum of 3 events” point tally is still in effect. Each event will feature one or two Round Robins based on the number of players registered. Changes voted at the October 27 AGM are as follows for both Men and Women Qualifiers

• 16 players or less: A single Round Robin will be held with 16 players or less at a single event. Points will be awarded as usual based on position for this event.
• 17 to 32 players: Players will be split in 4 sections for the first Round Robin. Top 3 players from each section (12 players total) will be grouped in Section A for the second Round Robin. Players in 4th-5th positions will be grouped in Section B for the second Round Robin. Players in 6th-7th positions will be grouped in Section C for the second Round Robin. Players in 8th position will be grouped in Section D for the second Round Robin.
• 33 players or more: Players will be split in 8 sections for the first Round Robin. Top 2 players from each section (16 players total) will be grouped in Section A for the second Round Robin. Players in 3rd-4th-5th-6th-7th-8th positions will be grouped together based on their position for a maximum of 8 players per section

The other change to the Qualifier format is how players are seeded in the first Round Robin. A new system will rank players based on the last 5 qualifier events they played in. The points accumulated throughout those 5 events will be weighted based on how far back they were obtained:

• Current year events count as 100%
• Previous year events count as 75%
• Second previous year and prior events count as 50%

Each new event will be added to the player’s point tally, up to a maximum of 5 events, effectively dropping the earliest event played in when the player has 5 events on their record.

We strongly believe that these changes to the qualifier format will help build the best possible team to participate in the NDFC Nationals every year. The new ranking system will also help change the seeding of the first Round Robin at each event and the odds of a single player finding themselves in a section with the same players at each event will be greatly reduced this way.

This all brings an updated terminology that our players will see or hear about between now and the next Qualifier events in January: Rankings, Seeding and Results. I think it is important to clarify the meaning of each one:

Rankings is the new document with everyone's last 5 events points tally. This is the list that will be used to Seed the players at the start of each Qualifier event and will be updated after each Qualifier to keep the most recent point tally for each player, up to 5 events.

Seeding is the action of placing players in sections based on their Ranking for the first round robin at each Qualifier event.

Results is the document where players can see how many points they collected at each Qualifier event for the current year. This is the document used to determine which 8 players (plus 1 spare) make up the team that will compete at Nationals based on the best 2 point tally out of a possible 3 Qualifier events for the current year.

Please check out the updated Qualifier Format document along with the current Men's Rankings for Seeding and Women's Rankings for Seeding for the upcoming 2025 Qualifiers.

Finally, there were also many questions the last two years about the dress code for the qualifiers. The following has now been added to the Additional Rules section of the Qualifier format document: Dress code for qualifiers: No open-toed or open-heeled footwear, no head gear (ear buds, caps, tuques, bandanas etc.)

For any questions about the new format or the rankings, please email me, Steff Thouin, Vice President Operations at ops@peidarts.org