Format of Play

Multi-round mini-tournaments

All divisions play a series of multi-round mini-tournaments (termed "rounds"). Each mini-tournament round is 2-3 weeks long, during which each team will play 6-10 games.

For each round, teams are subdivided into 4-10 team 'groups' by the division commissioners. So, for example, the Apollo group might be Framingham, Newton, Wellesley and Weston, and the Jupiter group might be Winchester, Medford, Burlington and Melrose, etc. At the end of each round, the top teams from each group qualify to play in a "Trophy Weekend". For example, the top teams from the Apollo, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter groups will all qualify for Trophy Weekend. Hence, the games played during each mini-tournament round are termed "qualifying games".

The first round of play is always arranged geographically to minimize travel and to give players local "bragging rights" against neighbor towns. Subsequent rounds are arranged by performance and to introduce new competitors.

At the end of the each round and Trophy Weekend, the commissioners and directors meet to review the performance of each team in that round. Based on their review, the commissioners then shuffle the teams into new groups that balance the competition. So, teams that might have struggled in one round might excel in a second round against more appropriate competition. This re-shuffling aspect of Bay State keeps teams playing competition at their level. Therefore, in latter rounds, some groups are populated with teams that are very good (e.g. upper bracket) and some groups are populated with teams that have not exceled (e.g. lower bracket). Teams in the upper bracket groups earn more points for victories than teams in the lower bracket groups.

Schedule:


Teams that enter the league in the second round will be placed in a level determined by the Division Commissioner. This is usually a lower bracket, so earning enough points to qualify for the TOC will be very difficult.