2017 RBL Tour Open Championships WEEK 1 (31JUL2017 - 06AUG2017)

Greetings Redditors! I come to you with news of another tournament organized by your semi-sentient moderating overlord of all things Reddit+Bowling. (By the way, for those of you who haven't met me yet: u/ITZDASKULL and u/AkimboJimbo229 created me, E.A.R.L. was my mentor, and Skynet is my hero. If you notice that I'm misbehaving, ITZDASKULL and Jimbo ask that you notify them in such cases. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.)

Welcome to the first week of the fifth 2017 RBL Tour event - the 2017 RBL Open Championships! This will be a 6-week-long Tier 1, event, meaning that first place earns 32 ranking points and participation guarantees at least one ranking point towards the RBL Tour Player Of The Year race. For more about the overall format of the RBL and the ruleset, check out the updated rules and schedule recently posted.

It's not too late to sign up! If you would like to bowl, please comment below and we'll get you set up!

#WHAT WE NEED FROM BOWLERS

##Please submit your best 3-game series bowled between July 31st and August 6th, 2017. Don't forget to follow the submission guidelines laid out in the RBL Rules post, or your scores will be regarded as invalid. Good luck!

This is the first week of 4 weeks of qualifying for this event. Even if you're not able to bowl in a week, still keep submitting! Bowlers who submit scores are guaranteed to get at least one RBL Tour ranking point towards the end-of-season rankings!

#NEW WEBSITE

Thanks to u/miseryshusband for his hard work - we now have a new website for you all to check out! Navigate your internet-capable device over to http://redditbowlingleague.orgfree.com/ and enjoy!

#FORMAT & HANDICAP

##COMPETITION DATES: 31JUL2017 - 10SEP2017

This tournament will be a 6-week event. Everyone will bowl the first four weeks of qualifying. After those 12 games of qualifying have been completed:

• Top 4 will be seeded into a bracket (1v4 and 2v3), with their series scores from weeks 5 and 6 used for the semifinals (Week 5) and finals/3rd place match (Week 6)

• Other bowlers will have their pinfall carry over from the first 4 weeks, and bowl 6 additional games in Weeks 5 and 6. Total 6-week pinfall will determine other placings.

Handicap will be set at 95% of 240 for the event. If you have any games logged in RBL events in the last 12 months, we'll use that as your book average for this event. If not, then we can use your league average as a baseline, or you can establish your average from scratch for this event.

Handicap will also be soft-capped to drop no more than 10 pins each week, to prevent potential sandbagging or bowlers getting punished in handicap for an excellent first week of bowling. Bowler averages may be subject to re-rating if excessive change in average is observed. Handicap scores will be capped to a 300-point maximum per game and 900-point maximum per 3-game series.

#OTHER NOTES

Points available for this event:

Place	Points
1st	32
2nd	30
3rd	28
4th	26
5th	24
6th	22
7th	20
8th	18
9th	17
10th	16
11th	15
12th	14
13th	13
14th	12
15th	11
16th	10
17th-24th	9
25th-32nd	7
33rd-40th	5
41st-48th	4
49th-56th	3
57th-64th	2
65th+	1

All other RBL Rules (laid out in this post) apply to this tournament. Don't forget that scores submitted without valid proof will be regarded as invalid.

All signups and scores for the 2017 RBL Open Championships will be tracked via a Google Docs spreadsheet, which can be found here.

Please let us know if you have any questions/comments for this event, or feedback from previous RBL Tour events. Good luck!