Over the past semester, we at Elan Games have been listening to our players about the kind of tournaments you want to see. You want big tournaments with great prizes for the games you want to play. You want a say in how the tournament's rules are put together. We're excited to roll out a whole new way of organizing tournaments at Elan Games that should serve you even better in all of these areas.

How will the new Tournaments on Demand system work? Let me run you through it, step by step.

1. Sign Up. Can you think of a game on our systems that you would like to participate in a tournament for? Great. Sign up for any game you want, as many games as you want (please only sign up if you're serious about wanting to play in the tournament, though). Soon we'll have an automated web form on our site for signing up, but for the time being please speak to the person at the counter to sign up. Once a game gets 5 or more signups we'll go ahead to the next step.

2. Discuss. Once 5 people are signed up we'll create a discussion forum for the tournament where players can discuss any rule or scheduling issues related to the upcoming tournament. This information will be used for steps 3 and 4. During this time, sign ups will continue and once we reach 10 people, we'll move on to the next step. By not scheduling a tournament until we have a minimum number of signups we make sure that our tournaments will have a good number of players.

3. Date is Posted. As soon as we have enough people sign up, we'll go ahead and set a time for the tournament. Normally this will be two Fridays after the point that we get the 10th signature. However, we will take people's scheduling needs into consideration and there will be occasional exceptions to the "Friday after next" rule. At this point we will contact everybody signed up for the tournament via contact info provided in step 1 and let them know that the tournament is moving forward (we'll also post the news on our website).

4. Vote. For any rule or scheduling issues that people disagree on in the discussion forum, we'll put together a formal poll of those signed up to the tournament and make these decisions democratically based on the overall will of those that will be playing in the tournament.

5. Pay Up and Practice. Once the we've picked a date, we will be expecting everybody who is signed up for the tournament to pay a $10 deposit to secure their place in the tournament and so that we can go ahead and commit to a prize amount (the more people signed and paid up, the bigger the prize). As well, there will be a free practice night for everybody signed up for the tournament, usually the Friday before the tournament. You need to have paid your $10 deposit to participate in the free practice night.

6. Finalize. The deadline for paying your $10 deposit is 3 days before the tournament. If we do not have at least 8 people who put their money where their mouth is and paid their $10, we will postpone the tournament, refund everybody's money and go back to Step 2. If we do have 8 or more the tournament will be finalized and officially a go. From this point on, the deposit money goes into the prize pot and is non-refundable. We will also close the polls from step 4 and post the final, official tournament rules at this point.

7. Play. Most tournaments will run from 7 PM until midnight. Usually we will have a few warm up games first and get started with the official tournaments games around 8 PM. We will usually aim to wrap up the tournament itself by 11 PM, but we schedule until midnight in case things run long or tie-breaker games are required. The total cost for those who registered and paid their deposit in advance will be $20 (a deeply discounted $10 rate for the 5 hours of game time during the tournament plus the $10 you already deposited into the prize pot). If you did not pay your deposit in advance, you can still sign up and play but the cost at the door is $25.

8. Win a Prize. The first place winner of the tournament gets the prize pot, which for those of you keeping score at home is $10 per player in the tournament (so if there's 10 people in the tournament, it's $100). Even players who pay at the door are included in this calculation, so the prize pot may be even bigger than originally announced. For those tournaments where players enter as a team, the team in first place splits the pot. Legally, we can't give out cash prizes but we do the next best thing - we'll buy you a gift certificate to any Ottawa or online business of your choice. If you choose to get a gift certificate to Elan Games as your prize we will double the amount! Second place wins two all-nighter passes (can be traded in for day passes if preferred) and third place wins one day pass.