Overview: The Challenge Division is tailored for experienced players who possess a high level of skill and a strong competitive drive. It's where ILSA members can come together to test their abilities, strategize, and vie for victory in a format more geared towards national tournaments.

Pricing: Entry fee is $60, see financial breakdown below.

Financial Breakdown per Person:

$60.00 Entry

($20.00) Royal Palms Facility Fee

($2.04) Credit Card Fees

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$37.96 Remaining

• 50% goes to ILSA

• 10% goes to Tournament of Champions Fund

• 40% goes to that season's prize pool

Schedule:

• Round 1: August 24 - Sept 13 to complete 2 games

• Round 2: Sept 14 - Oct 4 to complete 2 games

• Round 3: Oct 5 - Oct 25 to complete 2 games

• Round 4: Oct 26 - Nov 15 to complete 2 games 

• Playoffs: Nov 16 - Dec 13 to play out the single elimination bracket. We will try to schedule and play out either the Final 4 on the same day 

**Players get three week windows to complete two games in the regular season

League Format: In the Challenge division, we run a modified Swiss format. It offers a dynamic and fair system by matching players with similar records against each other. The Swiss Format will minimize the impact of individual match outcomes on the overall tournament standings and will put more emphasis on encouraging highly competitive matches during the regular season

Regular Season

• There will be four rounds in the regular season 

• For each round, you’ll be placed into groups of three players and have three weeks to self-schedule and complete your games against your two opponents.

• The first round pools will be determined by your average finish in your last three singles seasons you've played. Those that did not play in last season's Challenge League will be grouped by ELO. Each round going forward, you will be placed into groups with the same or similar records. For example if you go 2-0 in Round 1, you’ll be placed into a group in Round 2 with players that also went 2-0.

Playoff Bracket

• The top 16 players, plus any ties for 16th place, will advance to the single-elimination playoff bracket. For example, if 13 players finish 6–2 or better and 7 players are tied at 5–3, all 20 players will advance.

  • Speed shuffle will not be used as a tiebreaker to eliminate players from playoff contention.

  • Players must finish with a record above .500 to qualify for the playoff bracket.

• The first two rounds will be self-scheduled, just like group play

• ILSA Discs will now be required to be used for all playoff games

• As we get into later round of playoffs, we’ll attempt to get all remaining players to finish the bracket on the same day/evening

• There will be no consolation bracket

Game Format: 

• Each matchup will be one 16-frame game with players switching colors after the 8th frame

Report your result at http://illinoisshuffleboard.org/singles-report

Prizes:

• Cash Prizes will be awarded to the top 4 players in the playoff bracket. Exact amounts will be determined after registration closes

• 1st Place will also get their name put on our Championship Singles League Trophy

• Pins will be awarded to the top three players in the playoff bracket

• ILSA Points will be awarded in the main bracket based on the number of players, as per our Points Document

• We’ll also be rewarding the top regular season finisher(s) in the Challenge Division! Whoever finishes 1st (or tied for 1st) after all rounds of the regular season will receive the SURVIVOR award. This player will receive a prize at the commission’s discretion based off number of participants for the season

ILSA Points

If at least 65 players compete in the Challenge Division, the following points will be earned based on the ILSA Points Structure :

1st place = 25 points

2nd place = 18 points

3rd place = 16 points

4th place = 14 points

5th-8th place = 11 points

9th-16th place = 9 points

17th-32nd place = 7 points

Remaining players with Full Participation = 2 points