2020–22 FOCAL season

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The 2020–22 FOCAL season was the fifth season of FOCAL. It was won by number eight seed Jack Hurst, who qualified due to number five seed Edward Byrne being unable to attend the finals event.

The season was heavily disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and most tournaments were cancelled.

Changes from 2019

The main change between 2019 and 2020–22 was the move to a new scoring system, following complaints the previous system was heavily biased in favour of middling performances at big tournaments over superstar performances at smaller ones. Whilst a distinction over the number of entrants was retained, such a bias was the basis of the new system, designed by Gevin, and uses the formula of:

(1 − [position] ÷ ([players] + 1)) × 1000

For an event that has 50 entrants, therefore, the winner now receives 980 points.

Original 2020 calendar

Manchester returned to the calendar after no event in 2018 and 2019 there, whilst Edinburgh moved to later in the year. A new event in Peterborough was planned, replacing the Cambridge event.

Cancelled events due to the COVID-19 pandemic and calendar changes

Several events, usually on the calendar, had not been announced prior to the pandemic, and it is therefore unknown whether they would have been continued or not. Several events were cancelled owing to the COVID-19 pandemic: events in West Yorkshire and Blackpool were planned and announced during the relaxation of restrictions in summer 2020, but had to be cancelled due to the onset of the second wave over the 2020–21 winter. A Leeds event, played using Goatdown rather than standard Countdown, was planned for November 2020, but had to be cancelled for the same reason; it was later confirmed as the April event in the 2023 calendar.

Due to the shortage of events in 2020 and the first half of 2021, it was confirmed that events from both years would combine with 2022 to form a three-year season. This meant that some events took place up to three times over the course of the championship: Waterford (three times) was able to go ahead between February 2020 and August 2021.

COLIN was initially planned in its usual January slot for 2021, but was postponed initially to May 2021, before being cancelled outright as an event. As COLIN has adopted a roman numeral numbering system since COLIN X in 2014, the COLIN XVII name and its "hangover" spin-off are shown here as being postponed to January 2022, rather than being cancelled.

A full calendar emerged for 2022 – Lincoln, Manchester, Newcastle (rebranded to North-East), Blackpool, and Edinburgh returned, with Waterford being joined by an event in Galway as part of an Irish double-header. A new event in Brighton was held in July, with Birmingham returning to the calendar for the first time since 2018. Wolverhampton dropped of the calendar to be replaced by finals in Milton Keynes, which returned for the first time since 2019.

Events

Round	Event	Location	Date	Entrants	Winner
1	COLIN XVI	Lincoln	25 January 2020	46	Jonathan Wynn
2	COLIN XVI: The Hangover	Lincoln	26 January 2020	34	Jack Worsley
3	Co:Manchester 2020	Manchester	15 February 2020	33	Tom Carey
—	Co:NuT 2020	Newcastle	28 March 2020	Cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
	Co:York 2020	York	18 April 2020
	Co:London 2020	London	16 May 2020
	Co:Peterborough 2020	Peterborough	6 June 2020
	Co:Edinburgh 2020	Edinburgh	27 June 2020
4	Co:Waterford 2020	Waterford	15 August 2020	21	Ed Byrne
—	Co:WY 2020	West Yorkshire	5 September 2020	Cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
	Co:Blackpool 2020	Blackpool	10 October 2020
	Goat:Leeds 2020	Leeds	7 November 2020
	2020 FOCAL finals	—	December 2020
	Co:Peterborough 2021	Peterborough	12 June 2021
5	Co:Waterford 2021	Waterford	24 July 2021	22	Ed Byrne
6	Co:Blackpool 2021	Blackpool	14 August 2021	55	Bradley Horrocks
7	Co:Braintree 2021	Braintree	13 November 2021	25	Rob Foster
—	2021 FOCAL finals	—	December 2021	Cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
8	COLIN XVII	Lincoln	29 January 2022	31	Conor Travers
9	COLIN XVII: The Hangover	Lincoln	30 January 2022	30
10	Co:Manchester 2022	Manchester	26 February 2022	40	Jack Worsley
11	Co:London 2022	London	9 April 2022	52	Rob Foster
12	Co:Newcastle 2022	Newcastle	14 May 2022	36	Callum Todd
13	Co:Galway	Galway	11 June 2022	29	James Robinson
14	Co:Waterford 2022	Waterford	18 June 2022	18	Hazel Drury
15	Co:Brighton 2022	Brighton	16 July 2022	39	Jack Hurst
16	Co:Brum 2022	Birmingham	13 August 2022	18	Bradley Horrocks
17	Co:Blackpool 2022	Blackpool	10 September 2022	35	Tom Carey
18	Co:Edinburgh 2022	Edinburgh	15 October 2022	31	Conor Travers
19	Co:Braintree 2022	Braintree	5 November 2022	24	Rob Foster
GF	Co:MK Open 2022	Milton Keynes	26 November 2022	23
	2020–22 FOCAL finals			8	Jack Hurst

* COLIN XVII was originally scheduled for January 2021, but was postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Points table

Pos. Entrant 2020 2021 2022 Points LIN LHO MAN WAT WAT BLA BRA LIN LHO MAN LON NCL GAL WAT BRI BIR BLA EDI BRA 1 Bradley Horrocks 12 4 16 — — 1 — 2 2 9 22 2 5 — — 1 5 — — 7328 2 Callum Todd 3 3 6 — — 7 7 5 8 6 9 1 2 — — — 2 4 — 7304 3 Tom Carey 11 5 1 — — 13 5 6 6 3 13 7 3 — 10 — 1 5 — 7123 4 James Robinson 32 11 4 — — 3 13 16 18 — 6 — 1 — 9 13 6 — 2 6896 5 George Armstrong 39 25 20 — — 9 14 8 14 13 — — 6 — 7 3 4 8 — 6378 6 Tim Hebbes 24 29 — — — — 9 10 9 14 21 11 — — 4 — 3 — 7 6007 7 Tom Cappleman 4 6 — — — — 3 4 7 — 14 — — — — — — — 4 5872 8 Jack Hurst — — — — — — 6 14 3 2 10 — — — 1 — — — 5 5809 * Edward Byrne qualified as the number five seed going into the finals, but couldn't attend, so the number nine seed and eventual season winner, Jack Hurst, took his place. Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Top 10 finish Blue Other finish White Did not participate