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BGonline.org Forums
San Antonio--Good and Bad
Posted By: Albert Steg In Response To: San Antonio--Good and Bad (Phil Simborg)
Date: Tuesday, 3 February 2015, at 5:56 a.m.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect people who have paid $ entry fees for side events to be "good sports" about giving up their equity in the events if through no fault of their own they are unable to 'keep up with' the pace of the bracket. One option that stops short of this is for the TD to reduce the match length to 1-pt, in cases where a draw is lagging.
Another possibility is that a special early-start time be imposed on the final morning for side-event completion, and no-shows forfeit their matches. In San Antonio, a - Sunday morning 10:30-AM jumpstart combined with truncated 1 or 3 -pt matches designed to turbo-boost these events ahead of the official start time for the day night have gone a long way to solve the problem. Players fortunate to be involved in more important Main events might well chose to invest in an extra hour of sleep, forfeiting such matches, but at least this would be a deliberate choice, and might lead some to be more discriminating in deciding how many side-events (and buy backs) to pursue.
Something else I'd note is that launching a 'fun' event like the final 'Free Roll' tournament during the final afternoon of play is probably just not a practicable idea, unless you have a dedicated slot of time of say 30 minutes where these take precedence over any other match -- and probably exclude from play anyone involved in certain other major brackets. While it might seem that 1-pt matches should be very speedy, the fact is they throw dozens of micro-appointments into a short time-frame and forestall other matches going forward, with surprising knock-on effects. This sort of novelty event would be better launched in the first or second day of play rather than into the midst of an already congested final day.
There may be economic reasons for hosting so many side events -- the 10% of $ held back I'm sure helps to finance the event (and the very handsome winners trophies!) -- but personally, I would welcome a little more flexible time between matches so that I could play more informal side-games "for fun" with the many new people I am meeting. Tournament play tends to be rather intense, while "money play" encourages more sociable give-and-take between clusters of people. I don't think this should be limited to our raucous after-hours chouettes, and some more space in the day might allow / encourage some friendly brief sessions between people who might not otherwise play each other (I may post separately on a follow-up idea in this vein).
If the proliferation of side events is not economically motivated, but arises out of a concern that people -- especially the 50% who loose their first match!) -- might be left with nothing to do, I'd suggest there are better ways we can keep people engaged with backgammon during their downtime.
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