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BGonline.org Forums
Look at all the Giants coming to my tournament!!!
Posted By: Jason Lee
Date: Thursday, 10 January 2013, at 2:04 a.m.
Alright, I'll just state up front this could rub people the wrong way. Please bear in mind this is half tongue-in-cheek and half serious. So you can only be half mad at me.
It seems a rather popular thing to do for tournament directors to announce that so-and-so Giant is coming to their tournament. "Hey, I just wanted you guys to know that both Joe DiMaggio AND Lou Gehrig are coming to the big tournament next month!" The tournament director always says this with a sense of pride -- almost as if they've "landed a big one."
I'm finding myself ever so slightly peeved at these announcements. I understand why they're saying it. When you say Gehrig is coming, that's cool. Everybody knows Gehrig -- he's a great player, that lends a smidge more credibility to your tournament as a big one. Every big time player that shows up makes it that much bigger of a tournament.
Here's why I'm a little bit peeved:
- Nobody ever gets my deposit check in the mail and runs to BGO and says, "Check it out, Jason Lee is coming to my tournament. Woo hoo! This is going to be a great tournament. That's one more middle-of-the-road player to add to the Open field!!!" I'm not miffed because I want the ego boost of somebody announcing that I'm coming. But I pay the same entry fee as Gehrig and DiMaggio!!!
- Here comes the part that's a little... uncomfortable to say. When these announcements of DiMaggio and Gehrig and Ruth and Aaron and on and on and on. Um, this isn't really necessarily good for me. When I show up to a tournament and half of the field is composed of Hall-of-Fame sluggers, I'm in big trouble. I'll be honest here. I'd like a tournament director to tell me that he just got an entry fee from some billionaire who learned how to play last week. No, I want twenty of those guys. But to be fair, I don't want twenty of those guys in place of DiMaggio, et al... I want them IN ADDITION TO those sluggers.
Yeah, I know, it's a bit of grousing over something pathetic. Why don't I stop writing this nonsense and study backgammon so that I can be a big shot like Joe DiMaggio? Wouldn't I feel a better sense of accomplishment when I win the tournament after going up against DiMaggio?
Alright, let's get down to brass tacks. Am I just complaining, or do I have something constructive to add? Both. When a tournament director gets an entry from somebody, it's a positive event, no matter who it is. That tournament field just went from 56 to 57, and no matter what, that's good. But let's stop FOCUSING on the Giants. Every player is important. If your efforts at getting players to come to your tournament consists exclusively of calling up Giants around the country, then you're doing it wrong. You need to MAKE SURE you're tapping into your local market. The lifeblood of a backgammon tournament is not Lou Gehrig flying in from the Bronx... it's the dozens of players in your local community, many of whom are slap hitters and not sluggers. Ignore them at your peril.
JLee
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