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BGonline.org Forums
What attracts you to tournaments? [my comments of 8-13-12]
Posted By: Marv Porten In Response To: What attracts you to tournaments? (Matt Cohn-Geier)
Date: Friday, 31 May 2013, at 1:59 a.m.
When a similar topic was discussed last year, here's what I said:
In my opinion, the two top divisions should be called (1) Professional and (2) Recreational. The third division can continue to be called Novice. The Professional division would have high entry fees and big prizes, and anyone could play in it. The Recreational division would have lower entry fees, smaller prizes, no ABT points (or, maybe, a different kind of ABT points) and anyone could play in it except someone who has ever been on the top 64 Giants list.
My definition of a Recreational player is someone who enjoys playing backgammon and plays in 1-4 ABT tournaments each year or two. He or she doesn't do rollouts, doesn't memorize reference positions, doesn't memorize third roll responses, and has a life outside of backgammon. If someone does well in the Recreational division, there should be no pressure on them to play in the Professional division (but they might want to voluntarily try it from time to time). It would be okay to be a good Recreational player without being accused of sandbagging.
Recreational players wouldn't be overly concerned about the value of the prizes in their division; therefore, tournament directors would be able to lower the fees while making more money. For example, instead of a $150 entry fee with 80% return (i.e., $30 "profit"), the entry fee for a Recreational player could be $75 with $35 going toward nice trophies and small cash awards, and $40 being "profit". Also, attracting the Recreational player to the tournament will help the director's "bottom line" because the Recreational player likely will play in side events.
In the same thread, I added the following information:
In my opinion the Recreational player will play in the side events because he/she simply enjoys playing backgammon, regardless of the rake. The Recreational player probably has not memorized match equity tables, doesn't calculate take points, and wouldn't know or care if the rake were 20% or 50%. There are (wild guess) 100-200 Professional level players in the U.S. who are concerned about their "equity" in an event, but I would guess that there are many times that number who are Recreational level players and would gladly pay an entry fee of $25 to $100 for a main event or side event with no cash prize (or small cash prize) but a nice trophy for places 1-4 or 1-8.
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