| |
BGonline.org Forums
Comments and Suggestion
Posted By: Joe Russell In Response To: San Antonio Glitches -- Long -- Comments and Suggestions Appreciated (Bill Riles)
Date: Thursday, 6 February 2014, at 1:26 a.m.
Kudos to the Riles, the Mendocinos, the Meeses, and Rynell, and anyone I left off for running a wonderful event!
I think it was the the most fun I have had at a tournament in years for many reasons: (1)the level of competition; (2) the location- San Antonio is a wonderful city for many reasons: the Alamo (How many people know that 30 Tennesseans, where I was raised,died defending it? That is twice as many as from any other state and nearly three times as many as were from Texas and Mexico, combined); the Riverwalk, with it's wonderful variety and atmosphere; the hotel, while old and outdated in many ways, has style and charm and who would not want to stay at a hotel where Robert E. Lee, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mae West, Babe Ruth, Oscar Wilde, Lillie Langtry, Cornelius Vanderbilt, William McKinley, and many others once frequented the bar; (3)the tournament staff, as previously mentioned; (4) the USBGF events; (5) the Bulls/Spurs game; (6)the presence of the first lady of backgammon, Karen Davis, who adds class to all events she attends.
I do have one suggestion for the Dual Duel. Anytime you have a huge number of strong players in attendance and you run an event that only draws a handful of them there is something conceptually wrong with it.
What is wrong with it is it is not in the spirit of backgammon. Backgammon is not chess. I would assume the odds of several that entered were at least 50-1 against winning the event, while there were a couple of players that were probably 2 to 1 or less. It made no sense, equity wise, for anyone other than Mochy, and perhaps, and perhaps not, one or two others to enter. I realize that there are more reasons to enter than expected equity, but with a $1000 entry fee that is a consideration. If kept in it's current format, the entry fee should be lowered significantly.
I would suggest a hybrid event where players with a good PR performance have their chances of winning increased, but are not practically guaranteed to win the event. One of the purposes of the event is to take some of the luck out of the event. An event where the luck factor is considered in who advances would seem to meet the objective.
Here is a workable format:
20 player field:
10 first round winners advance, along with two losers who qualify under the following: (1) each loser subtracts his PR from his opponents PR (if you outplayed your opponent it would result in a positive number and if not it will result in a negative number); The the two losers with highest value advance. The two advancing losers will likely have outplayed their opponents and lost their match.
The 2nd round has 12 players and the six winners advance, along with two losers that qualify under the same system listed for round two qualifying.
The 3rd round has eight players and the four winner advance, along with the two losers that qualify under the same system listed for round two qualifying.
The 4th round has 6 players and the 3 winners advance, along with one loser that qualifies under the same system listed for round two qualifying, except only one qualifier this round.
The fourth round has four players and is played to conclusion in a normal way, without consideration for PR.
I think this format would be very popular, have no problem drawing 20 players at $500 to $1000 and still reward PR performance significantly.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.