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Some facts to ponder

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Monday, 16 February 2015, at 12:59 a.m.

In Response To: Directors need to speak up (Chuck Bower)

OK, now we've heard from two ABT directors, both of whom run Swiss events. And Sean has injected a dose of reality -- directors (for the most part) aren't in this to make money, because they don't, and the ones with that fantasy outlook don't last very long. Here are the "facts" I want everyone to consider:

1) The most vociferous on this thread aren't your run-of-the-mill players. We have Giants MCG, NeilKaz, and Phil. MCG and Phil devote most of their waking hours to backgammon in some form (neither has a real job -- MCG being too young and Phil being too old (i.e. he used to have one but is retired from that.) If you made a list of all the people in the written history and the amount of time each has spent seriously studying the game, it's hard to believe Neil isn't in the top ten, or the top five, if not higher. MCG is by today's definition a 'pro' of which by his own estimate there are ~10 worldwide. Phil is a devoted teacher of the game who plays chouettes in the double digits of hours ~50 weeks per year, and by his own admission spends more total hours on the game every week than 90% of people spend at their day jobs. Going past that, I don't think a single poster on this thread would be considered at the 50%-ile or lower in terms of skill level of ABT players.

2) It's surprising how few people either understand the following, or are sensitive to it: hotels aren't in the philanthropy business. No, I'm sure you realize that. Go a step further. If there are not sufficient hotel room-nights accounted for by the tournament, the playing room(s) must be paid for by the promoters/directors and those don't come cheaply. It's the difference between making a small profit or breaking even and getting your ass handed to you. Think of that next time you decide to stay in a hotel other than the official one.

3) All of the rakes (including Calcutta at most tournaments) go towards all of the expenses of a tournament. Those expenses include advertising, paying staff, buying trophies, supplying snacks, and sometimes honoraria for speakers, and I'm sure I've missed some costs. If something doesn't go as planned, the directors don't extract an extra rake but rather have to dig into their pockets to pay.

4) Most tournaments (but not all) have an aspect of socialism. The cost to the promoters of participation isn't equitably divided among the entrants. The Open players (and those who enter lots of raked side events) are subsidizing the play of the virtually all of the novices, half the intermediates, and even some of their fellow Open players.

So you could propose that every player at an event pay an equal, predetermined participation fee and then take no rake from anything else. Or you could keep the progressive tax of charging a higher fee to higher level players but make sure that all fees cover (on average) the tournament costs (plus insurance margin) and then make all events rake-free. But I don't think we Open players (if it's progressive) or lower division players (if it's distributed equally among all participants) would be happy with that. (Of course don't let me speak for you. But it would be helpful to get an indication of what those fees would be before we decide whether or not we would like that payment structure.)

Holding off most side events for Sunday, even if that is feasible in terms of clock management (not the utopian schedule I've seen proposed here) would mean that players who are disillusioned with their performance in the Main Event are on their way home (driving -- yep, that form of transportation services a big component among participants). So thinking that side event participation (and its accompanying rake) would be similar if conducted on Sunday instead of earlier in the week may be a fallacy. Speaking for myself (for once here), I'm much more likely to stick around if I'm either in the money (of the main event) or close to it, if that impacts my ability to make it home before bedtime.

Lest my thoughts be misinterpreted for a second time in this thread, I'm not taking the view that doing away with the Last Chance is a bad idea. But it must be seen in the bigger picture and that photo includes the interests of the promoters/directors.

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