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Nice tournament! But here's a way to make it better!
Posted By: neilkaz In Response To: Congrats Taki! Excellent tournament, well done Bill Davis, Amy Trudeau and team (Keene)
Date: Tuesday, 17 March 2015, at 5:41 p.m.
Bill, Amy and staff did an excellent job last weekend and I think that the relaxed dress code lead to more players.
The Open was the typical bracket of 64 paying 4 in the main, 2 in the conso, and 1 in the fresh draw LC on Sunday. This classic format leads unnecessarily to late night/early morning suffering for those last several players still left in the conso who have to play their 6th match of the day late into Saturday night and if they win, then must start their conso SF match at 10 am on Sunday. This is bcuz the losers of the conso SF's have to go into the draw for the fresh draw LC at 11 am. Not many of us want to play 6 ABT matches in one day (unless starting at 11 am or so and even then it is too much) nor do they want to start a 9 pt match (conso QF) at 11:35 pm or later and then have to play again at 10 am.
Here's the fix to the above problem. No it doesn't involve using a totally progressive LC nor does it mean to not run a LC. It also means that everyone has a match to play in the LC on Sunday so concerns about people going home and not returning aren't valid.
This solution will work for any bracket of 64 players as long as there's 62 players or fewer in the event. The solution is to play the conso QF's at 10 am Sunday rather than late Saturday night. Then the conso SF's are played right after than and the losers of the conso SF's get two byes into the LC !! Note that these are 9 pt matches and as long as clocks are put on these matches it would be rare that the conso SFs finish past 12:30 and with the losers getting two byes into the LC which starts at 11 am with 5 pts matches, this shouldn't delay the LC much if at all.
I see absolutely no problem about giving someone who lost in the money round of the conso, two byes into the LC. Who cares that it isn't then a 100% fresh draw? I certainly don't and don't think that it is unfair. Now no one will have to play 6 matches on Saturday. Again, note how little is at stake in the LC anyhow and how low one's expectancy is even with two byes!
Lets see how this works when are 62 players in the event. 6 players are getting prizes pre-LC so that leaves 56 players in the LC. Two spots in the rd of 16 are to be taken up buy the 2 byed players so that leaves 56 players playing down to 14 remaining spots. Perfect!
What to do if there's 63 or 64 players? Well you can start the conso QF's at 9:30 am Sunday and give one bye to the SF loser.
I urge all directors here in the USA to consider minor changes like this to minimize issues forcing players to play very late Saturday night and then start early Sunday. I and others have often experienced worse than I did with my match finishing at 12:35 am Sunday and then having to play again at 10 am (another spot in the conso bracket may have suffered worse). In the same format and due to a few extremely slow players about 10 years ago, I once finished my match (6th of the day) at 2:30 am (started at 1:20 am!!)and was told I had to play again at 9 am Sunday! I managed to negotiate for 9:30 am, but what nonsense to needlessly suffer from such lack of rest and sleep and again all due to needing to put all those not winning a prize in the conso into the 100% fresh draw LC.
By far the most suffering and waiting around in 40 years of playing these events has been due to having to play very far into the conso on Saturday night to free up everyone in time for a fresh LC draw Sunday morning.
Thx for your consideration .. neilkaz ..
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