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BGonline.org Forums
Its time to think about major changes in tournament backgammon
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: Its time to think about major changes in tournament backgammon (Fernando Neumark)
Date: Sunday, 19 February 2017, at 2:59 p.m.
A seeding committee would be in charge for seeding each tournament, and they could certainly use many decent criteria including the Giant List, which most think is fairly accurate at the top, the BMAB rankings, and there are other rankings and tournament results.
It doesn't matter that much if you get the order exactly right (if there is such a thing) but as long as you spread out the very top players so that the clear favorites are not likely to meet in early rounds. In fact, because we don't have the most accurate rankings, it wouldn't be bad to pick the top 8 players and randomly put them apart in the 8 sections of the draw sheet, and then pick the next 8 players and randomly spread them in the 8 sections of the draw sheet, and then randomly place everyone else.
Of course someone in the second 8 should have been in the first 8, etc, but that wouldn't be a back method.
Or, if you really do have a couple of clearly top players, like Mochy and Michy for example, you could make sure they are on opposite sides of the sheet.
Again, I will make my case for seeding, since you are not convinced.
1. People who get seeded have earned it by virtue of their skill and their results.
2. You want to encourage our stars to come to more tournaments...some tournament directors even pay for some of these stars to come or give them free hotel or other perks...it helps the game to get Mochy or Akiko or a superstar to your tournament...it's a draw and it's good for the game. So seeding them is another way to assure them they are more likely to be honored and do well.
3. If you seed players, it is more likely that top players will meet in the semis and finals, and again, that is fair and it is good for the excitement of those matches and for the publicity of the game. Those are the matches that are recorded and streamed, and those are the matches where we should be spending more time and money to make sure they are streamed well, publicized well, have excellent commentary to draw more interest to the game and to the tournaments, and to create heroes and superstars which will attract more players to the game as well as attract more top players to compete. Hell, right now we even have superstars like Gus and Sander and Svobo show up at tournaments and not even bother to play....there's more money and excitement for them in side action than playing is the silly tournament where they have to work all weekend to make what they could in a couple of hours in the back room. If they are seeded, and have a better chance to be showboated and win more, that is just one more reason they would have to enter the tournament. And what about all those superstars that don't even bother to come. In my interview with MCG a few months ago, though he is clearly one of the best players in the world and has far better equity than most of us in tournaments, he doesn't bother to go to many because it's not a decent enough financial reward.
Now, I am not saying that seeding will suddenly make backgammon 10 times more popular, but I am saying it is one of the things that, for all of the above reasons, will help.
Why do you think they seed tennis tournaments? Do you think they want to see Federer and Nadal play in the first or second round? How many fewer tournaments would each win if tournaments weren't seeded. Then you would not have the world talking about how many majors Federer has won and you would not have the big stars and heroes. Why should Backgammon be any different?
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