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BGonline.org Forums
Peoria tourney thoughts
Posted By: neilkaz
Date: Tuesday, 14 October 2008, at 10:24 p.m.
Most of you who know me know that I tell it like I see it and that my only purpose is to improve the BG tourney experience for all. It isn't easy to run a major ABT event by any means and dealing with the many different personalities also isn't easy so I commend the staff for their efforts.
But here's a few comments from my experiences last weekend to make the event flow more smoothly next time.
I don't want anyone, especially Linda and her staff, to think that I am picking on them as I'll note that these and many more severe issues have hindered players' enjoyment of many similar events for decades.
1) Start the calcutta ON TIME. Intermediates were auctioned off first as usual and I arrived at noon, the scheduled start of play, only to find that the championship players were just starting to be auctioned. I asked why, and was told that the intermediate auction started at least 20 minutes late ! START THE CALCUTTA ON TIME !! Maybe the inter players need to be acutioned off 15 to 30 min earlier ? If there are fewer players attending that part of the auction due to the early hour... so what ? It is the champ players that really seem to pull in more money in the auction anyhow, from my experience.
2) Draws...I am unsure whether the intermediate draw was done during the championship calcutta or not, but it make sense to do so. However, if this wasn't done this way, then start doing the championship draw AS SOON AS the last player has been auctioned off. Get that championship draw up quickly since those matches are longer than inter matches and those players are more likely to end up in Sunday conflicts with masters and doubles. In Peoria the inter draw was up in a reasonable time which is good, but not at the expense of championship, please. My opinion is that it took about 15 minutes longer than it should have to get the champ draw up and this simply contributes to a later night and also resulted in players wandering off (my opp showed up 10 min late but we each had byes into rd 2 so it wasn't an issue)
3) Clocks...considering that the championship division started almost a full hour late, the staff needed to recognize the likely time considerations that would arise. This means that in the 2nd and third rounds, slower players playing matches that look delayed on the drawsheet..ie those not getting a bye, need to be clocked.
4) Clocks again .. by late Saturday evening, we were nearing the money rounds and it was clear that the event was delayed somewhat and that there would be time issues with a couple matches starting after midnight and with a few players being told to start at 9 or 9:30 AM the next morning. These latish at night matches MUST be clocked so that they finish in a decent frame of time and so that players can then get a decent ammount of sleep before starting Sunday morning. Rather than force players to start prior to Sunday's early but reasonable start time of 10 AM it is much better to clock every after dinner match on Saturday that looks as if it may create a delay. Then you can all start Sunday at 10 AM and if two or four players are a round behind, they play their 9 pt conso match clocked, and soon you'll get a loser who feeds into the second round of the last chance. (The conso to last chance feed in and bracket were to put it politely a big mess and most certainly not the staff's best effort in Peoria). CLOCK ANYTHING WHEN THE BRACKET IS DELAYED.
5) Drawsheet issues. The drawsheet was a 48 player sheet created by Butch. I do think that it needs some work. As an example, I played and defeated Bill Davis in round 2 (each of getting bye) and then I lost next round while Bill won his conso match and we had to play again in the very next round of the conso !! Note that we also met in an early to middle round of the LC. Meeting again in the LC early was bad luck, but running into each other so quickly in the conso after having met during our first match is a fault of the draw sheet and can be corrected.
6)Match Lengths: Had the semis of the main been 11 pts rather than 13, two players would have fed into the conso a bit quicker. The only matches that should be lengthened are those where the losers aren't feeding into lower brackets. This is only a minor issue but did add to the lateness of the delay Saturday night.
7) The Last Chance Feed in from Conso and LC Bracket: I'll start by saying that over the past three decades I have played in a couple hundred similar events where the main bracket is single elimination and requires 6 round, and there's a progressive conso, with the last chance starting Sunday morning. When there are player torture issue late Sat night..ie told to play at 12 or 12:30 AM or forced to start early Sunday..ie prior to 10 AM or BOTH, it is invariably due to the silly need to put or almost all conso losers into last chance's first round.
8) As Bob Koca wrote "The biggest problem though was how the last chance was set up. It was a completely random draw of all who went into it including the consolation semifinal losers and was scheduled to start at 11:30am. There were two final 8 games scheduled to start at 9:30 and one of the final 4 consolation games ended at 12:35. And then that loser went to the LC and without a bye! So effectively the longest path was delayed by over an hour." Neil replies," this is silly but easily fixed. I also wonder if that late finishing conso match that was obviously going to delay the LC was clocked".
9)Fixing the LC timing issues for next year. It is very easy to fix up the flow from conso to LC in the 48 player bracket. Note that 2 players are payed in the main and 2 from conso. Those not getting byes in the main play 5 rounds if they continue to win their way to the finals. This is certainly enough BG for one day. The losers of the semis of the main feed into the conso quarterfinals(QF) and should and now will be able to be done for the day and not have to start prior to 10 AM or hopefully 10:30 (use clocks) Sunday morn. With 48 players, 44 will be playing in the LC. If we give some byes and play them (38) down to 24 players for next round they will be met by the 4 losers of the conso QF to make 28 players who play down to 14 (no byes) and are joined by the two losers of the consi semis to make 16 who then finish the LC. If we start the LC at 11 AM (reasonable)and noting there are 5 pt matches and start the conso QF at 10 AM (reasonable) and clock those 9 pt matches, there won't likely be any severe waiting for the conso SF losers to feed into rd 3 of the LC nor for the conso QF losers to feed into rd 2.
10) Dealing with the staff. It was a pleasure to deal with Linda and her staff who always seemed to know whom was responsible for what. Linda was quite reasonable in listening to me when I convinced her that a 9:00 start time for the conso QF's on Sunday was too early and not needed. We compromized at 9:30 rather than the 10 AM listed. However, next year with my hoped for improvemtents to LC feed in a start earlier than one hour prior to LC start won't be needed.
11) Player responsibilities. Two of my opps showed up 10 minutes late..ie for rd 1 and when returning from dinner but this wasn't an issue since we weren't behind the field. However, one does wonder how many others showed up late and as a result their brackets fell further behind. Several players complained to me about waiting on excessive slow play in a delayed bracket. It's simple people..TELL THE DIRECTOR. If we all help the overworked staff notice log jams and slow matches, they'll likely get the clocks into action.
In summary: Start calcutta on time and then rush to get Championship draws posted. Make liberal use of clocks (better yet clock it all). Use the method of feeding the conso QF losers into rd 2 of the LC and of feeding the conso semi losers into rd 3 of LC and things flow more smoothly late Saturday night and also Sunday. (That method won't work perfectly in an entirely full bracket of 64, so a couple players will need to play an extra 5 pt match Sunday morning at the start of LC or play down to the conso SF Sat night and give a couple of the 4 losers a bye (but that is too late to play IMHO so I prefer having a couple players play the extra match Sunday.)
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