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Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5

Posted By: Paul Weaver
Date: Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 2:31 a.m.

Pat Gibson sent me an e-mail, "Are you coming out for our tournament, Dec. 3-4-5, 2010? Early reminder. If you are coming, what start time is your option for the SUPER-32 (2pm or 6:30pm)? Hope all is well with you and yours, see you at Ballys next month?"

Thanks, Pat, for the personal invitation. Sorry, but I will be in Europe and therefore unable to attend. However, I want to compliment you for your decision to makes clocks mandatory for all matches in the main event, doubles and super-32.

I attended your tournament in June 2008 and enjoyed it. Hope to be able to attend at least once next year. I hope your December tournament is a great success.

I have a tip on how you could make more money at your tournament. John O'Hagan and Rich Munitz and others are competing for the ABT title. I think you could get by with charging those in contention twice the entry fee that others pay. Instead of putting the additional money into the prize pool, just pocket it for yourself after giving me a cut for suggesting the idea.

I have attended eleven tournament thus far this year. Four of them were clocks mandatory. By coincidence, these four were the best run and most pleasant events I have attended all year. On second thought, maybe it was not just a coincidence. Maybe there is actually a cause/effect relationship between mandatory clocks and and enjoyable tournaments.

Wonder how long it will take for some of the ABT TDs to figger out that there are at least five advantages to making clocks mandatory:

(1) At unclocked tournaments, play often continues well past midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning. At clocked tournaments, play can usually be completed before midnight Saturday. Both contestants and staff are able to get adequate rest Saturday night and be in a much better mood Sunday.

(2) Making clocks mandatory eliminates the frustating experience of players having to sit around and wait for hours between matches on Saturday afternoon and evening.

(3) Mandating clocks eliminates the totally unfair situation of one contestant playing a money-round match after a short night of not enough rest against an opponent who benefited from three more hours of sleep.

(4) When clocks are mandatory, attendance will ultimately increase. When clocks are not used, it is inevitable that some innocent players will pay the price for the slow play of others: they will have the frustrating experience of sitting around for hours waiting for their next match and then playing well past midnight. When clocks are used, this possibility is eliminated and directors do have to deal with tired, frustrated and angry participants. People have a better time and attendance increases when players enjoy themselves more.

(5) Some directors prefer to make money instead of losing money when running tournaments. Nothing wrong with a director who wants to make more money. When a tournament is run with clocks, players can play in more side events instead of sitting around endlessly waiting for their next round. When players play in more events, directors make more money.

In short, directors can have more financial success with their tournament by making them clocks mandatory.

Messages In This Thread

• Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
  Paul Weaver -- Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 2:31 a.m.
  • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
    mfic -- Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 4:48 a.m.
    • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
      Stick -- Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 6:00 a.m.
      • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
        Bill Riles -- Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 12:53 p.m.
        • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
          Rich Munitz -- Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 3:15 p.m.
          • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
            christian munk-christensen -- Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 5:03 p.m.
            • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
              Bob Glass -- Wednesday, 20 October 2010, at 7:38 p.m.
              • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
                Christian Munk-Christensen -- Thursday, 21 October 2010, at 12:30 p.m.
                • Publicly Responding To Pat Gibson's Personal Invitation Dec 3-5
                  Rich Munitz -- Thursday, 21 October 2010, at 1:44 p.m.