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BGonline.org Forums
Touch, Time, and the effect on the tournament population
Posted By: W Womack In Response To: Touch, Time, and the effect on the tournament population (Mark Denihan)
Date: Monday, 22 August 2011, at 8:43 p.m.
Adding touch move requires more mental diligence = more loss of time, and takes away from the flow of the game and the enjoyment factor. I think these two rules combined will act as a deterrent up and down the line to the growth of a population that is already on the 'endangered species list'.
Without regard to touch move it seems to me that the top level of the game should require greater skill, more mental diligence, etc. and that making the top level easier to get more people playing at that level seems to be the wrong approach.
I have only played in a couple of ABT tournaments, advanced division, but one of the things that strikes me is that a typical tournament is upside down from what one would expect in terms of the number of players in each division. Given that fewer people are going to play at the top level of any competitive activity it seems to me that one would expect the most entries at the lowest level of the competition, the second most entries at the intermediate level, and the fewest entries at the top level. It is just the opposite with backgammon, with the novice level often struggling to even have enough players to hold the event.
I know there are practical issues, but it seems like the way to grow the game is to foster more competition at the lower levels and increase the difficulty as players move up. Even today the open division should probably be 2 divisions except there are a limited number of players, but it seems clear that there is quite a difference in the level between the elite open players and the rest of the open field.
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