BGonline.org Forums

Spring Cleaning 1: Barry, you asked me to ask you

Posted By: Barry Silliman
Date: Saturday, 21 March 2015, at 2:46 p.m.

In Response To: Spring Cleaning 1: Barry, you asked me to ask you (Chuck Bower)

Hi Chuck, we've used this same format for all four of our ABT events held in Herndon, Virginia, over the past two years. It is the same format that MFIC uses- in fact we got the brackets from him- and it worked very well this time.

Despite the brochure saying players must be prepared to start a match up to 11:45 pm - a clause borrowed from MFIC - I do not recall asking anybody to start a match after 11:00 pm. (Some players started after that voluntarily). I do not recall having to ask anybody to start early on Sunday morning either, and this time we only played our jackpots down to semi-finals (or even to 5 players from a 20-player field) on Friday evening and didn't resume most (if not all- I can't recall) of them until Sunday morning.

I don't think we would have had a problem with a larger bracket, up to 64. Given the liberality with which I dismissed players early for the night Saturday (as compared to the printed 11:45 pm time) or early for Saturday's dinner break (as compared to the printed 5:00-7:00 dinner break), I may just have needed to tighten that up a bit but still most likely could have remained within the advertised guidelines.

A key consideration to this is the expectation that in a two-day main event, players need to accept and understand that the play on Sunday for those fortunate enough to still be in the running will be playing into the late afternoon or early evening. Our brochure stated that finals for the main event would start at approximately 4 pm, a change from our previous brochure that estimated a 2 pm start time, and that all events were expected to wrap up at 6 pm. I think the only event that exceeded 6 pm was the exciting Main final between Ray Fogerlund, who, much to a director's delight, almost always schedules his departure flight for the day after the event ends, and Bill Finneran, a local player with no travel constraints.

I think it is still a problem that too many players are scheduling early flights on Sunday which can cause scheduling issues and undeserved stress on the director and staff- especially for a venue on the east coast where westbound fliers can benefit from the time zone as they return home and the venue isn't much more than a stone's throw from the airport.

Messages In This Thread

• Spring Cleaning 1: Barry, you asked me to ask you
  Chuck Bower -- Friday, 20 March 2015, at 4:41 p.m.
  • Spring Cleaning 1: Barry, you asked me to ask you
    Barry Silliman -- Saturday, 21 March 2015, at 2:46 p.m.