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'Early' plane flights

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Wednesday, 3 February 2010, at 3:06 a.m.

In Response To: Two Other Santa Fe Occurrences -- Tournament Dilemmas (Bill Riles)

At the Pitt tournament in 2003 it snowed about 15 inches on Sunday. As typical I had driven to the tournament (Meeses riding with me) and we decided to stay Sunday night so I entered the Memorial Cup JP. I don't remember the time accurately but sometime around 4:00 I made the finals against Bruce Russell. Bruce mentioned that he had a plane to catch and asked if we could adjust the match (I don't remember if he wanted to shorten it or split it). I said (in a nice way) something to the effect of "no, let's play the match we signed up to play". We did; I won. I think Bruce made his flight but I would not be surprised if the distraction caused him to play at less than his best. He has reminded me of that occurrence on more than one occasion since.

First off, I didn't do this to extract an edge. Bruce is a decent player and for all I know he was the favorite in that match.

Back at Pitt again in 2006 I made the Consolation Finals against Mark Rozans. Our match was to start somewhere in the 2:00 to 3:00 timeframe (I don't remember exactly). Again he said he had a plane to catch and wanted to shorten/chop (can't remember). I politely declined.

I'm the kind of person who plans for the unexpected. I get to airports 2 hours early like they suggest (for us suckers...). I put my retirement money in 'safe' low yield investments. When I fly I choose the wing exit (or as close as possible) since being close to an exit give you the best (if tiny) chance to survive a failure. 99.9% of the time the rabbits leave us hares in the dust, and if we're lucky they don't smirk in the process. I drive to most backgammon tournaments, but when I fly I make sure to choose my return flight such that if I get lucky enough to make the finals I still have plenty of time to play the match and still make my flight. In the 0.1% of the time my preparation is justified I'd like to cash my edge.

Does that make me an asshole?

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