Winter Potpurri
I don't normally like speaking out like this, because it usually ruffles feathers and does little to exact change. It definitely wouldn't on CGP, and I wonder if on here, it's preaching to the choir. But with the recent debate about money I'm only privy to because of some comments on blogs elsewhere, I'm reconsidering that. That, and there's the fact that Knoxville is coming up. It's a regional, so I want to support it, but it's probably one of the worst offenders as far as equity goes. Although I am aware of some tournaments up north where this is a problem too.
I wish more directors would post prize breakdowns in advance, and send them on to be put on cross-tables.com too. Then again, I wish the pie was bigger so winning $250 for D1 in a multiday tournament wouldn't be a regular occurance (and such the kick in the face it is). I have a little tool in the works that may help directors to this end. We'll see how it goes.
In other news, Gibson was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to play in the 4th Siri Invitational a couple days ago with him and 8 others. Crazily enough I ran the table. 9-0, +1200-something. I drew so incredibly well. My imaginary rating went back over 1800 where it should be, but it'll be awhile before I'll be able to get it there for real. May do a year-in-review like njdevil44 did. Words were played. We'll see.
Below are my thoughts on Asheville, solicited by the organizers a week or so after the tournament. They go for a lot of tourneys too. I think down south, people are especially careful of ruffling feathers. They want everyone to be handheld and treated equally. For such a capitalist society, this kind of socialism is baffling. I hope I'm using the terms right. That's not my forte.
Hello, everyone!
I hope you all are enjoying this holiday season. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you with my thoughts. At the time you sent out the survey, I was deeply entrenched in studies for my brokers license, and haven't had much time to think about Scrabble since then. Now I've had ample time to think about it, and so here's a list of things I think worked at Asheville 2011:
1) I'm glad the tournament was moved up sooner just because I missed it so much. Price of hotels was a little more expensive, but that's to be expected. I don't know how you could get around that. I think there's a decent amount of time between Labor Day, WV, and Cynthia's that either date would work.
2) Standings were posted quickly and every round.
3) Pairings were readily available.
4) The venue was great as always. Spacious. Comfortable.
5) It was a very nice touch of having a separate room open for the standings and for people to congregate, and snack, and whatnot.
6) There was a great turnout. Doing 1-5 adds up to this item of course. It's one reason why Asheville is so anticipated.
7) Because of all these things above, I find myself wishing that, as Knoxville has taken to doing, you find some way to put on a tournament biyearly.
8) I liked the idea of awarding a door prize to someone who stuck around for the prize ceremony. A very good idea, and a creative allocation of late fees!
9) I loved the work Jacob Cohen did on the clipboards. What a creative prize! Made me wish I would've had more of a prayer to win my division. :)
Now, for my suggestions on how to improve the tournament. Please understand, I love that you do what you do, but I think it can be done better. The reason I am frustrated is I, and everyone else in Division 1, work so hard to get where we have gotten.
Tournament Scrabble is the only place where these skills we've developed can be rewarded, so it is frustrating to come to a tournament where that work isn't rewarded in an equitable manner. This is the key theme I want to focus on.
The way things were set up this year encouraged no one in any way to improve and did not adequately reward Scrabble play at its best. When this happens, it encourages "sandbagging" and reaping rewards by people not playing at a level they are capable of playing. The more divisions you have, the more this is encouraged. One analogy is if you paid med students more than surgeons with many years of experience to encourage them to keep up with the practice. That's backwards. The right thing to do is reward the surgeon for his skill he has exhibited over the operating table (Scrabble player over the tournament board), thus giving the student something to shoot for if he so chooses.
1) So, first off: There are too many divisions. This dilutes accomplishments and reduces the size of prizes. Four divisions was enough for Nationals. Four should be enough for any other tournament. I personally feel for any regional tournament, three is plenty.
2) Division 1 is too small. I know of at least 2 players who would have loved to play but weren't allowed. There were probably 6 players in D2 who could have held their own in D1 and then some. Division 1 should be the largest division with the highest and most prizes. It is something people should desire to strive for, it should be made to feel big so when people who actually do choose to make the effort to get there, their efforts can be rewarded. Please consider making the cutoff 1500 with unlimited playups. Anyone who comes to a tournament wanting to play with the best players around should be allowed to and welcomed with opened arms no matter what.
3) This is complicated, so I hope I'm explaining it well: It is unfair to use the number of players in a division as a metric for the size of prizes because there is a bell curve inherent in ratings distribution. This means people at the far ends are fewer in number. That puts experts at a disadvantage already (because there are fewer of them). The only metric one should use is how difficult the field is (and a good way to determine how difficult the field is is by what the average rating is of a given division -- a stat conveniently provided on all entrants lists at cross-tables.com). Brad Mills is a director who understands this (scroll down to main event):
http://www.wvscrabble.com/2011-09/
See how there is a gradual increase in prize money based on how hard the division is? Divisions already serve to create a handicap by which players who aren't as likely to win the tournament are still afforded the opportunity to win prizes. It is unfair to lock higher rated players out of a chance to win those prizes altogether and then give lower rated players a bigger piece of the pie too. That's a double handicap.
There were only two spots paid in D1. So, for lower-seeded players in D1, the likelihood of cashing is made even more slim with juggernauts such as Gibson and Looby, yet we don't have the option of playing down (nor would I take it anyway, but other people might, and do). But these lines are arbitrary anyway, and there are many more people capable of playing in D1 than were allowed to. So, the decision to pay only two spots was made, apparently, because there were so few players there. It would not have been difficult at all to have 10 players, a 9 game rr, swiss for games 10-13, and a koth 14. Or 12 players: 11 game RR, 12-13 Swiss, 14 KotH.
4) I do not like the double-rr format. It is unfair to players at both ends of the spectrum, and especially unfair for the leaders at the end of the tournament, who play people out of contention to decide order of finish. Directors should be aware of pairing formats and not just content to choose the one that is easiest. Easiest is not best.
5) The entry fees are unfair to experts. There was no real perk, no reason for charging us $20 extra, especially because the return in prize money was so paltry (especially compared to Division 3). I acknowledge that, overall, 100% of entry fees were returned *within* the division. My point is, that "100%" was too small a number because the size of the division was artificially, arbitrarily restricted, and then that restriction was used to decide how much money was paid, and how many places were paid. So, D1 is essentially locked out of four divisions worth of prize monies because they excelled enough to be rated that high. This is another way we were secluded, and another reason why more divisions is a bad thing. Though again, the number of players in a given division shouldn't determine the sizes of prizes given out -- only how many places are paid.
When I travel to a tournament, what I first hope for is competitive games and a variety of players. Because of that bell curve I spoke of, there aren't many high rated players in this region, so it's important to keep the D1 cutoff low so we can be offered a better variety of opponents (with Swiss pairing, this also makes it more likely that the games will be competitive, and it'll be less likely anyone will go home having a migraine-inducing 2-12 weekend).
The disparity I speak of is not just an issue in the division in which I play. Comparing Division 2 to Division 3 shows similar disparities:
Division 3's 1st prize was $475, while Division 2's was $370.
Think about that for a minute. Division 3's winner won more than Division 2's winner. Division 2 played much harder players. Yet Division 3's winner was rewarded a bigger prize. This is not right.
To put it in perspective, the D3 winner (the player in, effectively, 23rd place) won ~$200 more than the D1 runner up (the 2nd place finisher) and $95 more than the player in 9th place! The person in 24th place won $15 more than the 9th place finisher (D2 winner). It is not right to return so much money to a division with SO MANY more players after you have set those lines arbitrarily to create that imbalance in the first place. This is why using the number of players in a division to determine how to pay prizes is not a good idea. I have watched prize distribution quality dwindle over the past few years. Top prize used to be $1k, then $750, and now a mere $500. This is not a good sign.
6) The private rooms, admittedly, were a nice touch, but ultimately served to seclude us from the rest of the tournament. And while I'm sure we all liked the extra peace, it did not outweigh this feeling of seclusion, because we were secluded from the other half of our division as well, and could only keep apprised of one other game at a time realistically. One room for the division would be better, if we're to be secluded at all.
7) Please do not strike the chairs and tables until AFTER the awards ceremony. It's a simple thing. But it was very disconcerting to be in the middle of my final game and see and hear all the tables and chairs elsewhere being folded up. Also, more than a few people were uncomfortable to say the least to be standing around while five divisions of prizes were to be awarded.
In years past, I have been excited to go to Asheville because of how much fun it is. But standing in the awards ceremony and seeing so many people win prizes for lesser accomplishments detracts from the time and effort of those people who have decided to make said effort, and is markedly less fun.
The problem can be summed up as this: again, tournament Scrabble is the only venue where these skills can be rewarded, and they weren't rewarded equitably. Too many lines were drawn, and as such these prizes become more and more meaningless. It's hard enough for people to take tournament Scrabble seriously, and this doesn't help.
I want to support the Asheville tournament because supporting tournament Scrabble is good for the scene, but this disparity isn't good for the scene, because it literally makes no sense to someone looking in from the outside. And on the inside, it breeds complacency.
Thanks for reading!
I wish more directors would post prize breakdowns in advance, and send them on to be put on cross-tables.com too. Then again, I wish the pie was bigger so winning $250 for D1 in a multiday tournament wouldn't be a regular occurance (and such the kick in the face it is). I have a little tool in the works that may help directors to this end. We'll see how it goes.
In other news, Gibson was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to play in the 4th Siri Invitational a couple days ago with him and 8 others. Crazily enough I ran the table. 9-0, +1200-something. I drew so incredibly well. My imaginary rating went back over 1800 where it should be, but it'll be awhile before I'll be able to get it there for real. May do a year-in-review like njdevil44 did. Words were played. We'll see.
Below are my thoughts on Asheville, solicited by the organizers a week or so after the tournament. They go for a lot of tourneys too. I think down south, people are especially careful of ruffling feathers. They want everyone to be handheld and treated equally. For such a capitalist society, this kind of socialism is baffling. I hope I'm using the terms right. That's not my forte.
Hello, everyone!
I hope you all are enjoying this holiday season. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you with my thoughts. At the time you sent out the survey, I was deeply entrenched in studies for my brokers license, and haven't had much time to think about Scrabble since then. Now I've had ample time to think about it, and so here's a list of things I think worked at Asheville 2011:
1) I'm glad the tournament was moved up sooner just because I missed it so much. Price of hotels was a little more expensive, but that's to be expected. I don't know how you could get around that. I think there's a decent amount of time between Labor Day, WV, and Cynthia's that either date would work.
2) Standings were posted quickly and every round.
3) Pairings were readily available.
4) The venue was great as always. Spacious. Comfortable.
5) It was a very nice touch of having a separate room open for the standings and for people to congregate, and snack, and whatnot.
6) There was a great turnout. Doing 1-5 adds up to this item of course. It's one reason why Asheville is so anticipated.
7) Because of all these things above, I find myself wishing that, as Knoxville has taken to doing, you find some way to put on a tournament biyearly.
8) I liked the idea of awarding a door prize to someone who stuck around for the prize ceremony. A very good idea, and a creative allocation of late fees!
9) I loved the work Jacob Cohen did on the clipboards. What a creative prize! Made me wish I would've had more of a prayer to win my division. :)
Now, for my suggestions on how to improve the tournament. Please understand, I love that you do what you do, but I think it can be done better. The reason I am frustrated is I, and everyone else in Division 1, work so hard to get where we have gotten.
Tournament Scrabble is the only place where these skills we've developed can be rewarded, so it is frustrating to come to a tournament where that work isn't rewarded in an equitable manner. This is the key theme I want to focus on.
The way things were set up this year encouraged no one in any way to improve and did not adequately reward Scrabble play at its best. When this happens, it encourages "sandbagging" and reaping rewards by people not playing at a level they are capable of playing. The more divisions you have, the more this is encouraged. One analogy is if you paid med students more than surgeons with many years of experience to encourage them to keep up with the practice. That's backwards. The right thing to do is reward the surgeon for his skill he has exhibited over the operating table (Scrabble player over the tournament board), thus giving the student something to shoot for if he so chooses.
1) So, first off: There are too many divisions. This dilutes accomplishments and reduces the size of prizes. Four divisions was enough for Nationals. Four should be enough for any other tournament. I personally feel for any regional tournament, three is plenty.
2) Division 1 is too small. I know of at least 2 players who would have loved to play but weren't allowed. There were probably 6 players in D2 who could have held their own in D1 and then some. Division 1 should be the largest division with the highest and most prizes. It is something people should desire to strive for, it should be made to feel big so when people who actually do choose to make the effort to get there, their efforts can be rewarded. Please consider making the cutoff 1500 with unlimited playups. Anyone who comes to a tournament wanting to play with the best players around should be allowed to and welcomed with opened arms no matter what.
3) This is complicated, so I hope I'm explaining it well: It is unfair to use the number of players in a division as a metric for the size of prizes because there is a bell curve inherent in ratings distribution. This means people at the far ends are fewer in number. That puts experts at a disadvantage already (because there are fewer of them). The only metric one should use is how difficult the field is (and a good way to determine how difficult the field is is by what the average rating is of a given division -- a stat conveniently provided on all entrants lists at cross-tables.com). Brad Mills is a director who understands this (scroll down to main event):
http://www.wvscrabble.com/2011-09/
See how there is a gradual increase in prize money based on how hard the division is? Divisions already serve to create a handicap by which players who aren't as likely to win the tournament are still afforded the opportunity to win prizes. It is unfair to lock higher rated players out of a chance to win those prizes altogether and then give lower rated players a bigger piece of the pie too. That's a double handicap.
There were only two spots paid in D1. So, for lower-seeded players in D1, the likelihood of cashing is made even more slim with juggernauts such as Gibson and Looby, yet we don't have the option of playing down (nor would I take it anyway, but other people might, and do). But these lines are arbitrary anyway, and there are many more people capable of playing in D1 than were allowed to. So, the decision to pay only two spots was made, apparently, because there were so few players there. It would not have been difficult at all to have 10 players, a 9 game rr, swiss for games 10-13, and a koth 14. Or 12 players: 11 game RR, 12-13 Swiss, 14 KotH.
4) I do not like the double-rr format. It is unfair to players at both ends of the spectrum, and especially unfair for the leaders at the end of the tournament, who play people out of contention to decide order of finish. Directors should be aware of pairing formats and not just content to choose the one that is easiest. Easiest is not best.
5) The entry fees are unfair to experts. There was no real perk, no reason for charging us $20 extra, especially because the return in prize money was so paltry (especially compared to Division 3). I acknowledge that, overall, 100% of entry fees were returned *within* the division. My point is, that "100%" was too small a number because the size of the division was artificially, arbitrarily restricted, and then that restriction was used to decide how much money was paid, and how many places were paid. So, D1 is essentially locked out of four divisions worth of prize monies because they excelled enough to be rated that high. This is another way we were secluded, and another reason why more divisions is a bad thing. Though again, the number of players in a given division shouldn't determine the sizes of prizes given out -- only how many places are paid.
When I travel to a tournament, what I first hope for is competitive games and a variety of players. Because of that bell curve I spoke of, there aren't many high rated players in this region, so it's important to keep the D1 cutoff low so we can be offered a better variety of opponents (with Swiss pairing, this also makes it more likely that the games will be competitive, and it'll be less likely anyone will go home having a migraine-inducing 2-12 weekend).
The disparity I speak of is not just an issue in the division in which I play. Comparing Division 2 to Division 3 shows similar disparities:
Division 3's 1st prize was $475, while Division 2's was $370.
Think about that for a minute. Division 3's winner won more than Division 2's winner. Division 2 played much harder players. Yet Division 3's winner was rewarded a bigger prize. This is not right.
To put it in perspective, the D3 winner (the player in, effectively, 23rd place) won ~$200 more than the D1 runner up (the 2nd place finisher) and $95 more than the player in 9th place! The person in 24th place won $15 more than the 9th place finisher (D2 winner). It is not right to return so much money to a division with SO MANY more players after you have set those lines arbitrarily to create that imbalance in the first place. This is why using the number of players in a division to determine how to pay prizes is not a good idea. I have watched prize distribution quality dwindle over the past few years. Top prize used to be $1k, then $750, and now a mere $500. This is not a good sign.
6) The private rooms, admittedly, were a nice touch, but ultimately served to seclude us from the rest of the tournament. And while I'm sure we all liked the extra peace, it did not outweigh this feeling of seclusion, because we were secluded from the other half of our division as well, and could only keep apprised of one other game at a time realistically. One room for the division would be better, if we're to be secluded at all.
7) Please do not strike the chairs and tables until AFTER the awards ceremony. It's a simple thing. But it was very disconcerting to be in the middle of my final game and see and hear all the tables and chairs elsewhere being folded up. Also, more than a few people were uncomfortable to say the least to be standing around while five divisions of prizes were to be awarded.
In years past, I have been excited to go to Asheville because of how much fun it is. But standing in the awards ceremony and seeing so many people win prizes for lesser accomplishments detracts from the time and effort of those people who have decided to make said effort, and is markedly less fun.
The problem can be summed up as this: again, tournament Scrabble is the only venue where these skills can be rewarded, and they weren't rewarded equitably. Too many lines were drawn, and as such these prizes become more and more meaningless. It's hard enough for people to take tournament Scrabble seriously, and this doesn't help.
I want to support the Asheville tournament because supporting tournament Scrabble is good for the scene, but this disparity isn't good for the scene, because it literally makes no sense to someone looking in from the outside. And on the inside, it breeds complacency.
Thanks for reading!