One year left

[spherulitic]

UPDATED 8 Aug
Updated with latest Berkley results. Also I've broken out CSW and OWL peak ratings for people who may qualify on either.
To review:

• The US will have 14 spots at the next WSC
• drbing is the man
• Three spots will be decided at a qualifying tournament
• This leaves ten spots by rating
• Peak rating requirements:
  • Must have played 65 games
  • Must have played 30

Comments

[wallydraigle]

I just thought it might be worthwhile for you (and other people) to share my thought process as I'm currently thinking about switching over to Collins. Because I am.

1. The 50 point rule is a major deterrent for me. I am NOT switching over to Collins under any circumstances if I don't qualify for Worlds. Right now I'm very close to the borderline: I probably have about a 60% of making it if I don't improve my rating. Whether or not I gain rating or not at the next tournament I play will have a huge bearing on whether or not I qualify.

2. I have to decide whether or not to play Worlds around now by studying for it. If I am going to play, I'm going to convert completely and not even try to separate the words, and try to evolve my strategy over. I'm with Brian: they are very different games, and learning both the word differences and the strategic nuances will probably take multiple years to do at a reasonably high level.

3. On the same token, I have absolutely NO interest in playing Collins tournaments in the states until they pay more money, and that will never happen until we switch over. I play Scrabble tournaments to be around my friends, and I'm not flying to New York to play 700 dollar tournaments or going to Portland to play for 300 dollars with people I don't know and have a personal rapport with. I'd rather just deal with having a sucky OWL game with constant Collins confusion. In terms of integrating me into the CSW community, simply not going to happen. If you think I'm playing 50 or 55 Collins games to qualify for Worlds, I'll stick to OWL. And I sure as heck don't want to go to a qualifying tournament in the middle of Minnesota or whatever unless I have to.

4. A huge, huge incentive for me to play Collins instead of OWL is where they hold the Worlds, and this whole let's decide just before the event is an absolutely huge drawback. If they announced tomorrow that the Worlds was going to be held in Australia or some other country I really wanted to visit, that would be a major incentive for me to switch over. But I don't want to go and find out that Nationals is in Bahrain or Nigeria or is going to be held in Malaysia for the 5th time.

I'm not saying that I'd definitely switch over if these weren't issues, but these issues that you're bringing up are DEFINITELY deterrents for me switching. I've definitely talked to some people about it. The dictionary update is coming soon so if there was ever a time for me to switch, it would be now. But there's absolutely no question in my mind that these changes have made this switch for me unlikely. Maybe a few others are in the same boat. Some of the policies that the CSW community has instigated have genuinely made a significant impact as to whether or not I would be playing Worlds.