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</head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">Some thoughts:<br>
<br>
1) Didn't understand the late start times on Saturday/Sunday. Its
consistent with Friday I guess, but not sure it makes sense to start
that late on the weekend.<br>
<br>
2) Looking through attendance stuff, our table count was way down but it
wasn't equal. Some big differences were: <br>
<br>
A: KO attendance dropped from 13 in the open and 31 total to 10 in the
open and 26 total. If we lose a few more teams in the open, we might not
hit the necessary 9 for a 4 session event.<br>
B: No 0-200 game on Saturday seemed to cost around 3 tables. Last year
we had 14 and 5 for the 200 and 750 respectively, this year just 16 for
the combined 750.<br>
C: Sunday pair attendance got crushed. The open dropped from 22 to 19
but the 750 games dropped from 17 to 9 in the afternoon and 9 to 5 in
the evening (last year it was 2000 in the evening instead of 750). <br>
D: Both Swiss and BAM were down on Monday, the Swiss was down 10% and
the BAM down 20%<br>
<br>
In some places attendance was fine. Friday pairs jumped in total table
count, especially in the evening and Saturday evening was up as well.<br>
<br>
Thoughts: I wonder if having an NLM sectional so recently hurt the
Sunday 750 attendance? Presumably the weather also had a big impact,
every time I looked outside I was sad about being indoors on such an
amazing day. People who got knocked out of the KOs might have just
decided to go enjoy it rather than play bridge. If I didn't have
commitments to play and was a lot less addicted to bridge than I am, I
might have skipped on the tournament to go kayaking or something similar
outdoors.<br>
<br>
BAM Teams: I think I was one of the players who vehemently objected when
DT came to our table asking for opinions. At the time, I thought
everyone was getting polled and so I had my "feelings as a player" hat
on where I really wanted to play 60 boards. I was excited when they
decided to keep the movement at 60 because that seemed more appropriate
and only seemed like a few more boards than normal (60 instead of 54 or
56). However, as the day went on it became clear that not everyone was
polled and DT was probably just polling either board members or select
people. Had I known only a few were getting asked, I would have put my
SBU board member hat on and been a lot more reasoned about it. So my
apologies to DT and to others for answering as a player rather than as a
board member when asked.<br>
<br>
As for other stuff with the BAM: we initially had a super awkward
number, 12, which meant there were 11 other teams which would be 33 or
22 boards at a time or a weird movement. Whereas adding 1 more team
would have made it a "perfect" movement of playing 24 boards against all
other teams twice. The team that won the NAP Bs
(pesce/jarvis/ruprecht/galer) were asked if they were interested in
moving up to do the movement for a few reasons, including the fact that
at least 1 of their team members (Adam) loved BAM and considered it his
favorite event. Initially they did, however later a team realized they
didn't want to be in the BAM and dropped so the team that moved up to
the BAM moved back down to the Swiss to leave it at 11 teams which is
less awkward than 12. The only reason any asking occurred was to fix the
super awkward size of 12, not to "increase BAM attendance". <br>
<br>
For other Monday events: One big issue with fast pairs is that all the
Swiss tables wouldn't count towards masterpoint awards so the reward is
really tiny. Its also fairly commonly available at regionals and even
with regionals it doesn't usually pull many players. For example the
Portland regional fast pairs only pulled 12.5 tables which is barely
enough for a single section and this was at a regional. In comparison,
the Swiss had 83 tables (37 AX and then a bunch of bracketed) and
Victoria had almost identical numbers. Anyway, probably a bigger subject
than a single post mortem, but was responding now since the subject was
brought up. It certainly seems likely that we'll have a deeper
discussion about the May sectional schedule at some point before next
year. Unusual events are really nice so I also wonder what other teams
events we might be able to do in the future that might get people
excited rather than just defaulting to the usual Swiss. Maybe a BAM
Swiss, which involves more frequent comparisons and has a lot fewer
issues with awkward sizes?<br>
<br>
Other thoughts: Grassroots day landing on the start of the KOs seems
awkward since it doesn't do any good for those in the KOs. Winning the 4
session open KO was worth 20 masterpoints this year whereas winning the
2 session pairs on grassroots day was worth 32 in January and 2nd was
worth 24.10. I wonder if we can move things around a bit to make it
possible to benefit from grassroots day and still play the KO. Maybe
make Friday grassroots day? There were certainly a lot more people
playing pairs on Friday than on Saturday or Sunday.<br>
<br>
Eric<br>
<br>
<span>Tim White wrote:</span><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Looking to the co-chairs (in this case David and
Larry) to lead the post mortem. Grist for the mill from my standpoint…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Heard many negative comments about the 1:30 and
7:00 Saturday & Sunday session start times. In 2015 and 2016 these
sessions started at 1:00 and 6:30. I don’t recall that the board
addressed changing to the later start times nor was this picked up on
during flyer review. Perhaps it was a copy & paste artifact that
none of us noticed. Mary Wondra said the later times caused her to miss
the last ferry of the evening back home to the San Juan Islands. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Saturday afternoon this year a 0-750 pairs game
was held (drew 16.0 tables) in lieu of the 0-200 game that had been held
in this slot in prior years. Several negative comments about dropping
the 0-200 game and apparently some 0-200 pairs left the site without
playing when they learned the 199er game they were hopeful of playing in
was not taking place. Looking back at data on the ACBL website, the
2015 Saturday afternoon 0-200 event apparently drew 9.0 tables. The
2016 Saturday afternoon 0-200 pairs game drew 14.0 tables. It’s never
good when people come to play and leave disappointed when the event
they’d hoped to play isn’t offered.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">BAM Teams. There’s a lot to address with this
one. A small core group is passionate about this event. Some players
entering the BAM tried to recruit players entering the Swiss to move
over to play in the BAM – I don’t know if any actually switched to the
BAM. BAM is a relatively complex movement – the attempt to recruit
Swiss players to switch might have been motivated by improving the BAM
movement (though I don’t know that 12 versus 11 teams would have helped
or hurt with this) or perhaps it was motivated simply to increase BAM
attendance. BAM attendance has steadily and substantially declined in
recent years: 11 teams in 2017; 15 teams in 2016; 16 teams in 2015; 19
teams in 2014; 19 teams in 2013; 21 teams in 2012. Apparently there was
controversy over the number of boards played in the BAM event. With
ten rounds, the decision was made to play 3 boards a round (30 boards
total) in the morning session and then there was the possibility of
either 2 or 3 boards a round (either 20 or 30 boards) in the second
session. The tournament chair and DiC made a reasoned decision to have
20 boards in the second session (50 boards total for the event).
Apparently someone or some number of players vehemently objected to 50
boards total and as a result the second session was changed to 30 boards
for a 60-board event. Typically, the BAM ran 45 or so minutes longer
than the Swiss and it again caused a significant delay in tear down, as
well as an additional tear down burden on Swiss players and non-playing
volunteers who were waiting in the wings for the completion of an
extended, lightly-attended event. I understand at least two BAM teams
said they will not play the event again if there is the possibility it
could run to 60 boards. I also heard there were players with >2500
points including at least one very experienced and high level player
(ineligible for the Swiss) who would have far preferred to play Swiss
than BAM. I heard suggestions that it’s well past time to try a
different complimentary event to the Swiss teams at the KO sectional and
that Fast Pairs would be a fun and appropriate format to give a try.
Fast pairs would also offer the benefits of allowing players who have a
ferry to catch (or a lengthy drive) to depart earlier and accelerating
tear down rather than delaying it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Portable sound system. Again, suggestions were
made that the unit purchase a portable sound system so
beginning-of-session and other announcements can be better heard by
all. For reference, Forest Ridge has a microphone and speaker system;
Bothell has a speaker system but more often than not it is
non-functional. Renae and I will try to gather some info on some
potential systems; if others have experience or ideas on this please
being them forward.</p>
<div>Tim</div>
<div><br></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
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