I have a suggestion to improve tournaments of this nature.
I've just been in such a tournie, I'm about average. I was a 2200 when I went in and as it ended about 1700.
The problem for me (and others) was the timing of the games - it was the third or fourth round, everyone was very good players left in and we had something like 13 matches.
They all started at the same time and this happened to be around UK time 3am. You may already see the problem and even the solution.
I am willing to agree that I got to this stage because the round before the times all seemed to end up focussed around 9am UK time which was perfect for me.
People who are regularly online at the end time can ensure they always go last or nearly last - always cash their spoils last which in escalating games with 10 people in can be the difference between 4 for cashing first and maybe 30 or 35 for last cash.
Equally at the business end of the game when it is time to make the one strike for victory you can switch from going last to playing last or next to last and then first or second shortly after.
So I have just lost 13 games I had almost no chance in as they all were geared around 2am or 3am UK time and am 500 points down through bad luck - I agree if the timings were in my favour I would not be here, but I will slowly get the points back so I'm not overly fussed - I just wanted to propose that on a freestyle tournie, especially freestyle escalating that the 13 games were started 1 hour, or 1,5 hour or 2hours apart to not stack the deck in the favour of in this case I assume were all the American players whilst all the Europeans looked like amateurs.
As I say the loss will soon be forgotten and the points will come back soon enough, but it is these sort of feelings of injustice that can push people to suddenly decide to quit the game - not me in this case, but in other on-line things I have been addicted to in the past then it can be a sudden drop in stature that you feel was out of your control that can be the catalyst to stop playing.
Anyway, consider my suggestion, it doesn't seem like a bad one unless it is very difficult to implement. Then next time I enter such a tournament I would like to feel I lost 13 games to players who were very good not just players who were all awake at the key time when I was asleep. I may well have lost all the games anyway, but I just wanted to have a fair crack at them.
Great site, great game, much love to you all. Suggestion over.
