Reduced Entry Fee Options

[damonshort]

I don't see a trophy-only option on the registration site. Am I missing something?

[stpitner]

At this time I do not plan on running trophy only.  It makes for a smoother flow from beginning to end as far as speed in preparing the payout sheet in a timely manner, figuring out the ties, places, etc, for the final scores, and it is a lot easier for all players to tell exactly where they are in the standings instead of having to determine where they really stand if they paid all in because some people ahead of behind them might not be getting any payout.  It also reduces the # of payout spots adding more confusion.  The same goes for half-in, especially since I'm running a Pro-B tier this weekend.  If I'm adding in $500 cash to the payouts, the pros that are shooting for it should go in with an all or nothing mindset towards the entry fee.


With that said - Pros! Don't forget!  It IS a Pro B-Tier - that means $500 added cash to the Pro purse.  Come and get it!

[pickax]

Damon, for your planning purposes, the Oswego Open will offer trophy-only for Ams (and half-in for pros).

[Jon Brakel]

Damon, for your planning purposes, the Oswego Open will offer trophy-only for Ams (and half-in for pros).

And Sinnissippi and Bevier will have trophy only but I am not planning on doing pro half-in. I could be talked into pro half-in with the right motivation but at this time I'm not planning on offering it.

[damonshort]

At this time I do not plan on running trophy only.  It makes for a smoother flow from beginning to end as far as speed in preparing the payout sheet in a timely manner, figuring out the ties, places, etc, for the final scores, and it is a lot easier for all players to tell exactly where they are in the standings instead of having to determine where they really stand if they paid all in because some people ahead of behind them might not be getting any payout.  It also reduces the # of payout spots adding more confusion. 

I don't really buy the argument about it being "easier for the players to tell exactly where they are". Just say it's too much work; it's certainly your prerogative. 

The trophy-only option was one of the things that's set the IOS series apart from other typical tournaments, especially for players who just want the tournament and rating experience and don't want or need any more plastic or towels or Tshirts or whatever. Sad to see it slipping away, but tournaments fill without it anyway so what do I know... 

[Jon Brakel]

The trophy-only option was one of the things that's set the IOS series apart from other typical tournaments, especially for players who just want the tournament and rating experience and don't want or need any more plastic or towels or Tshirts or whatever. Sad to see it slipping away, but tournaments fill without it anyway so what do I know... 

Damon, I understand what you're saying and I can assure you that you'll continue to see trophy-only options at events for the foreseeable future. Just not every IOS. When I decided to not be the TD at every IOS and let other local TDs run them I couldn't in clear conscience tell them that they HAD to run their tournaments a certain way after supporting the concept of "if you run it you should run it your way". I'm not planning on running pro half-in but I keep waffling so I may run it by the time Bevier rolls around. But I will run trophy only at Bev and Sterling. And I'll admit it. I don't want to run half-in because it adds too much work at the time in the process when I don't have time for more work. 

[stpitner]

At this time I do not plan on running trophy only.  It makes for a smoother flow from beginning to end as far as speed in preparing the payout sheet in a timely manner, figuring out the ties, places, etc, for the final scores, and it is a lot easier for all players to tell exactly where they are in the standings instead of having to determine where they really stand if they paid all in because some people ahead of behind them might not be getting any payout.  It also reduces the # of payout spots adding more confusion. 

I don't really buy the argument about it being "easier for the players to tell exactly where they are". Just say it's too much work; it's certainly your prerogative. 

The trophy-only option was one of the things that's set the IOS series apart from other typical tournaments, especially for players who just want the tournament and rating experience and don't want or need any more plastic or towels or Tshirts or whatever. Sad to see it slipping away, but tournaments fill without it anyway so what do I know... 

The easier for players to tell where they are at is more based on my own playing experience - I was frustrated trying to count the number of players and then count down how far I was and figuring out what on the registration card meant they were Trophy Only.  From a running tournament perspective, it's a lot less of a burden without it, end of story.  Hopefully I can make the IOS events I'm in charge of stand out in their own way.  I might revisit the trophy only topic in the future once I have a more stable set of staff.

[Dan Michler]

As far as the complexity of accounting for the Half-In Pro option:

Would it be simpler to just offer Trophy Only Pro?  Just take their cash and don't figure them into the payout at all.  I don't think the ams who are playing Half-In Pro are doing so to try and win prizes.  Like Damon said, its just about the competitive experience. 

For me, there might be a couple tournaments this year that are 2 day events, but the advanced day doesn't work for me for personal reasons.  Were I an intermediate, rec, or novice player, I would have other amateur divisions to choose from.  With an advanced rating, my only other option is to play the even-more-costly Open division where I am not interested in taking cash on the off-chance that I did finish in the prizes.  Clearly, that is not worth it for most players.  With no reduced-entry Open division and the current IOS schedule, it is frustrating to have an advanced rating.  Everybody else except Open men under age 40, has a good option to play on either day.

I don't mean to sound like a complainer.  I'm just pointing out a weakness with the current schedule.  At the end of the day I'm just thankful that we have so many local tournaments to play.  The TD should do what works best for him as he's the one putting in the time, effort, and financial risk.

[pickax]

We're really hijacking Scott's thread here, but I think this is a worthwhile discussion. I'm going to split this topic out.

I think providing low cost options is a good thing especially when there are so many tournaments that one can play in. For many keeping costs down is necessary due to various life circumstances. For other road warriors, having low cost options allows a lot more tournaments to be played.

Unless a tournament is filling, a TD should consider offering options for players to come out. How do these work from a TD perspective?

Trophy Only (TO) Amateur. If priced correctly, the TO option should provide the same margin to the TD as a full-in player with the added benefit that TO players may be more inclined to pay cold hard cash for merch rather than cashing in funny money. As long as the TD has a way of noting this when calculating head count for payouts during R1 and skipping the player on the leaderboard at the end of the day. Trophy Only is not a whole lot of work. TO-Am does reduce the total Am Percentage Value slightly.

TO Pro. While the TD needs to do the same work for the payouts and leaderboard as with a TO Am, the TO player is essentially added cash to the pro purse. Non-greedy pro's like this. Greedy pro's just whine because they didn't extract another $40 from a sucker.

Half-in Pro. This admittedly is the most complicated of the options as the TD is required to rework payouts when the HI is in a cashing position. With the proper spreadsheet, half-in isn't too bad to handle. From a player perspective, HI Pro is more expensive than TO-Pro, but the possible investment is probably a better deal than TO Pro. (No chance at reward vs slim chance at reward). Pro's may not completely understand how it works, but if they get an added bump because of the half-in they become believers. The TD should make sure that to let the benefiting pro know that the extra $50 was due to a half-in player.

[tacimala]

Perhaps it could be noted on the pre-reg list for TO or HI when this does become available? When making a choice between weekends, I know that some pros obviously look at the total pot available as an indicator. This could help make it a little more clear for the planning.

[dana]

the TO player is essentially added cash to the pro purse. Non-greedy pro's like this. Greedy pro's just whine because they didn't extract another $40 from a sucker.

Is this from your own personal experience?

[pickax]

Admittedly it's hearsay. But correct me if I'm wrong, but Pros do like added cash in the purse, correct? Take Dan for example. He could come out, pay $10 and expect nothing in return. The $10 gets added to the purse. Or he could stay home and watch the reruns on MeTV. He may be willing to donate $10 to the pro purse, but $50 would be too much.

[Jon Brakel]

I will offer a $10 Trophy only pro option at Bevier and Sinnissippi.

[Chainmeister]

It would seem pretty easy to announce at the player's meeting or just before round 2-

"We have 12 pros with 4 TO and will pay out 4 spots etc."  Everybody will know where they stand.  If there was TO I would certainly try to play GM as TO. I have done this before.  The players in that division, including the rabble rouser who started this thread, generally aren't looking for plastic.  If so, they would be poaching on Rec. or Int. players. They pretty much want to play with kids their own age for bragging rights and ratings.  I figure DFL would be enough punishment.  I wouldn't want to pay too much for the priviledge.

Of course, I would be for any system that encourages Michler to be on the course.  its never boring when Dan is playing. 

[dana]

Are you serious?  Yes, pros like added cash.

So why would someone complain about getting more players and $ in the division,those of which most likely wouldn't normally play pro?  TO and 1/2 in are good things in the pro division.  Yes, you may lose a few players that would have payed the full price, but at the same time you gain a handful of players that normally wouldn't play open. 

You seem to be backtracking now.

[pickax]

The other half of my point is that some pros look at this as a "We're getting ripped off from what we deserve. Dan is not putting in $50, he's only putting in $10". Thus some see it as a loss of $40 rather than seeing it as getting $10 that wasn't there before.

[Dan Michler]

The other half of my point is that some pros look at this as a "We're getting ripped off from what we deserve. Dan is not putting in $50, he's only putting in $10". Thus some see it as a loss of $40 rather than seeing it as getting $10 that wasn't there before.

This is a good point Mike.  And I wouldn't want to take a spot away from any Open player who was willing to pay full price.  I think the key here is to offer the discounted division at tournaments that do not seem likely to fill.  This applies to pretty much all of the split-day events.  Based on historical results (look at the last couple years of IOS results), providing reduced entry fee options results in quite a few players who are willing to play up a division at the reduced rate on the off-day from their normal division.  All these repeat players can really jack up the attendance numbers.  I think past attendance is a key contributor to getting good attendance at future events.  Look at Standing Rocks.  The weather is constantly terrible up there and its super far away, but people see that they get 200 players for the weekend every year and it becomes a must-play event the next year.  I know the only reason I went up there a few years ago was because I knew it would be a huge player field.  Anything the TD can do to increase the attendance numbers is only going to help at their future events.

[Bruce Brakel]

I totally agree with Scott that trophy-only and half-in are a lot of work.  You need two smart guys or one super-genius involved in the process to pull it off errorlessly.  We never managed to do that until Mike started helping.  I don't agree that people "ought" to pay full price; I don't think the purpose of a tournament should be to separate a player from his money, or to require players to gamble more than they are comfortable gambling.  I've never been comfortable with any of this gambling.  

The IOS quit offering trophy-only pro simply because it was not an option that many seemed to actually want.  And, on the rare occasion that a trophy-only player cashed, the last cashing pro would not be there because he did not know that money was bumping down.  

We decided to try half-in to see if more players would want that, and more did.  Half-in eliminates the problem of cash bumping down to a guy who left 20 minutes ago, because the cash bumps up to the top, and that guy will usually stick around.  At one tournament we had about 20 in the pro field and half of them were Advanced ams playing half-in[edit]. Several of them cashed.  It took Jon, Mike and I a long time to figure out the payouts.  The top pros were happy to receive the bumped up bonus.

There will always be idiot pros who don't realize that the trophy-only and half-ins are added cash.  But most of our Illinois pros were getting it.  It helped that Alex Bingman, Brett and Chris Sprague all got it.  I think they explained it to the others.  It gives the top amateurs an opportunity to test the waters and see if they can compete at the next level.  When they see that they can, they start thinking about going pro.  These players were not going to test the waters for $50 and an opportunity to win a dyed disc or framed photo, but under the Ams-Playing-Pro rule, many were willing to test the waters for $25 and the opportunity to take home some plastic if they played well.  

I'm sad that these concepts are not thriving following my departure.  But hey, it saves me a drive to Channahon this Saturday.  I've played half-in and trophy-only pro at many IOS tournaments.  This weekend I'll cut the grass and do some gardening and be responsible for getting Kira to and from her activities.  I'm pretty sure there is at least one other half-in player who will be staying home on Saturday.  If the pros want the added cash from the half-in players, they'll just have to lobby the TDs to offer the option.  

The ace pool is starting at $308 on Saturday.  It kind of sucks to be an Advanced Amateur who does not have an economically feasible option to play and take a shot at it.  That's the way it goes.  

[Jon Brakel]

At one tournament we had about 20 in the pro field and half of them were Advanced ams playing half-in[edit]. Several of them cashed.  It took Jon, Mike and I a long time to figure out the payouts.  The top pros were happy to receive the bumped up bonus.

Just to set the record straight...Unfortunately this was a day that Mike could not attend and Bruce was actually 150 feet away working the merch area and yelling over for the leader boards every 90 seconds but not being able to hear the answer. So the "It took Jon, Mike and I a long time to figure out the payouts." is really "It took Jon a long time to figure out the payouts."

It was not a pleasant experience and one that I want to avoid in the future. If the whole process was computerized it would be easy. But we're a long way away from that! At many of our venues we don't even have access to AC.

I will keep an open mind about pro half-in at the tournaments that I TD. I think Scott should seriously consider offering trophy only for all of his divisions at IOS events but ultimately it is up to him. Perhaps if you really want to see it you could offer to volunteer as a player at his tournaments in exchange for him bringing back trophy-only. Just a thought.

[pickax]

I guess it helps that I have half-in computerized. :-) Jon, when we get together I'll show it to you.