Dougal
Originally posted by Nick Brockdorff
You are absolutely entitled to your oppinion.
But - FYI - We had 12 guys wanting to play Amsterdam, and rather than telling 5 they had to stay home, we brought in some guest players to field two teams.
I see absolutely no harm in that.
Then - you seem to insinuate that we only took 2nd place because we had players from another team playing with us...... you even call it "sad" ?
You must not have watched our games then ?
ANYBODY who played us or saw us play, will tell you that every player pulled his own weight, and that no player on the team was outshined by the Strange boys - actually quite the contrary.
Last - you should know that playing with guest players is infinitely harder than playing with your team mates, as a lot of stuff no longer happens naturally, because you have never practiced or played tournaments together before.
All in all, you seem like you have had a good helping of sour grapes, for some reason ?
Nick
Yep, but I don't think anyones stopping guesting but was'nt Dougal's point specifically re Pro's playing in Am B and the Nov division, not preventing teams picking up players at the last minute? I did'nt read his opening comments to be directed against the Ducklings at all (unless I missed soimething which is quite possible as I type faster than I think).
The point in this instance I don't think has any reference to who plays in the Pro div, but who plays in the Nov and Am B div, and to prevent excessive sandbagging. I mean if Ducklings wanted additional players, if only Nov's are available only the Ducklings are disadvantaged in the Pro div, and then if they perform well maximum prop's to em and their guests. If however say Goober 7 a scratch team hithertoo never been on sup air in the Nov division fielded "pro" guests you would expect some "alteration of their predicted final placings" (do you get my drift t'was a bit long winded). OK so playing with guests is more difficult, but the diff between nov / am B and the higher divisions is often (not always), the ability of a "few" individuals to read a game and make game breaking moves.
Look at it from the novice and Am B perspective and if your paying 500 quid + or (800 euros+) each to play an event, your hardly likely to be too chuffed to find out there are some teams who are a) Sandbagged up to the nines or b) de-facto Factory teams with full sponsership deals. If this is a trend that continues, then you might find some of the Nov / am B teams saying it's not worth the hassle of playing Milleniums cos they've got little chance of competing in their divisions. I think Dougal makes a valid point when he says some teams / players appear to be prepared to drop Div's in order to win or place highly.
To many new teams playing a Millenium or two is the highlight of their year, all would like to do well and feel they have a realistic chance of competing. Everybody seems to take a massively dim few of those who wipe and or play on, isn't sandbagging or entering in too low a division in a similar vein?
This probably is relevant to the E.P.A, and is probably a difficult nut to crack, but I think it relevant to the lower levels of a Major League Tournament (hell I only commented cos' it's highly relevant to lower level tounies, and perhaps the E.P.A are the right people to come up with something which all series could use).
Ok, so now I need to suggest something don't I and put cash money where mouth is. Unfortunately I don't have an effective or easy answer, I did think that maybe teams should register sponsership level (kept to simple catagories to get around disclosure clauses), players (with some form of Bio) and previous Millenium experience. If a team is excessively pro'd up or sponsered alarm bells should be ringing and possible a points handicapping system could be used. The downside to this is the administration side of things
In no way I'm I criticising the DMA and the results (esp of Ducklings), this is just my humble opinion of what could happen in the lower divisions.
