Tournaments seem to be opening registration and appearing on
tabroom faster these days than firings in the Trump White House. The northeast doesn’t
start school usually until after Labor Day, although I know that that’s not
quite true this year as districts manipulate their way around the Jewish
holidays. Meanwhile, I think there are some schools where students are already
in the seats, chewing on their pencils and thinking Christmas can’t come soon
enough. And one way or another, their coaches are working on their tournaments.
It’s not hard to get a tournament started, if it’s simply a
repeat of a past tournament. Most people just replicate the past, which is not
a good thing. If you can’t find a way to make this year’s tournament even
better than last year’s tournament, you’re not doing your job as Tournament
Director. And don’t give me any malarkey about tradition, or as you probably
prefer it—you spalpeen—Tradition. You know damned well you have no compunctions about
changing things if it suits your fancy. Calling everything that isn’t to your
fancy Tradition is simply giving in to your own mental bureaucracy. Running
tournaments is hard. Some people, but not all, do it well, but all, refreshed
in the moments when it’s over and all the pain and agony is forgotten, think
they do it well. They don’t. You know the tournaments you like and don’t like.
The ones that cater to you, the guest and customer, are the best ones. The ones
that cater to themselves? They may be on your list because that’s where the
bids are, and God knows that nothing is more protective of the bids they’ve
gotten somewhere than the TOC committees. Or the bids they think they can get
if only all the tournaments they can walk to are given Octos bids, while all
the tournaments everywhere else are in regions that already have too many bids
and should be a Finals bid at best.
Feh.
By the way, POI now seems to be a thing. Oh joy, oh rapture.
We need even more rooms! There needs to be a limit. When a new activity comes
in, an old activity should have to walk the plank. You want POI? Get rid of LD!
Well, not really…
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