ACS tournament craziness in Iowa

[BasementDweller]

Agreed, this is a pretty convoluted story. It should have ended here:

"ref told us we have to be playing on 3 tables. He said that he explained the situation and the ref said he didn't care and his word was final"

Just do what the ref says and you don't lose a bunch of money. Was the ref being irrational? In this moment, it doesn't matter.

I've been on several teams that have won state level ACS Championships and his post rings true. Once Sunday rolls around, it always feels like the only thing they are concerned with is getting out of there. So they are always pushing you to play on as many tables as possible. Teams ALWAYS push back against this to some extent because the WHOLE point of the tournament is that it's a TEAM event, not just a bunch of individual random racks!

Sounds like there was minimal push back from these teams. The director was probably just tired out and frustrated, then took it out on the players. What I've heard is the payouts at these events have gone down year after year. At some point the teams don't even care about the money. They are just trying to have a good time and when the tourney crew is pushing them out the door it's NOT a lot of fun.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't blown up previously.

 

[BasementDweller]

Just to clarify:

It reads that two 8-to-6 matches were ongoing (so on the hill) and the TD's expectation was that NOBODY was supposed to stop and watch their teammate win the championship rack, but instead keep playing and pretend not to watch out of the corner of their eye what was going on.

This is the sort of ridiculousness that I've seen with ACS. ACS team events are really fun Friday night. A long, worthy slog on Saturday. And a not so subtle, "you don't have to leave but you can't stay here" vibe on Sunday.

 

[DaWizard]

Oh, at this point.. I just want him to implement every single one of the policies he ran on, and that you guys voted for. And I really do mean that. I am not being facetious, even a little bit.

--

I am over here in Germany, so I have no dog in this fight..... I am just sitting back watching, eating popcorn, waiting for the inevitable f***ups, and interested in seeing how it will all be blamed on the "last administration".

--

Unfortunately Europe will follow as everything is connected. I wonder who is going to benefit when the US and Europe are struggling in chaos

 

[APA Operator]

At times I have been guilty of "wanting to get out of there" when a long tournament winds down at the end. Because it's the only match going (and someone may have had to wait for their opponents to finish the prior round), the play can SEEM slow when in fact it's going at the same pace that it has all weekend. It's just more noticeable. At those times I have to remind myself that my desires are inconsequential compared to those of the entrants, as this is the round they've been playing for all weekend and if I haven't been pushing for faster play all along, doing it now would rain on the parade big time, whether they are actually playing slow or not. It sounds like it was in the middle of the day too. If my events finished in the middle of the day I'd be ecstatic.