I realize that it falls onto the league operators to place players based on "known ability" but it's something that I have never seen done.
Our local operators run the Western Canadian VNEA championships every year and for many years the teams from Winnipeg would slip through the cracks and end up dominating divisions with stacked teams. We knew it, they knew and other operators knew it and instead of fixing the problem the other operators have done the same thing in return. Sure it looks great for the operators to drag home hardware for their teams but in reality it's terrible business to have people who really are novice or advanced coming to these things and being drilled year after year by masters sandbagging. Sooner or later they just don't come back.
I just don't understand why putting players into divisions where they belong is such a terrible thing, wouldn't it balance the tournaments and make a more competitive environment for the players that are correctly placed in their divisions.
Just my $0.02
Our local operators run the Western Canadian VNEA championships every year and for many years the teams from Winnipeg would slip through the cracks and end up dominating divisions with stacked teams. We knew it, they knew and other operators knew it and instead of fixing the problem the other operators have done the same thing in return. Sure it looks great for the operators to drag home hardware for their teams but in reality it's terrible business to have people who really are novice or advanced coming to these things and being drilled year after year by masters sandbagging. Sooner or later they just don't come back.
I just don't understand why putting players into divisions where they belong is such a terrible thing, wouldn't it balance the tournaments and make a more competitive environment for the players that are correctly placed in their divisions.
Just my $0.02
