Thursday, March 06, 2008

Doeberl Crew Demands Payment

These Doeberl Cup guys are starting to scare me! For the first time in my life, I've received a dunning notice for an event entry fee. This note was the last thing I expected.

You are currently registered for the 2008 Doeberl Cup Major event, but our records indicate that you have not yet secured your place. To do this, please submit your registration fee as soon as possible. If you have already sent your payment by mail, please reply with the date your payment was posted.

Not even the TCG gets the trust and lovin'. OK, so I'll pay up first thing tomorrow.

All this strict management of the event don't really bother me much. But I know of at least one other player, who's played in numerous Doeberls, who won't make it this year. The poor guy is pissed off! He missed the premiere section deadline, but also the rating cut-off. Just play in the major, I tell him. Nope, he says, reasoning that there's not much point in forking out a few hundred dollars for the trip when he can't play good competitive games.

Tough luck, but that's one regular customer gone.

As for the current list of entries, the premiere section now has 90 players listed and three wait-listed. One of those 3 is none other than Arianne Caoili. Now we don't know if the ex-dance starlet will apply for a berth in this year's Australian women's Olympiad team. If she's planning to, then she'll need the games in Doeberl (plus in at least two other tournaments) if she's going to meet this new 20-game requirement.

And by the way, anyone wishing that a certain 2700-rated player would drop in sometime during chess festivities will be sorely disappointed. The guy is listed as a participant in Melody Amber.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

i heard levon aronyan is coming after melody amber TCG - shouldn't the acf do something about this opportunity

Anonymous said...

I am sure there will be a few who will be put off by the new look Doeberl. However maybe the dozens of people who hang around chess tournaments waiting hours past scheduled start times, while last second entries are taken and payments made, might appreciate it.

Also if the guy can't make the rating cutoff for the premier, he must be under 1800. If he is under 1800 and thinks he won't get competitive games in the major, he must be seriously under rated.There are a number of under1600 juniors playing in it, who I think will give really tough games (and I predict will win more than their fair share). :)

Jenni

Anonymous said...

Who wants customers that pay late?

DeNovoMeme said...

Jenni: (and I predict will win more than their fair share)

DNM: EXACTLY! More than their fair share.
More
than
their
fair
share.
Why is it that juniors can pay a concession rate (about 60%) but their winnings are not reduced accordingly to 60%. The other 40% could be pushed toward the 4th, 5th and 6th best performances.

Anonymous said...

Hi TCG,

I havent met you yet, but laughed at the image I saw of Nyssa who sent you the email as scary - you will probably meet her at Easter. However payment allows us to confirm player entries. With entries for all tournaments closing on the 19th, the pairings will be published when this occurs giving players the opportunity to prepare for round one knowing that if their opponent (who will have paid) arrives that is who they will be playing. No shows will be managed by pairing players who also have had a no show.

As the organisers of this years Doeberl, and for at least the next four we saw some things that we really wanted to improve for the Cup and realised as a consequence that we will not satisfy all potential customers.

We saw that Doeberl Cup needed the following:
1. To be a good Quality Tournament.
2. To redress the fact that Australian Players lack local opportunities to gain norms
3. To build something that Sponsors will feel that they have got value out of and hence will come back for next year.

The Premier Event is a tricky issue. If you allow too many lower rated players in then you decrease the opportunity for the mid range players to score IM and GM norms. However, exclude lower rated players and you make it an elitist field. We tried to find a middle ground by providing players rated over 1800 FIDE or ACF an opportunity to register until we filled 80 slots (1 November until mid february these registrations were open). The additional 20 have gone to strengthen the field and have been provided to players not eligible for the Major. A number of players eligible for the Major who requested to play the Premier following the cutoff have since registered in the Major.

We have invested alot of time and money into this tournament because we believe in chess. For those of you who believe in Chess come and help us celebrate it because I dream of a Doeberl Tournament with 500 players who come to celebrate this great game.

Thanks,

Charles

Anonymous said...

Ha! I rest my case! I have been saying for years that chess males can't read.

Matt - have a look at the Doeberl prize list. No rating group prizes exist, except medallions, which I requested so that someone (adult or junior), performing above their rating could get some recognition.

In the major all the prize money is for those finishing in the top 6. Medallions cost next to nothing, so 97% of the money is going to the top 6 finishers.

So looking at the profile of entries in the Major and allowing for the discount, juniors are paying roughly 22% of the money and getting 3% back (and that is if only juniors win medallions, which is probably not true, although I haven't allowed for a junior finishing in the top 6, because I think it is unlikely).

There are some special monetary prizes for juniors in the Premier, but that is private sponsorship by Baldev Bedi, who has always had an interest in Junior chess.

Jenni

DeNovoMeme said...

iJenni: "Ha! I rest my case! I have been saying for years that chess males can't read. "

DNM(Matt): Ha! I rest my case! I have been saying for years that women can't cannot see past the giant piles of washing they still haven't done. ;-)

I went to the Doeberl Home site and I cannot see the column labelled "Jnr/Snr." for all I know the whole lot of the Major entrants could have been juniors (or seniors.) What concerns me is that you are happy to cite 22% Jnr in that division - *which is a defacto ratings prize group* - but neglect to say they only contribute 15% of the prize money for that rating group. That is my point.

You may say, iJenni, that these little buggers have little change of bagging a prize, but that is irrelevant because could say the same about every player who is not near the top of the list.

On a happier note, it appears that your ACT brat pack with ratings >1400 have scurried off, out of (my) Minor group to the Major looking to attain a FIDE rating high than their current idiot-Glicko under-rating.

See you at the Doeberl :-)

Anonymous said...

Hmm - Matt your arguement reeks of sophistry. :) For a start there are not 22% juniors in the major - it is more like 33%, the 22% allowed for the smaller payment....
(There might not be a snr/jnr column, but Australia is a pretty small chess community - not hard to know who the juniors are for someone like me.)

Your arguement might have some validity in other competitions (depending on your point of view), but it really doesn't at Doeberl, with the revamped prize structure. If you take the Premier into account, where juniors pay the same fee as adults and where a huge % of the adults get in for free because they are titled (but once again will scoop up all the prizes), the ratios go even more in the seniors favour.

Anyway don't have time to argue much - all that washing to do...

I will leave on a warning though - all the > 1400 ACT juniors might have scuttled off in search of glory in higher divisions, but beware juniors such as Andrew Farley, Thomas Feng (Vic) and the angelic assassin Megan Setiabudi.

See you at Doeberl :)

Jenni

Anonymous said...

I hope I don't have to play an angelic assassin!?

Anonymous said...

Looking at the updated list of entries in the minor, I have to admit that in my opinion juniors are the favorites. Juniors like Emma Guo, Sophie Eustace, Joshua Dalton should be rated 1700+. Adults will need a lot of luck to win this section.

drug