You guys are right about the things you mentioned
(tables, lights, no smoking). However, since Griffin
runs the BCA now and he's involved with diamond, it's
not really up to Bruce and co. to select the tables.
It's also not up to Bruce to choose non-smoking
either. As you may or may not recall, the BCA events
(even at TI) have been non-smoking for several years
now, as are BCA nationals.

Personally, I have higher standards for tournament
direction and setup. My major complaint were with
some of the items that are directly under the
influence of the tournament director:

* As Billy pointed out, table spacing was cramped
and seating was extremely limited. Along those
same lines, there were large sections with
unused tables during the team event, while all
the teams were compressed onto the lowest
numbered tables.

* We had to wait until 4:30 (actually, we had
to wait for Kim to finish her match!) before
we could get singles checks. Apparently, she's
the only person who could print out checks of
the 4 or 5 people Bruce had helping.

* Tournament bracket updating was WAY behind.
Men's AA final bracket was not updated until
the tourney was over. Every other singles or
team bracket was at least 2 rounds behind.
Seems a pretty simple thing to print out a
new sheet and tack it up on the wall.

* Not something that affected me personally,
but the trophy/plaque thing seemed quite odd
also - was there a scotch doubles tourney and
I missed it???

Minor stuff maybe, but these are the things I've come
to expect at a well-run tourney. I guess the bar has
been set pretty high by other tournament directors.

Thankfully, Bruce didn't try to run the singles and
team events concurrently, so it was a step forward as
far as that goes.

I agree with the non smoking thing. It was great to not have red dry eyes by the end of the night. The tables were great. It would have been nice to have more chairs & tables to sit at when you weren't shooting. A better choice of food would have been good. These are all just suggestions, not really complaints.
I agree with Mark about the Scotch Doubles, when did this come about? That was odd that it was announced during the tournament. which players thought it was a mini. They got money & trophies? Wow.....

The mini mixed scotch doubles events qualififed the teams for the Sunday mixed tourney. There was not a seperate mixed tourney other than that.

The Scotch Doubles evidently was for players that lost out of the tournament. How come they didn't have a scotch scheduled?

I'm afraid that I do not know the answer to that.

I think they did not announce it fearing that there would not be time to play it and it would interfere with the other tournaments. I had only thought the mini singles were minis and not qualifiers for Sunday's singles.

Unfortunately, they were held during the round robin for the women's teams so that eliminated any of the women playing team from playing mixed scotch.

Yes, agreed there is room for improvement. Isn't there always? T.I. was not smoke free? The only reason this was a smoke free event was because the ban hit Minneapolis at the end of March. There was a glitch in the programming of the boards so that was bad, certainly were good to answer any questions on start times. Vending food was a bummer, Hotel took that over. Even threw out a vendor we had come in. I played in both events and it ran very timely, only one instance that I noticed a 30 minute delay. The alcohol in the room itself was bottom shelf, it was easy to bring down your own drinks or beers though.
I had a great time playing in this event as always, tournament direction was fine. For this event that most thought would never happen I would say hats off and I look forward to 1st not 2nd next year.

I am looking forward to a 1st rather than 2nd next year also.

some thought should be given to calling singles matches on the table sin between pillars rather than team matches. I saw a couple of instances where the teams were playing inbetween the pillars and the singles were on the four tables that had seating. Would make it better if that were taken into account - And I think I am going to sic my cardiac rehab nurses on the Hyatt for the menu selections :)

The weekend went pretty well overall, had a lot of fun, and things were run pretty smoothly. Nonsmoking is always a perk, too.

I just had one question...what is the reasoning behind the women's open singles matches only being races to three? I'm pretty new to all of this, and maybe it's been that way in the previous years, but it seems kind of ridiculous to me, and we certainly didn't have a shortage of tables. Any thoughts?

agn