WHY CAN’T WE GET IT RIGHT?

By Charles E. Vasoll

At the end of last season I played in one of the APTA sanctioned National Championships. I knew going in that I was going to be "cannon fodder" but just being able to participate and join in the camaraderie of the event was sufficient for me to spend the entry fee. Besides, after getting licked in the first and second rounds, there was always a chance that my team would find another team out there doing the same thing and the level playing field would make for an enjoyable encounter. This is the way our tournaments (generally) have been arranged.

What I mean is that the winning teams continue on by meeting other winning teams and losing teams advance by playing other losing teams. The result of this procedure, barring the occasional upset, is that all teams get a good and fair match on each level of the backdraw and usually even the weakest team is likely to meet another weak team and a competitive match will result. This is not what happened in this National Championship.

This problem usually arises when a draw is made by persons not experienced in this area of a tournament. If the number of entries is not 16, 32, or 64 (a power of 2 to mathematicians) there is a panic. "There will be some "byes", it will be said as if such a situation would "ruin" the event. While it is true that everyone prefers a full draw, if one round in each portion of the tournament must suffer the difficulty of a bye, so be it.

In the event about which I refer, there were less than 16 teams. To solve this dilemma, the maker of the draw from the APTA office (not the local Tournament Chairman) devised a means to avoid the "byes" by throwing back into consolations and reprieves teams that had lost in higher parts of the draw. This lead to teams meeting for a second time in finals of some of the consolations and weaker teams continuing to meet strong teams instead of losing ones.

"Oh, he’s upset because he didn’t win a prize" my detractors are likely to say. Not true. I’ve won more than my share of silver as the finalist in the Consolation Reprieve (also known as "Last Chance".) That is not the issue here.

I am concerned because many of our tournaments are under subscribed. I believe one of the reasons is what happened in this National Championship. Those entries that recognize they have no chance at all of winning the title at stake, enter because they are hoping to have at least one match in which they are competitive. If they don’t get that opportunity, you may not see them in tournaments again.

Likewise, the very talented teams want a "good" match. They really derive very little satisfaction from pounding the underdog. If the final is a "blow out", the prize, no matter how shinny, will be tarnished in their eyes. They may come back the following season because they want to do better, but give them a fight in every match and they will enjoy the tournament much more and be back for more.

We don’t have to keep inventing the "wheel". Walt Peckinpaugh, the tournament guru from Cleveland, prepared a "draw book" for the APTA with all the combinations that can present themselves depending upon the number of entries in a tournament. All that has to be done is follow it and we can "get it right".