How Do You Define A Fair Tournament?

Is it a fair tournament format if the max rating allowed wins a very high percentage of the events run? Is it a fair tournament format if the max rating allowed wins more often than all of the lower ratings combined? Looking at these two statements, an outsider to the game would almost certainly be forced to answer "No, it is not fair".

Yet here in Arizona this is the truth of the situation. Nearly all tournaments are won by a player that holds the max rating allowed, but as all of fellow committee members will attest to, it is not the lower rated players that we hear complaints from the most, it is almost always a mid to high rated player bending our ear about some player that they believe is severely underrated. Doesn't this seem to be a bit out of whack? The highest rated players win the tournaments, yet voice the most complaints!

One scenario that happens repeatedly (and has for over 20 years) is that a lower rated player will shoot a good set or a few good games and soon one of the higher rated players in the tournament will seek out the nearest committee member they can find and start off by asking "Who the f*** rated that guy"? "There is no way he is a __"! This is bull****!

Quite often the player that they are speaking about is a player that has been around the Valley for many years and most of the committee and the rest of the pool playing public would agree that the player is comfortably in the midrange of their particular ranking, but based on the events of the past 20 minutes, the committee member will have to listen to the indignation and clear disgust of the player complaining about the job the committee has done in rating this player.

As witnessed by the early statements of this article, it is very rare that one of these "highly underrated" players actually goes on to win the tournament or even cash. However, when the player cools off a bit, I can not remember one instance when the indignant higher rated player ever came back and told me "Gee, I guess he was just running hot, sorry for jumping the gun with my 20 minute analysis and showing my contempt for all of you knuckleheads on the committee".

The point that I really want to make here is that higher rated players have the best of it in tournaments even with the handicap system, so even if you think a player may be underrated, stop acting like someone just ran over your dog. Now, I don't want to give you the impression that committee members are unapproachable, but I do want to tell you that you should stop and give it some time before you come running over to us with a 20 minute analysis. I am getting older and have less time on this earth than ever before, so believe me when I say that I do not want to spend any of it listening to reactionary statements from folks that jump to conclusions, or bring up the subject of other players ratings with a presumptive air of the committee's incompetence. I will gladly listen to clear, concise, considered opinions based on several outings of a player, but please spare me the "I just lost to a lower rated player so he must not be rated right" speech.

I believe I speak for most of the committee members on this subject, but even if some of them do like to listen to rant after rant, it will do you no harm to hold off on the rant until you have gathered an appropriate amount of info. As for myself, the Chairman, I hope I have been clear. Speak to me calmly and without an air of judgment about you, or don't bother me because life is too short.

Thank you,
Mike O'Hara