Subject: Texas Semi-Pro Facts and More
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 16:05:28 -0500
From: The Mad Hatter <hatter@hub.ofthe.net>
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

Frank, these are a few facts and notes that I would like to post in
reply to those who have responded to my article. 

I. Facts:

        In reply to Hubble's "For one, I believe the Semi-Pro Tour is ending
because there is literally no way to make a profit. Hatter told me
himself he lost $5,500 on the last Semi-PT, and I don't expect him to
ever make any money off of it."

        Facts: In any business you have a period of time early on where the
money invested is much greater than what you're getting out of it, and
if you end the business at that point, then you will lose a lot of
money. This is what happened and I did lose a lot of money. I am not
bitter because it was a conscious decision on my part. The first three
rounds of the Texas Semi-Pro Tour were going to lose money, and then I
would start breaking even and/or making money in the fourth round. I
ended it at the worst time possible for myself, but it was the soonest
that I could after I came to several realizations. And, yes the
T.S.P.Tour _could_ make me money because I had 120 seats to sell and the
prize money only required 90 of them.

        In reply to Mason Peatross's "He is quitting for one reason: he is
losing money".

        Facts: See above.

        In reply to Mason Peatross's "He also gave away free entry to the
tourney if your rating was above 1850".

        Facts: I did not give those seats out. WOTC and I had worked out a deal
where they bought the seats because they liked the tournament idea. It
would not be possible for me to give away 18 seats to a guaranteed money
tournament. WOTC did not purchase the seats for the second round, hence,
no 1850 and higher seats.

        In reply to Mason Peatross's "I qualified at a Hatter run qualifier
held in Austin. Here is where I realized what a moron he is. The
tournament had 60+ players, and he ran it as double elimination with no
preset time limits".

        Facts: There were 74 players that day. I did run it Double-elimination
which is a good format. The no preset time limit, however, was _not_
good and, yes, moronic. It is a mistake which I will not repeat.
Nevertheless, we were done within 9 hours, which was right about what a
modified Swiss would have taken. With the normal time limits,
double-elimination is much faster.

        In reply to Mason Peatross's "He neglected to mention that at his VERY
poorly planned prerelease, he had like 400 people breaking the fire code
in a resort in BFE where rooms charged 80$ per person" (Emphasis his).

        Facts: It was actually 470 people who played. WOTC only tells (the
Tournament Organizers) about 4 months ahead of time who is getting a
pre-release and where. We have no choice as to what city to put it in or
on what weekend. Hence, if we get a bad weekened (in this case, Mardi
Gras Weekend _and_ the weekend after Valentine's day) and a difficult
city to find space in (in this case, Austin), we are stuck trying to
make the best of a bad situation without the usual 6 month lead time
that the hotels and convention centers want and need. I worked like mad
and quickly, and the site that we had was _all_ that there was to be
had. The convention center was completely booked with a bridal
convention (weekend after Vanlentine's Day) and everything else (what
little there is in Austin) was booked up with weddings and the usual
conventions that got pushed out of Louisiana by Mardi Gras. I got the
best/only place left. Period. Also, the place would have been fine for
up to the 350 that we were expecting. However, the numbers for
Stronghold blew away all records for even Pre-Releases (Columbus, Ohio
got almost 1,000) and everybody had kinks in their system when several
hundred extra people showed up. WOTC was flabbergasted by this trend as
all of their info had pointed to a small turnout for Stronghold. Also,
this was the only modern time that WOTC had put only one Pre-Release in
Texas. They will never make that mistake again. During the Pre-Release,
I recieved both a lot of complaints and a lot of compliments about how
it was handled given the situation. As to exactly how well or poorly it
was run, that is a matter of personal opinion so I will not comment on
that here.

        In reply to Mason Peatross's "Hatter is lying. Tournaments can and do
bring in everyone, as long as you run them the right way".

        Facts: "The right way" is incredibly qualatative so I can't touch that.
However, "everyone" is not. The Dallas qualifier which I Head-Judged
under Glen Goddard (T.O.) was run extremely well, and had only 75
players. I am not lying; the facts prove the point, and I never lie.

        In reply to John Yossarian's "forgive me if i mischaracterize you, but
your article leaves me with the impression that you are a greedy,
manipulative man who relies on the popularity of the game of magic to
fill his pockets through his store and tournaments, and not a player who
has ever done extremely well at competitive tournaments as a player.
certainly you wish to promote an enviornment in which there are many
cards sold (including at your store) and many tournaments played
(including ones you profit by)"(non-capitilization of "i" and "magic"
his).

        Facts: I am not a greedy man. Anyone who knows me knows this. If I were
greedy, I would have continued the T.S.P.Tour regardless of
consequences. When I ran the Regionals two years ago, I charged $10 to
play (knowing I would lost money) when everybody else charged $15-$20 or
more, just so everybody who wanted to _could_ play. Of course I wish to
make a little money, I own a gaming store that I built around Magic.
However, most of my ventures have been philantropic. I have run many,
many tournaments at a loss until I could no longer afford to run them. I
have spent thousands of dollars travelling all over to tournaments just
to judge and improve my judging skills. I am now greatly in debt due to
Magic, only because I was trying to help, when I could have sat back and
let "somebody else" do it. Also, of course, I want to promote an
enviornment in which there are many cards sold- most of which will not
be at my store, and many tournaments played- most of which will not be
mine. I do this, partly because I do benefit a little from it
businesswise down the long haul, but, mostly, because I love the game.
If I did not believe in and love Magic so much, I would have quit
judging, Tournament Organizing, and promoting a long time ago. You get a
lot of hell on this end.
You are correct, however, that I have never done extremely well at a
competitive level. This is absolutely true. While, once in awhile, I
pull off some amazing feats, I generally do poorly because I prefer to
play for fun.

        In reply to John Yossarian's "i think your 'concern' for magic players
was most strikingly shown by the fact that the 1996 texas regionals were
held in the admittedly player-inconvenient city of Lubbock simply
because it was convenient for you, the organizer who lived
there"(non-capitiliztion of "i", "magic", "texas" and "regionals" his).

        Facts: When I bid on the 1996 Texas Regionals, I did so based off of
the 1995 Regionals map. In 1995, Houston was the site of the Texas
Regionals, and it was in the far corner of the Region which included
Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Oaklahoma. Lubbock was in the middle of
the Region, and would have been a much better site that year. Thus, I
bid for next year. After the bidding process, but before the winners
were chosen, they switched the maps on the Regions. As a result,
Lubbock, was in the far corner, and no longer the middle. I was suprised
when they gave me the bid, because one of my reasonings in my bid was my
central placement based on the 1995 map. I asked them if they still
wanted me to do it, despite this fact, and they said "yes". The bid was
to run it in Lubbock, so I did what I said that I would do. To the best
of my knowledge, I could not have changed the venue after making the
bid. Unfortunately, the map had gotten changed on me and I was powerless
against that. My "concern" was shown by the price that I charged (see
above) which pleasantly suprised many people.

        In response to John Yossarian's "i found it ironic that your article
was posted on the dojo, where players attempt to pass wisdom and
experience to the novices, so that they might become better magic
players" (non-capitilization of "i" and "magic" his).

        Fact: I did not post or submit my article to the dojo. Somebody else
took the article in its entirety off of my website and submitted it
without my permission.

        In response to John Yossarian's "i think that you know this: you
suggest tournaments where there is a ratings cap of 1700 or 1800, so
that the entrants won't have to fear the GOOD players. as a side note
about that, i think that this would just result in a new hierarchy of
1650s who dominate every <1700 tournament and so on" (non-capitalization
of "i", "as", and "i" as well as emphasis his).

        Facts: The system would include a flag, so that once you had surpassed
1725, then you could never play in a 1700 and lower tournament again.
This would prevent somebody from dropping below 1700 on purpose just to
play in those style tournaments. Also, think about it. If a player does
well at a couple of tournaments like that, then they will hit the next
flag level and they would no longer be able to play in that level of
tournament.

II. Notes

        It was nice to see, aside from one or two relatively hostile replies,
that most people were willing to offer some great constructive criticism
of the Pro-Tour and the tournament scene in general. There were several
really great points made:

        "The DCI HAS ruined magic for fun players." (Emphasis his.)
                                -Mason Peatross

        "Sidebar- for those tournament players who think that they are the
reason WOTC exists, think of this. How much money do you spend on Magic
at card shops? I bet almost none. YOU DO NOT SUPPORT WOTC. Scrubs
support WOTC. End of Sidebar." (Emphasis his.)
                                -Mason Peatross

        "The growing competitiveness of Magic is due to players wanting to take
their skill to the next level."
                                -Hubble
                Note: Yes, but why do they want to? To win $25,000. -Hatter

        "Refine the judging program and try to get more qualified and OBSERVANT
juges out there. Maybe PAYING some real money to judges isn't that bad
of an idea." (Emphasis his.)
                                -Hubble

And these quotes were from a couple of the articles that disagreed with
me. I agree that something needs to be done soon. Luckily, I think that
WOTC's heavy advertising and Portal plan is finally paying off (these
things can take awhile to show results). I think that this was shown by
the great numbers at the Stronghold Pre-Releases and the higher
attendances (for the most part) this year at Regionals (Fact: I had
predicted 150 in Dallas, not 250!). I really hope that this carries over
into all aspects of Magic. I also hope that with this new influx of
people, and the (I believe) eventual addition of the 1700 and under
tournaments that the "fun" tournament scene will blossom and thrive. I
will continue to judge and T.O. and work within the system for
everybody, but I will always pay particular attention to and try to do
the "fun" tournaments the most. I will not initiate any big money
tournaments, and I want to do as much as I can for the "fun"
tournaments, which I will later initiate many of.
        For every E-mail that I've gotten cursing me, I've gotten two praising
me for my article. There may be light at the end of the tunnel yet, and
I hope that what we are feeling are simply Magic's "growing pains".
Remember, without these "fun" people playing and buying lots of cards,
there is no WOTC and no Pro-Tour. :)

                                                        The Mad Hatter