I think the big difference in the last 2 years is explosion in overall numbers of events, and the success in terms of players attending the "new" 3-game 1-day format events. These are a big part of the scene now, so it just feels "right" to me that they should count in some way.timmy1 wrote:It used to be 6 competitions that qualified. There were 3 gradations of competition. 2 years ago we (Dave R, The BHGS Committee and myself) reviewed the rankings and determined that 90% of the participants were taking part in 4 or fewer competitions. Changing to 4 competitions qualified seemed to get a better spread of participation and brought a wider ranger of players in with a chance of making the top 10. That is why I disagree with making the changes proposed.
I led the process of having the FoGR rankings count all rounds of leagues as qualifying results. However having had it expressed that some people felt that discouraged taking off the wall armies in some rounds, and to make it more consistent for the people who play both FoGAM and FoGR, I was willing to offer to do it which ever of the two ways the majority of people wanted. It would have been a lot easier for me to carry on as before but I presented both methods for people to choose from. The Scotch league have already request that only their final position counts as a qualifying result for 2014.
As of the ranking year to last November, 27 people completed 6 or more events last year, and 30 completed 5 or more - and I'd guess that when the rankings are updated to "today" that number will be materially higher still. Even at 27/30, that means that setting it at 5 events will allowing 1 in 4 of all UK players to (potentially) get a full ranking. Which I think is probably an OK proportion.
If it remains at 4, and the "bigger" events count for a lot more ranking points anyway, the 1-day events (and the Derby team event, and any doubles etc) become almost irrelevant for anyone who does Roll Call, Britcon, Warfare & Challenge. So, bumping it up to 5 would catch at least one of those events too in the net.
Having hundreds of tiers I would suggest is just risking it all getting too complicated for something that is meant as a bit of fun at the end of the day - but thats down to the willingness and the workload of the poor sod who has to do them... . !
Britcon and Challenge could probably sit in one tier as they have "more than 4" games, then 4-game proper events (8+ or 10+ players?), then everything else (doubles, 3-gamers, smaller 4-gamers and anything where the draw isn't done on individual scores each round - like Derby (I think?))
