Until Aurora, we were never getting much traction with pro trophy-only. Not sure why Aurora was different. So before Aurora, I started thinking about other reduced entry fee concepts that might increase participation in the pro divisions. This is the idea I�ve been kicking around in my head recently. It would be instead of offering trophy-only in pro divisions:

Half-In

The player who is half-in pays � the normal entry fee for the pro division he or she is playing. If he or she cashes, he or she gets one-half what was to be paid to the spot. The remainder is paid up.

Paying up Rules

If only one half-in player cashes, his remainder is paid to the highest finishing full-in player. If more than one half-in player cashes, their shares are paid largest share to highest finishing full-in player, next largest to next highest finishing full-in player. If more half-in players should cash than full-in players, use the same procedure and then start at the top again. If all cashing players are half-in, pay their halves down to the highest finishing full-in players. If all players are half-in, pay them in full and reduce your friggin� entry fees next time!

Half-in Procedure

The purse is based on total entry fees minus whatever you typically deduct plus your added cash. Payout according to the number of players in the field counting half-ins as a full player.

Bag the payout as normal but be sure to make each envelope easily split in two. On the leader board card there needs to be a prominent place to write �. I would use a leader board card for one more round than you are playing, and write � large in the next to last cell. If the half-in scenario shakes out really simple, you can do it on the fly, �Coming in third place getting $220, Brett Comincioli. But wait! Brett was half-in. So we�ll just take $110 out of Brett�s baggie and hold it for our first place winner.� If it involves more than one half-in cashing player, or if there is any paying down because half-in wins, or if you are easily confused, sort it out before you start the awards.

For TD report purposes your entry fee will be reported as the average entry fee. This is funky, but this is how trophy-only worked before the PDGA began supporting it.

Rationale

Half-in is intended to be used in lieu of trophy-only. It has the same purpose as trophy-only, to bring in the players who are playing up, testing the waters, a little short of cash, recovering from an injury, etc. I think it would have more drawing power than trophy-only because the reduced entry fee players still have an opportunity to cash. It could be used in conjunction with the new Am Taking Prizes in Pro rule.

This is easier to administer than the side bet or super-pool systems where the super-pool pays an extra amount and then plays for that and there are two payouts for one division.

It offers a good comeuppance to the [censored] pro: Dude, if you win or finish high beating the half-in players you get a nice bonus. They don�t see that bonus with the trophy-only system; they tend to see it as money out of the pool. This way the bonus from the reduced fee player is immediately visible as it goes to someone specific.

Half in also allows a TD to increase his entry fee and decrease it too. For example, a $40 C-tier pro entry fee could be increased to $50 with a $25 half-in. That should make the players who want to pay more happy and the players who want to pay less.

So there's my idea. Pick it apart. Drag it through the mud. :D

If the PDGA's history with divisional multiplication is any guide, "half-in" would quickly spawn "quarter-in", then "3/16-in", etc., culminating in any "pro" (and I use that word extremely loosely) being able to set his own ante (also known as an entry fee in some circles) to his heart's content.

Bruce,

Interesting idea:

As I see it (as an unskilled am player who will only ever donate to an open division), I see the following:

Pros
<ul type="square"> Upper division advanced bagging: Those marginal "Expert" division players may be more willing to try and play up to test their skills.
Lower level players: you will encourage players with lower skills to possible play up in division, similar to the trophy only concept, with the bonus of if they perform well, they are not simply donating.
Non-members: The non-members can be encouraged to play in the higher divisions by the possibility of payout and you are providing an method to possibly prevent the bagging non-member player from not playing. [/list] Cons:
<ul type="square"> The potential difficulty on the TD reports, as mentioned.

For TD report purposes your entry fee will be reported as the average entry fee. This is funky, but this is how trophy-only worked before the PDGA began supporting it.


Ams playing with pros: Some ams (myself as an example) may take the opportunity to play with the pros and the pros may become frustrated by having to play with players that do not belong in that division.
Entire field of Open-half ins. (not sure if this is a con, but it is a risk).
Slightly larger delays to get to the pro payouts, as I would not think it prudent to go to presentation without an accurate accounting. (Also, how do you deal with odd ties and splits with the multiple half ins?).
[/list] All in all, I think the concept is manageable. The negatives in my mind are fairly minor (as I played both the open and intermediate at Northwoods and I do not think I slowed down the pros too much, but I would say that would need to be on a case by case basis). I think the TD who would try this, would need to be adept enough to have a payout spreadsheet capable of adapting to this process pretty well.

Just .02 (or would that be .01)

Steve

Here's another idea, although I like yours also.

How about if your not a pro registered member, then you only pay entry into the pro spot for what the cost of you rated division would be.

Ex.
Open 50.00
Am 1 40.00
Am2 30.00

So if an Am2 would play open he would only have to pay his normal 30.00 fee and test the waters. Then if he feels good enough to start playing Pro next year he would be a pro PDGA member and have to pay the normal fee.

Staged entry fees have been proposed in various formats several times. But the mechanics of doing this on a global basis would be daunting. And those like Matt Hall who have worked hard to get to 1000 rating have sense that it's unfair that they pay higher entry fees because they are better even though the logic of lower rated players getting to place an entry fee "wager" relative to thier skill level makes sense on some level.

The half-in sounds a lot like a bonus pool in addition to regular entry. Only those in the pool are eligible for the bonus payout. The number of spots paid are different as well as the amounts you could win, but at least with the bonus more of the full paid players would be likely to win a part of the pot.

Staged entry fees have been proposed in various formats several times. But the mechanics of doing this on a global basis would be daunting. And those like Matt Hall who have worked hard to get to 1000 rating have sense that it's unfair that they pay higher entry fees because they are better even though the logic of lower rated players getting to place an entry fee "wager" relative to thier skill level makes sense on some level.



I know it may not sound 10% fair, but if the pro's want a bigger field, then this may get it. Why else would an Am2 or lower step up to pro, but to have fun and not cost them a cent more then playing in there own division.

Heck, I know pro's in the mid and lower 900's that just donate al the time, but thats not the norm. The price of admission is to high compared to the ratings based divisions to lure to many people up to pro as it is now.

What if all divisions costed the same amount to enter? Wonder what division people would play in..

The Trophy Only option is already available and set up for TDs to handle it in the TD report for payouts and reporting. I believe we pioneered the trophy only in MN as an option right after the PDGA said that Ams couldn't win merch playing in pro (I'm thinking around year 2000). In our case, the T.O. entry fee is one third of the fee that's the base of payouts in the pro division.

What if all divisions costed the same amount to enter? Wonder what division people would play in..


good question

for me its the size, toughness, and personality of the field, combined with my reasons for playing that weekend

The half-in sounds a lot like a bonus pool in addition to regular entry. Only those in the pool are eligible for the bonus payout. The number of spots paid are different as well as the amounts you could win, but at least with the bonus more of the full paid players would be likely to win a part of the pot.

I've seen and run bonus pools for pros and ams. They are a keister ache. Very hard to administer on the fly. They slow things down way too much and pretty much require another volunteer. Based on the number of trophy-only players who finish above the cash line at our tournaments, half-in would be easier to administer than a bonus pool. One half-in player is going to cash and pay up to first occasionally. One cashing half-in is easy to do on the fly. Two I could handle. Three and I'd need help from Krupicka.

What if all divisions costed the same amount to enter? Wonder what division people would play in..


good question

for me its the size, toughness, and personality of the field, combined with my reasons for playing that weekend

Byron Big D Doubles fills every year. All four ratings based divisions cost the same, and that's it -- we only offer four divisions. It makes the whole process a lot easier for the TDs.

I wonder if our large rec fees keep rec players away, but there is nothing I can do about it. In order to cover the cost of the green fees and still have generous player packs and payouts, we have to charge what we do.

Another crazy idea... What if Open had the lowest entry fee and all the added cash? Then if you wanted to play in a special division that included only people older than 40, only ams, only mediocre ams, only beginner ams, etc, you pay double the Open fee &amp; play for each other's money only.

Staged entry fees have been proposed in various formats several times. But the mechanics of doing this on a global basis would be daunting. And those like Matt Hall who have worked hard to get to 1000 rating have sense that it's unfair that they pay higher entry fees because they are better even though the logic of lower rated players getting to place an entry fee "wager" relative to thier skill level makes sense on some level.



Hey, I commend Bruce for pursuing such a thing. It is progress. I support a concept where players are allowed to enter at a fee relative to the rating, but are eligible for full payout (the alternative Matt rightly criticised as punishing better players). I support it because it is a step in the right direction.

However, what Bruce is proposing is even better. I understand his proposal as limiting the payout of those entering for less. It's like the wagering at the track: you might bet $2 to get $6, but if you bet $4, you get $12.

I doubt many people should be opposed to this idea on any equity grounds.

in the age of spreadsheets and such, i don't think this should be such a logistical problem.

Ties are not a problem. Currently what you do for ties is the tied cash is added together and divided by the number tied. So now the tied cash is added together and divided by the number tied. But if you were half-in, you get a half share and the rest is paid up to the full-in players.

An entire field of half-ins is not a problem, but you would get a funny result if you had a predominantly half-in field and the full-ins finished in the last couple of spots. I've seen funny results like that with trophy-only. One time all five women pros played trophy only and they were amateurs, so we paid them out in a jumbo toss at the end. Another time 34 of the 36 advanced players [something close to that] played trophy-only, and the two full-ins were at the bottom of the field, rec players playing up.

If you had a lot of cashing half-ins, you'd have to take the time to re-do your pro payouts. That would be a pain.

Mr 1/2-in wins the tournament. Where does the money go?

half of the normal payout would go to him and the rest added to the person in 2nd place.
So If the payout was $100 to first and $60 to second, the half-in at first place would get $50, the second player (full in) would get $60+$50=$110.

Krupicka is correct. The highest finishing full-in should get the cash declined by the highest finishing half-in. The next highest finishing full-in should get the cash declined by the next highest finishing half-in.

do/would you bump a half-in player if a full-in player wants to sign up after the event is full?

If he's a walk up, no way. He should have either pre-reg'd or dragged his sorry behind out of bed and gotten their earlier.

ok, makes sense for walkups the day of the event. what about 10 days before the event?

I'm not bumping anybody, anytime. People who paid early wanted to play more than the guy who wanted to keep his options open, wait for the five-day weather forecast, maybe see if he couldn't carpool to some other tournament with more added cash. Snooze you lose.

I really like this idea but I wish the trophy-only option was around more.

After six years of running the trophy-only option, I think it works great for amateurs playing in amateur divisions. It works o.k. for amateurs who want to play pro for cheap. Now that we have the Ams Taking Prizes in Pro rule, I would think Half-In would be more powerful to attract ams up to the pro divisions. It also might bring in some of the pros who cannot afford to wager $40 or $50 this weekend.

I don't understand why more TDs who are not filling their tournaments don't offer trophy-only options. But that has always been to their detriment. Some players they should be getting are playing our tournaments instead.

Might be easier on the TD if you add up all the half in left overs then divide it over all the full ins evenly. This would also be easier to code in an excel spreadsheet. You could round down to the dollar, and take the leftovers and add that to first.

Say 12 cashing spots, 2 1/2 ins. The 2 half ins were to be paid $80 and $40. THey get $40 and $20 respectively. That adds $60/10 = $6 to all the full in payouts.

Again with harder numbers:

17 cashing spots, 4 half ins. 4 half ins were to win $250, $100, $84, $36. That's 125,50,42,18. Now that becomes 235, split to 13 spots. That's $18.07 extra per payout. Round that to $18 per person, and the remaining $0.91 rounded up to $1 goes to first. First gets an extra $19 and the 12 other full ins each get $18.

I think that added payout into the deeper spots would tease more halflings into becoming pure-bred pros.

Payouts are easy, because you have two pots of money. If you have 20 pros and 8 are 1/2 in and the costs are $50 and $25. Then split the money into 2 pots, 1 pot that all 20 are playing for (20 x 25 = $500 also subtract expenses from this pot) and 1 pot that only the 12 all in players are playing for (12 x 25 = $300) (Also, do your added cash proportionally to each pot). Do your payout calculations for each pot based on the number of players. Then do your awards ceremony backwards for simplicity. If first place is in both gets give him first place money from both pots, if he is only 1/2 in he only gets the first place money from that pot. Then, move onto second and give him the best place for any pot he is eligible for. And so on.

Bobsted's idea is basically what the MDGO did in 2001 or 2002, whenever we did that. I was trying to avoid a system that requires you to juggle two payouts to one division. I've done that, and it is confusing. For me it would be a lot easier to take the one or two half-ins who cash and give their halves to the top full-ins.

I've seen with trophy-only that the right bunch of players get in on the cheap. Even when we have ten or twelve of them in for trophy-only in Advanced, only a couple finish above last prizes. So I don't think too many half-ins will cash.

By giving their money to the top cashing pros, you eliminate any resentment that some are getting in on the cheap. If you spread it out over the field, it does not have the same impact.

Bobsted's idea is basically what the MDGO did in 2001 or 2002, whenever we did that. I was trying to avoid a system that requires you to juggle two payouts to one division. I've done that, and it is confusing. For me it would be a lot easier to take the one or two half-ins who cash and give their halves to the top full-ins.

I've seen with trophy-only that the right bunch of players get in on the cheap. Even when we have ten or twelve of them in for trophy-only in Advanced, only a couple finish above last prizes. So I don't think too many half-ins will cash.

By giving their money to the top cashing pros, you eliminate any resentment that some are getting in on the cheap. If you spread it out over the field, it does not have the same impact.



The only reason I was thinking spreading it over the CASHING portion of the field would be helpful is it makes those last cash places more desirable , which I think, would tempt more of those top advanced/expert players into playing up. The big payout at the top is what draws people from all over the state into playing your tournaments, but the experienced ams all notice what those bottom cash payouts are. Most of em realize that that's where they're going to be shooting for/starting, so the better those are, the more likely they'd be to move up.

It all sounds like good stuff. Can a Half-in (I like the sound of half-ling...) pay the total entry fee after day one / round one? Lets say they rip it up and find themselves winning the field - can that person decide on the fly to move up permanently in order to collect their entire payout? It makes sense to me, since the whole idea is to encourage more pro players - but is it fair to those who paid full from the get-go?

Ron,

To me, that would be patently unfair to the full-in pros. That is the risk-reward scenario of this option.
Steve