Thad -

I had expected this type of thing to happen and it is unfortunate.

I very much disagree with limiting non-members to 1 tournament, especially with the vacation time. Although Kevin has now finished his games, you will be in round 2 of that tournament and still wouldn't be able to play in this tournament. Also, you can be locked out of new tournaments for 3-6 months or more, due to a couple of slow players, even though you would have the game slots available.

I'm going to do something that I've thought about for quite a while. Sometime today, I will send a note to Fencer and recommend that he REMOVE the 1 tournament restriction for non-members BUT to KEEP the 20-GAME restriction.

I realize that this is a business operation but I ALSO feel that a GAME restriction BY ITSELF limits the activity from non-members enough so that the processing power of the site is not bogged down. The TOURNAMENT restriction is not a good one. If non-members aren't able to enter tournaments, then they will just play non-tournament games and the site isn't really saving any 'processing' power. It will also be important to eliminate this restriction if we plan to hold future world championships here. So I will present it as a business case to him.

For those of you who disagree with me on this, please do not make negative comments about non-members and that they should shell out the bucks if they want to play in more than 1 tournament. That is their choice and it's not really the issue here. The issue is that the finish of tournaments can be delayed for a LONG time by just 1 or 2 slow moving players and/or a tournament with a long time control.

I don't want to start any heated debates between members and non-members. I think that all game sites need BOTH types of players and I feel that the non-members are actually excellent 'cheap advertising' for the site because they will frequently bring other players to the site that will become paying members. It's up to the site owner to determine how many games he wants to let them play so that the 'cost' of 'advertising' doesn't become too much.


Gary