beach: Thank you for your homily. You will see from my profile that I joined this site about 2 weeks after you did, and have been playing here for a little over 12 years. During that time I have had a paid membership for about three years, and informed Fencer that I would renew my paid membership when he implemented a sensible autopass feature in BG. Sadly, his response was "can't be bothered" so hence I have declined to renew my paid membership. Before you tell me that there is an autopass feature, think about how much better it COULD be.

I am not actually fussed about winning or losing the tournament. As I said, I am 75 years old now, and if it goes on for another 5 years, I might well be dead, and then it will take another 7 years or so for me to time out before the next round can begin. In the end the winner will be the player who outlives all the others! What a great result THAT would be!! I am NOT upset, and it is not restricting me from playing and enjoying games. It just seems to me that taking NINE years to complete a Backgammon tournament, whatever the parameters, is just bloody ridiculous.

If less people are signing up for tournaments, maybe this is one of the reasons!