From: Tony Salvaggione AOL COM> Date: 7 nov 1996 Subject: Re: Tournaments In a message dated 96-11-07 17:35:18 EST, you write: << During the last 7 years, I've served as the primary promoter and tournament director of the [Washington] DC Shogi Club. Oftentimes, I've directed events involving more than one club as well, such as when the NY Shogi Club or the Chicago Shogi Club have visited our club. Although, at present, we do not have as great a number of players attending as the European shogi organizations, the same sort of problems I anticipate do come up. >> Being from the Chicago shogi club and having visited DC twice, I can say that the information that George has offered has worked very well when we've visited. Our largest entourage out to DC has been six players, so the smaller number may be a plus for keeping "conflicts" to a minimum, but we've all been very happy with the way that the DC club has run both tournaments and informal meetings. The point about pairing as close to similar strengths as possible is especially helpful for some of our Japanese members. We tend to play more coffeehouse type games and, except in cases of the weaker American players, nearly all our club games are played hirate. Some of our Japanese players feel a bit uncomfortable giving handicaps, possibly because we don't play them much, and so haven't looked too much at jooseki. And even this wasn't so much of a complaint as really being a comment of difference between the Japanese and American shogi scenes. It's much easier to find players near your strength in Japan than in the west. Seems kind of a shame, the difficulties experienced at that recent European Shogi event. Are the stakes there that much higher than what I've experienced around the US? I hope you find George's comments and ideas helpful. They've worked well, and those ideas of his that we have used here have also worked well. Tony Salvaggione