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Subject: Re: Is this true?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 21:22:42 07/31/01

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On July 31, 2001 at 23:25:29, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>>
>Apparently I stuck my foot in it.  I will contact you via email and explain in
>more detail.
>
>bruce


Sorry, but no you didn't "step in it".  It is somewhat more of a case of my
frustration with the ICCA.  It was _founded_ by "academics".  It was
academics for its first 15 years.  And they seem to have forgotten that.  We
started off with 4 round ACM events.  Then the WCCCS were 5 rounds.  People
started the nonsense about "5 rounds is not enough, we need 8 or 10 or
11" which is total baloney if you have 32 or fewer total players.  The down-
side of such long events is that the event takes too long and the people with
real jobs have a hard time taking off for two weeks to travel to Europe, attend
a week+ long event, and get back.

I used to play in a couple of weekend events a year, plus the ACM event, and
an occasional Fredkin match.  All were quick in-out events so that we were not
killed on missing too many classes.

This seems to be forgotten nowadays.  I don't see how the current ICCA people
can take that much time off from work unless they make that their annual summer
vacation or whatever.  I can find better things to do with my family of course,
than have them stuck in a hotel while I am playing chess. :)

Bob


As far as your point about  authors attending, I happen to agree, however.
I attended many ACM events where authors were not present.  We had a small
group that always showed up.  Myself.  Slate.  Thompson.  Hsu/Campbell.
Schaeffer.  Marsland.  Newborn.  Schwartz.  Scherzer.  Truscott.  Berliner.

Notice almost all are/were academics.  There were a few others I have probably
forgotten.  For the "PC" crowd, it was rare to have 50% of the authors there.
The spracklens were always there when they competed. And Kittinger was always
there.  Those are the only two I can remember that managed to make the events
every time.

It was aggravating, but the commercial guys gave their usual secretive
crap anyway, so they weren't missed when they were not there.  They were
black holes, even back then.  The names I mentioned would discuss engines
and stuff openly and in great detail, and we all gave each other ideas to
try for "next year".  Except for the commercials of course.  They took lots
of ideas however...



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