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</head><body><p>That's an extreme interpretation of my comment. I'm not sure why you are inferring "no bar ever" </p><p>In this example, as with Cork, there is a sparse entry.</p><p>With no handicap the 5 dan will be shooting fish in a barrel and everyone else will be a fish. </p><p>My understanding of the McMahon system is that it is designed to give evenly ranked games where possible. In a sparse entry that is not possible and to play without handicaps seems to negate the rating system. </p><p>One lemma and two asides</p><p><br></p><p>The lemma: if I cannot choose to enter at a grade above my current strength there seems to be a conjugate that I should not be required to play above my current strength (implicit in having a bar in a sparse tournament)</p><p>Aside 1: At the EGC I was badly sandbagged by a Chinese player entering his first European tournament way below his actual strength (as he confessed to me after) It's no fun and if one took a simplistic calculation of total cost of attendance divided by number of games inmai tournament, expensive too.</p><p> </p><blockquote type="cite">On 01 October 2018 at 15:57 ptm@tobymanning.co.uk wrote: <br> <br><p>Gerry:</p><p>Are you seriously saying there should NEVER be a bar, or are you saying that in this extreme case, the bar should be at 5 dan?</p><p>Toby</p><p>On 2018-10-01 14:40, Gerry Gavigan wrote:</p><blockquote type="cite"><p>As set it sounds to me, on behalf of all of those several stones weaker than the 5 dan, that there should not be a bar </p><p>By any measure the 5 dan has already won.</p><p>As a 1 kyu (I wish) without a handicap I am going to have a rubbish time.</p><p>The purity of some tournament protocol should be secondary </p><p>If the tournament police are going to insist on a bar the TD should consider bribing the 5 dan not to enter for the greater good and encouraging the potential lambs-to-the-slaughter to turn up next year.</p><blockquote type="cite">On 01 October 2018 at 12:20 TobyManning via tournament-org < <a href="mailto:tournament-org@lists.britgo.org">tournament-org@lists.britgo.org</a>> wrote: <br> <br> <br>I set it at 1 kyu, but if an organiser set it at 2kyu I would not complain. <br> <br>Setting it at 3 kyu would be wrong. <br> <br>Toby <br> <br> <br>On 01/10/2018 11:45, Geoff Kaniuk via tournament-org wrote:<blockquote type="cite">You have just registered your last player who happens to be 1d and <br>people are waiting impatiently, wanting to get on with your 3 round <br>McMahon tournament. <br> <br>You are now faced with with the problem of where to set the the bar. <br>Suppose in this tournament the top players are: <br> <br>5d 1d 1d 1k 1k 2k 2k 3k 3k 4k 4k 5k ..... <br> <br>Assuming all players enter at a realistic grade, where would you set <br>the bar? <br> <br>It would be interesting to see your instinctive answer, rather than <br>consulting the Tournament Organiser's Handbook.</blockquote><br> <br>_______________________________________________ <br>tournament-org mailing list <br> <a href="mailto:tournament-org@lists.britgo.org">tournament-org@lists.britgo.org</a> <br> <a href="http://lists.britgo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tournament-org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://lists.britgo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tournament-org</a></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p class="default-style"><br> </p></body></html>