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Comments from Mr. William Orie re his participation
LuDate: Sunday, 2010-11-07, 9:08 AM | Message # 1
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A letter received from Mr. William Orie on December 17, 2009, Orie William wrote:

I want to thank you for the invitation and the good treatment during the competition. I have recommended the Surinamese draughts association to
send each year 2 to 3 players to your high qualified Open Tournament.

It is amazing that you were able to organize such a good tournament with so little manpower. I saw especially the pressure on you, but you have
handled it very well...keep going.

In Suriname we have a tradition after a tournament to ask different persons (positive thinkers only)recommendations for improvements that
can be made next time. This is a totally different thing then the critique that some persons always make. Because I am also a lecturer and
mostly positive thinker, my recommendations are welcome in Suriname. Using this tradition I like also to make my contribution by making some
recommendation for the US-Open next year:

1. People around the world like to see the results on the website; In Suriname the people were very happy to follow the tournament on the
website.
2. If possible, the games (notations) can be placed also on internet..this is of great benefit for preparations for next year. We
only began to do so some years ago in Suriname, but the response of the players is very positive.
3. Most of the time, we use a computer program especially for the Swiss System; this is easy and quick.

I also liked very much the social programme that you have attached to the tournament.

Thank you once again, and we will look forward to next invitations,

William Orie

 
LuDate: Sunday, 2010-11-07, 9:30 AM | Message # 2
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Dear William,
Thank you very much for sharing your opinion with us. We value your honest assessment very much.
Let me answer to your comments here:
1. We are trying to provide updates on our website for every day of the tournament. Some days it was not possible because of the amount of other things that had to be done, but we will try to keep up this year.
2. As of publishing the games, we have been asked a lot about it and agree that this is very valuable for the players and spectators. Manpower is an issue here as well. We will try to do it next year if we can find some volunteer to process the games and type them on computer. If you know any computer program that will make this effort easier - please let me know, right now my only approach is a regular text editor.
3. Using computer program to generate swiss system drawings... This is the only one that I would like to disagree. Yes, I am aware of existence of the electronic programs and that they are using widely in other countries. But here, in USA, we would like to be different. Of course, hand-made drawings are more time consuming, but here are my arguments in their favor:
a) being a computer programmer for many years I learned not to trust any computer program completly. There is always a possibility that it may not work correctly in just one weird case even if it worked well for years.
b) When drawing is done by computer, there is no proof for a player that his/her drawing is "fair". At the same time, in our case the whole process is done transparently in front of multiple witnesses who can participate as well. They see how decisions are made and when it is a time for chance, they see that no one and nothing influences with "lady luck". If they have doubts, the arbiter can always explain to them why something was done one or another way.
c) Call it our long time tradition, our own trademark smile . This is part of entertainment that is being provided with the tournament. We get a lot of volunteers waiting long specially for the round to be over to participate in next round drawings. Why should we deprive them of such fun (and learning experience as well)?
It is possibly that once our tournament grows up too big we will have no choice but adapt to the computerized system, but for now I, as a technical director of ICAONA, would like to keep the tradition alive.
Hope this answers your concerns, and we are looking forward for mor Suriname players participation in 2010!
 
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