Thanks Egis, here are my initial responses. I am open to re-feedback:Originally Posted by Egidijus Zeromskis
Aris, I had these concerns and questions:
I'm trying to understand the hotel deal: "DISCOUNT all-taxes-in double occupancy rate of $65".
To be a good deal, this should be a room price, right? What type of rooms will be offered by hotel for this rate? [ hotel link https://www.marriott.com/hotels/trav...ints-kingston/ ] How many of them will be available to chess players? Who will manage sorting into double-rooms? It's an individual championship, not a team of two
imho, it might be great for a weekend open. The Closed (Zonal) with 4 days of double rounds will be tough for players. Hopefully they will by-pass playoffs this time.
Out of curiosity - was a schedule of Wed (r1) Thur (r2-3), Fri (r4-5), Sat (r6), Sun (r7-8), Mon (r9) considered? With Monday two rounds and potential playoffs someone might need to stay one day anyway.
1) room rate: The hotel deal, with regular tax and hotel tax, with free parking and free breakfast, works out to $130 per night for two beds. This is insanely low for a downtown hotel in a city like this. Just parking and breakfast are normally dozens of extra dollars. We have 50 double rooms blocked so far, and we have been told that if registrations are better than that, then we can have more (that will be a GOOD problem, as they WANT to fill up). To get these rates, players will book their hotel rooms as part of their tournament registration. Any two players can tell us they want to room together. Some people will choose a room alone (or choose a room with a non-playing co-guest). This method of room commitment (registering for the room along with the tournament registration) is required in order to meet criteria for a separate agreement that we have with Kingston Tourism. Players who stay at that hotel will pay less to play than players who do not stay at that hotel.
2) weekend open vs. Closed (Zonal): We're quite excited that this will be BOTH! If you read the details, the top section (strictly rating-restricted) will serve as the Closed (Zonal), and the other sections will hopefully be remembered as the best super weekend open of the year! Like when else can an 1800 play 9 rounds?!
3) your schedule curiosity: There are many people who get Good Friday off of work. Some of them also get Easter Monday off. So with our proposed schedule, some people will miss ZERO days of work to attend. And those that need to take Easter Monday off, well most companies are very amenable to that day as a day off. At first glance, your proposal above would cost an extra day off work (Thursday) and an extra night of hotel. To be frank, I think those issues would be deal-breakers.
Thanks again, best regards, Aris.
