All,

Here is the breakdown by masterpoint level of the attendance at the October 2023 tournament in Orange. For comparison purposes I have also included the Spring 2023 and Winter 2019 tournaments. The last was held in late February.

Masterpoints	Fall 2023 Total	% of    Tourney	Spring 2023 Total	Fall 2023 – Spring 2023	Winter 2019 Total	Fall 2023 – Winter 2019
0 - 99.99	18	10.78	19	-1	91	-73
100 - 199.99	6	3.59	17	-11	60	-54
200 - 299.99	16	9.58	11	5	23	-7
300 - 499.99	21	12.57	31	-10	25	-4
500 - 749.99	14	8.38	25	-11	14	0
750 - 999.99	13	7.78	9	4	11	2
1000 - 2499.99	41	24.55	38	3	36	5
2500 - 3499.99	11	6.59	12	-1	10	1
3500+	27	16.17	29	-2	31	-4
Total	167	2.47	191	-24	301	-134
Total Unknown	0		0	0	1	-1
Total	167		191	-24	302	-135

The conclusions are, in my opinion, unmistakable. We need to do a better job of attracting our lower-level players. I think that the idea of opening the limited game to players with under 500 points was a good idea in 2022, but we should rethink it for 2024. I have heard repeatedly that new players with under 200 points think of people with 400 points as very advanced.

I think that we should also rethink the Sunday Swiss. The attendance was pretty good, but I suspect (know for certain in one case in my own household) that the players who were out of their depth will be reluctant to return. In the old days we had brackedted Round Robins on Sunday. Could that be feasible again?

Here is the breakdown by state:

	Fall	Spring	2019
CT	131	161	269
FL	1	0	0
LA	0	1	0
MA	12	8	7
NH	0	0	1
NJ	0	0	1
NY	21	21	21
RI	2	0	2
	167	191	301
England			1

Again, the problem is unmistable. We are not attracting our own people the way that we formerly did. I think that perhaps we should rethink our approach to marketing. I will send my ideas about this in a separate email.

Mike Wavada

P.S. I sent this from my Cox account because a few ISPs have sometimes blocked emails from iPower, which hosts my wavada.org account. I never have trouble receiving emails at either account.