Mider Cup 2009

[Jake Schramm]

Any news on the formation of the Mider Cup team this year? Got anyone committed? Tenative travel planes, etc? Sounds like the westside has thier team pretty complete. Where are we at?

[Jared Pittman]

There has been talk about this. Unfortunately for me the date is conflicting with something else I really wanna do. I was hoping earlier it wouldn't but alas :(

[Trevor Boehne]

I no longer qualify, since I technically live in the West Zone (although my heart is definitely in the South Zone!). However, I do know that due to a wedding, you can count out Dustin Theobald, Dustin Reutzel, and Eric Householder. That's a huge bummer, since those are a few of the top Am players in the South Zone, and could have even been used in the Pro field if needed. Just thought I'd give whoever is planning on the team a heads up.

Not sure about the other Fairmont (or formerly from Fairmont) guys; Brady Lubenow, Matt Vogel, Matt Ellingson, Tanner Bulock.

Who is in charge of picking the team? And what is the process in place for picking the team? Or is it simply based on who can play, and who wants to play?

[Jake Schramm]

All good questions, the only one I know the answer to is that I think Brian Gustafson is responsible for picking the team. The rest, hopefully will be answered here.

[Derek Tonn]

Yep, it's Brian's call, as the Zone Coordinator. He's been asking me (West Side coordinator) and Jason K. (East Side coordinator) for names and talking about draft rosters for more than a couple months...along with talking to folks at numerous tournaments. It's up to Brian to publicize the tentative/final roster when he's ready, but last time I checked we had about 6-7 from the West Side and 11-12 from the East Side who looked like they would get their call up to the Big Dance! :-)

Basically, players express an interest in playing, get current with their MFA membership, and then Brian figures out if he can bring them or not. There is a log-jam of Intermediates who want to play this year. Probably 15-16 guys in the Men's Intermediate category alone who are often-times interchangeable parts. Beat you one week, you beat them the next. Brian can only bring three (unless 1-2 snuck up to Advanced), so Jason, myself and individual interested players have been making the case on behalf of people we think belong on the 2009 team for months.

Open is the challenge. Our top Advanced players would kick-tail if they could actually play as Advanced at Mider. However, they've often been forced to move up to Open to fill empty slots there...which creates a domino effect (Advanced playing Open, Intermediate playing Advanced) that makes it harder for us to compete against the MSPs and St. Clouds. If we could fill our Open slots with actual Open players one of these years, we might actually get to HOST the Mider Cup in the not too distant future. :-) Not as likely to happen though unless we can get Jared, Chris, Joey, John, Al and others to play for the South Zone at the event.

[Trevor Boehne]

I am the coach of the MN Math League team at our high school. There are four tests for each meet, and I have to pick which students take which test. There are a few that are typically much harder than the rest. If I know that no one on the team is going to perform well on this test, I don't waste my best players on it. I let lower level students on the team give it a try and learn some stuff while saving my best for tests that they can compete on.

We have an analogous situation here. If our Advanced players aren't going to be able to compete productively in the Open division, why waste them there? And why cause a domino effect? Keep our best Advanced players in that division, keep our best Intermediate players in that division, and then send some of the lower level Advanced players to play the Open division (or whoever is left). Yes, they will likely be "sacrificial lambs" and get slaughtered, but we need to get our points where we can (in the Am divisions). Just as long as they understand they probably won't win, that we aren't counting on them to win, and that they should just do their best and have fun, it shouldn't be too big of a blow to the egos. AND, they will get a chance to play with some people they wouldn't normal get to... and maybe learn a few things.

I'm not extremely familiar with Mider Cup scoring, but if it is an all-or-nothing situation where you either win or lose your match-up (and the margin of victory doesn't matter), than this seems like a decent option to me.

Has this approach been considered?

[Jake Schramm]

It's match play +2 for winning your match +1 for tying, +0 for losing. Scoring is on a hole by hole basis, and whoever wins the most holes wins the match, so you could shoot a 3,4,5, while your opponent shoots a 2, 5, 3, and you would be down 1 hole, even though you took 12 strokes to thier 10.

[Trevor Boehne]

Right on. Normal match play scoring. Ok. Even with that type of scoring, do our Advanced players have any chance of winning the match? They may win a few holes, but have they typically gotten any wins? Or even ties? If not, then again I would suggest using them where they would be more effective.

[Jake Schramm]

Last year I took 2 pts, 1 from Geno, 1 from Kuks. I had a shot at 2 pts, but let them both slip away on the last hole. I also gave KMac a run, he had to bang a 50fter to push the last hole to keep me from taking a point. So I know personally I can compete, problem is I think I could have taken MORE points at ADV..but would I have taken more 2 more than our 1,2 or 3 adv, I don't know.

[Trevor Boehne]

Right. I would say that you and Keist could easily get a few points from Open match-ups. Past that, I'm not sure who we have for Open OR Advanced.

But even if you guys CAN take points from Open match-ups, would we maximize our possible points by putting you in Advanced (where you guys would likely win most of your matchups)? If the domino effect means that the next best Advanced players CAN'T get points in their Advanced match-ups, then it doesn't really make sense. It would just be giving both groups a harder time at getting points.

Are Open, Advanced, and Intermediate match-ups worth the same? Are there the same number of positions in each division?

[Jake Schramm]

All matchups are equal. I guess my point was if i bumped somebody from adv and they would have taken 4pts, and I took 5, but by moving someone up to open and they get 0, but I would have taken 2, it's better for the team 6vs5 for me to play up. Glad I dont have to make that call.

[Trevor Boehne]

yeah. its a tough call. i would DEFINITELY say leave you in Open if you feel like you have Advanced players who can get that many points. I was mostly commenting on the complete domino effect.... because of lack of open players, moving all advanced to open, all intermediate to advance, etc... then you are just screwing everyone.

If you have enough Advanced to make a solid field, do it and have you and Keist play Open... but if the Advanced field is weak for whatever reason, and they're gonna get 0, they might as well get zero in Open and let you guys get points in Advanced.

I just wanted to throw "sacrificial lamb" idea out there after derek mentioned the domino effect, because sometimes it helps in certain situations to maximize points where you can get them. Just wanted to make sure someone considered the option.

[Jake Schramm]

I agreee 100% with you Trev. Personally I would love to see us stack ADV, INT and JR, and try to take as many points as we can. Even if it's not enough to win, I would love to keep everyone else close!