Bennett...I've commented on the up/down system before on this
forum. I didn't get many positive responses. I'll try to respond
this time putting a different angle on it. We had the same promo
in Tampa in 1989/90. In the past I stated that early game players
weren't thrilled with it because they didn't stand to gain anything
and perhaps when they saw their fate of moving up happening...perhaps
they didn't try as hard to win. I got blasted for that remark.
But it wasn't going to be good either financially or promotionally
to enter full time late games. That wasn't going to happen over
the long run. Late game players who had a bad 2 week stretch either
sufferred a humiliation for being demoted and struggled to get
out of the early games (because they were borderline late gamers)
or they capitalized in the early games because they were confident
in their abilities and knew they had just gone through a 2 week
funk.
The bottom line with going from early to late...you knew you could
play your ass off and eventually you would be back in the early
games with no chance of permanent promotion....
plus you suffered the loss of boleto as well as playing points
that were much longer than in the early games. It was a lose lose
situation...one that I believe caused early game players to not
try as hard if they were on a hot streak knowing that going up
to late games was a possibility. Personally I can tell you that
when I was on a hot streak...I couldn't drop a ball no matter
what and if I was in post 8...four straight points...1st opponent
would overserve...2nd would drop serve...3rd would throw it off
the court upon serve...game point would drop serve. I went to
late games many times but my preference was not to be there. I
stood to gain nothing.
The bottom line with going from late to early...no matter if they
were borderline late gamers or superstars...sometimes they faced
humiliation if they were insecure about several times when going
down kept happening or they were under pressure to win a lot of
games to get out of early games. I remember both staying up in
the late games because I qualified to stay...dreaded it. And I
remember two late gamers in particular who couldn't get out of
early games no matter what over the course of a month. Embarrassment
was written all over them.
In the best interest of good Jai-Alai...I don't think it benefited
the best of play for either early or later gamers.
