A Plea From The APA Controller

The mantra of this club has always been, and remains, post is the default method of play. In recent years, technological advance has meant that we have introduced first email and later webserver methods of play. About two years ago the APA was beginning to become moribund and the decision was made to establish webserver only tournaments alongside the postal/email ones, as well as reducing the number of games involved in each tournament. The webserver events have taken off, with new members entering and a hardcore of regular players, but in the last year I have had  one request from somebody who can only play by post and one from someone who can only play by email. Obviously, playing on the server doesn’t prevent you also playing by post and/or email and vice versa, and you can enter more than one tournament at a time. I am currently playing by both methods, though I haven’t had an email game for a while. 

The post only players have fought hard to keep post as the default method of play, so why aren’t they playing?  There are rumblings in the club about doing away with post altogether, as the perception is that it is costing us members who want to play on the webserver.  You get four games (2 with white, 2 with black) and there is no more qualifying for a final, it’s all done in the one event, so please can I hear from those who wish to play by post (and/or email), and who want to preserve post as the default method. I look forward to posting out score cards and tournament rules, something I haven’t done for quite a while.