NNear wrote:webcat86,
It's a system that rewards winning more than consistency, or at least the balance has been severely shifted in that direction.
I think that may be just what's required these days. When it was a smaller tournament calendar with less travelling, consistency was easier to rank. But nowadays, with it being what, 50 weeks of the year? Multiple events in China, PTC events that players seem to loathe, it doesn't seem fair to me that missing one or two events can seriously punish your rankings.
Ronnie has probably been the most vocal of the old guard about it, but I'm inclined to agree with him - it's one for thing for the likes of Trump and Allen who are still young, but for Ronnie and his peers, he's a father. When they signed up to be professional players, this wasn't a decision they had to make, and now suddenly they're told play all over the world all year or you're out of the rankings.
Other players, like Allen, have criticised the calendar too, namely that there are multiple events in China but not consecutively, so they need to pay for the travel 5 separate times a year, plus the other events. If you're not winning much, they say you pretty much don't earn a living.
So it makes sense to me that players won't be punished for deciding how the calendar fits in with their life, or not being punished if they get ill and miss a tournament. And even more importantly, if attending an event is something they physically cannot afford, but missing it drops their rankings even further, they won't be penalised for that now.
Of course the downside is the big events like the WC have so much more weight - winning that single event will put you higher than players who have won maybe 6 or 7 elsewhere.