for eveyone else, let me say that it was Chuck's suggestion that the COTY (and TOTY/SSOTY) have place finishers out to third place. I personnaly thought that it was a good suggestion. Although Chuck did use the words "GOLD SILVER and BRONZE" at the time, he also used the expressions 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and the overall point was to create three place finishes.

That message and thread can be found here:

http://www.thechipboard.com/cgi-bin/tcbarc05/tcbarc05.pl?read=136797

In subsequent messages Chuck continued to express the concept in terms of 1st, 2nd and 3rd designations, and not Gold, Silver and Bronze. It was shortly after those messages (all on the BB) that the Board opted to have three places for each competition, for a total of nine awards.

It was then announced that the three places would be designated as Diamond, Platinum and Gold because those designations were not trademarked, they were in closer alignment with our interests (than the Olympics) and the only other casino/gaming association for such awards is horseracing's Win, Place and Show, which is too uniquely horseracing.

The bottom line here is that Chuck's suggestion (his idea) was acted upon by the Board, favorably!

Jim Follis