THE HUNTERS CHALLENGE: THE SHOW WILL GO ON !

What an exciting start to the week! The week greeted us with news circulating around that there were some amount of dissatisfaction with the Rules & Regulations of The Hunters Challenge.

What makes this entire episode so interesting is that the dissatisfaction only started to surface on Monday (the week of the event), while the Rules & Regulations have long been published together with the Entry Forms in mid January.

With the below Open Letter addressed to all Grand Slammers in our list, we hope our intentions are better explained. While we will not be bending the Rules & Regulations for this edition as the rules have long been set, we will listen closely to constructive feedback to improve on further editions of this event.

AN OPEN LETTER

Dear Grand Slammers,

We have heard some rumbles about the extra hour we have allocated for those teams without a recognised Grand Slam member and the associated tie-break. We understand the concerns and we know on the surface it sounds unfair to the elite teams.

Let us share with you our rationale behind this idea and why we think it brings more confidence to treasure hunters than otherwise:

1. The hunt is designed from the beginning for completion in 4 hours.

2. We have tuned the level of difficulties and distributed them so that the three main categories of hunters (newbies, regulars, Masters) will find treasure hunting challenging and yet enjoyable.

3. We do not want to make it overly easy - ending up with just a quiz on the road hunt. We all know how that usually end up as a "race".

4. We have NOT created a handicap - which by definition means that the better teams will be disadvantaged just because they are good.

5. We have instead "de-stressed" those who have come to enjoy the hunt in true spirit by taking away from them the challenge of "racing to the finish" in time. For 30 questions, that would be about 2 minutes extra per question - not a lot if you look at it that way.

6. We have also added half-an-hour more to make it 4.5 hours for GS teams. This was more to cater for unfavourable traffic conditions that may happen in a spot or two.

7. Judging from the recent hunts by seasoned COCs, teams are finishing well ahead of the given time (in one hunt, even 2 hours ahead!) - so masters have progressed significantly - being truly masters.

8. We did NOT cut back from the planned duration. We could have cut back to 3.5 hours for GS teams. But we did not. That would clearly be handicapping - so it is not.

9. The current list of GS is based on results that we could garner over the last 5 years. We now intend to update this list based on a moving 5-year period. We think a current list is more reflective of the skill level of true masters i.e. For 2010, the list will be based on results of selected hunts from 2005 to 2009, excluding those in 2004. We will also carefully define the criteria for what makes a GS hunt before making the new list for 2010.

Our advice to all true master hunters is to do what is expected of you:

1. Participate in as many hunts as possible year in, year out to support the game.
2. Win at least one of the 20 GS hunts that every 5 years present to demonstrate your mastery.

That's what to us, is a true Grand Slam Master!

In summary, our intentions are meant to make it less stressful for the less experienced without compromising the more experienced. We hope to create an atmosphere that will attract more new hunters and at the same time - nudge all masters to take their game a level up each time.

We truly believe that our hunt will achieve these objectives.

We hope our clarification will dispel any doubts about our intentions. And we hope you will trust our assurance that the hunt is truly designed to be completed within normal circumstances for experienced hunters.

We recognise that your support is invaluable for the success of our inaugural hunt and for subsequent hunts. We therefore do not take your support for granted but plea to your wisdom to keep an open mind on this matter and let us find out together if things will work out as intended or not.

If we do make any mistakes, we will gracefully admit them all and promise to learn from them. We only ask for your chance to give it a try.

If we have not addressed any concern that you still have - please feel free to write or contact any of us.

HRU Team
KK Chai
Margaret Sha
Vincent Woo
VK Chong