Pool in Germany (since I was asked)

[Avathar]

Hi everybody,
since I was asked a couple of times already (and eventhough I am pretty sure that my fellow German writers here have posted something back in AZ history) I'll give a short summary of my own point of view regarding pool in Germany...

First of all, when I came to Texas two years ago, I saw my very first 8' table... before that I only knew the tiny bar boxes from the pub on the corner and the 9' tables that you find here in every pool hall (and pretty often in bowling halls too)

I general you pay between 6€ and 8€ an hour in the pool hall per table, and in the pool halls I go, they are usually well maintained since the leagues play there too.
There are usually several pool halls with 10+ tables in the bigger towns, though it is a big regional discrepancy (for exsample in the east you find much less pool halls than in the south and mid of Germany.. I cannot speak for the north, since I have seldom been there)

Regarding league play, it is a complete different system than you have with APA, BCA, etc...

Here the leagues are regionally organized in a way, that you have leagues in a county, with no handicaps. If your team becomes 1st or 2nd you get one league higher (each league has about 5-10 teams, depending on where you are). The last two of the league will be set back one league.
The higher leagues usually also include a bigger region, so there you will meet players from towns further away so the stonger players meet on growing levels...
The teams in the league play round robin, once in your "home" pool hall and once in the pool hall, of the other team.
Each time your will play 2x 14+1, 3x 8-ball and 3x 9-ball , where every player may only play 2 games and never twice the same.
The goals depend on the level of your league..
In the lowest leagues you usually play 14+1 to 50 balls and this will be raised to 125 balls in the highest leagues... 8-ball will be played to 1set of 5 and in the higher leagues I think you play up to 8 or 9 games per set, same for 9-ball (start with 5 games there and highest goal is 9 I believe)

a team can consist of 4-8 players (plus if you want some replacements).

the low 14+1 goal of 50 in the lowest league has two effects btw.. those who ar eused to go for high runs will seldom risk to open the table too far, so you train safety play (and get lower high runs, i.e. in my league it is just 15 balls till now this season) and also you keep the games short (still they sometimes last about an hour or so)
Usually you find weaker players i nthe lower leagues, but sometimes teams will start with strong plyers in lower leagues to get into a higher league for their club.

The teams are not privatly organized, but they play for a club (as you know from football or basketball) and the clubs usually have several teams (we got eight this season).

Here you see a picture of our pool hall in Ludwigsburg:

http://markthalle.sportcafe.eu/index.php?sei=1010

(Just watch the slideshow in the small window...)

In our pool hall the pool club players can come for free training every day between 5pm and 8pm, on the weekends between 2pm and 8pm, and on 3 days a week a lizenced trainer is available for a guided training (thogh that is probaply not standart, but really good conditions).. we pay 22€/month for the mebership in the club, nothing additional for leagueplay or training
if you play outside the free hours, you have to pay the normal price reduced by a percentage that depends on your league level and the work you do for the club (support tournaments and such)
the travel to the matches we pay ourselves, but i we compete in the organized championships (regional or national) the club will pay the start-fee

somehow still I manage to not become a good player yet

Hope you enjoyed my (long) view upon foreign country pool!

 

[predator]

Interesting. I have a few more for you...
Is there no singles competition on a national level in Germany? If not, who is then considered as #1 ranked player? How do you choose German team for European Championships? How often do top guys like Souquet, Hohmann, Ortmann and others play Bundesliga? Thanks.

 

[cad1illac]

Pool in Germany

Hi everybody,
since I was asked a couple of times already (and eventhough I am pretty sure that my fellow German writers here have posted something back in AZ history) I'll give a short summary of my own point of view regarding pool in Germany...

First of all, when I came to Texas two years ago, I saw my very first 8' table... before that I only knew the tiny bar boxes from the pub on the corner and the 9' tables that you find here in every pool hall (and pretty often in bowling halls too)

I general you pay between 6€ and 8€ an hour in the pool hall per table, and in the pool halls I go, they are usually well maintained since the leagues play there too.
There are usually several pool halls with 10+ tables in the bigger towns, though it is a big regional discrepancy (for exsample in the east you find much less pool halls than in the south and mid of Germany.. I cannot speak for the north, since I have seldom been there)

Regarding league play, it is a complete different system than you have with APA, BCA, etc...

Here the leagues are regionally organized in a way, that you have leagues in a county, with no handicaps. If your team becomes 1st or 2nd you get one league higher (each league has about 5-10 teams, depending on where you are). The last two of the league will be set back one league.
The higher leagues usually also include a bigger region, so there you will meet players from towns further away so the stonger players meet on growing levels...
The teams in the league play round robin, once in your "home" pool hall and once in the pool hall, of the other team.
Each time your will play 2x 14+1, 3x 8-ball and 3x 9-ball , where every player may only play 2 games and never twice the same.
The goals depend on the level of your league..
In the lowest leagues you usually play 14+1 to 50 balls and this will be raised to 125 balls in the highest leagues... 8-ball will be played to 1set of 5 and in the higher leagues I think you play up to 8 or 9 games per set, same for 9-ball (start with 5 games there and highest goal is 9 I believe)

a team can consist of 4-8 players (plus if you want some replacements).

the low 14+1 goal of 50 in the lowest league has two effects btw.. those who ar eused to go for high runs will seldom risk to open the table too far, so you train safety play (and get lower high runs, i.e. in my league it is just 15 balls till now this season) and also you keep the games short (still they sometimes last about an hour or so)
Usually you find weaker players i nthe lower leagues, but sometimes teams will start with strong plyers in lower leagues to get into a higher league for their club.

The teams are not privatly organized, but they play for a club (as you know from football or basketball) and the clubs usually have several teams (we got eight this season).

Here you see a picture of our pool hall in Ludwigsburg:

http://markthalle.sportcafe.eu/index.php?sei=1010

(Just watch the slideshow in the small window...)

In our pool hall the pool club players can come for free training every day between 5pm and 8pm, on the weekends between 2pm and 8pm, and on 3 days a week a lizenced trainer is available for a guided training (thogh that is probaply not standart, but really good conditions).. we pay 22€/month for the mebership in the club, nothing additional for leagueplay or training
if you play outside the free hours, you have to pay the normal price reduced by a percentage that depends on your league level and the work you do for the club (support tournaments and such)
the travel to the matches we pay ourselves, but i we compete in the organized championships (regional or national) the club will pay the start-fee

somehow still I manage to not become a good player yet

Hope you enjoyed my (long) view upon foreign country pool!

Great post......certainly is a good looking pool hall/sports bar

 

[Roy Steffensen]

Hi.

I asked the same question to another german here at AZ, and got a long and detailed email about how it works.

I will dig it up and post it here. It's quite interesting how the system works.

(thomas, if you read this, thanks for the email )

 

[Roy Steffensen]

From the poster "Thomas" about the system in Germany

Hello Roy, I don't know if it's of public interest, so I'll write a PM to you about the german system.

First of all, you have to know that our system is not only ruled by the national governing body DBU (Deutsche Billard Union), but also by the States associations, Germany consists of 16 states and mostly each state has it's own pool organisation. Some associations go by region instead of states because of the size of either the travel distance or the population density (like around Cologne, Dortmund etc.)

Each association has an association-wide league system with little differences in each state. I can only talk about the State of Hesse where I play (the state Frankfurt belongs to)

The best state-wide league is the "Oberliga" that consists of 10 teams. They play2x 14.1 race to 1252x 8-Ball race to 74x 9-Ball race to 9That matchday format is splitted into two legsTeams have consist of 4 players minimum, each player has to play to different games each matchday which is the rule throughout the leaguesBelow is the "Verbandsliga" which has a northern and southern conference to reduce travellingThey play 2x 14.1 race to 1003x 8-Ball race to 63x 9-Ball race to 7Again two legs with 14.1, 8, 8, 9 and 14.1, 8, 9, 9

To comfort working people it is allowed to compete only with 3 players, but you lose one 8-Ball and one 9-Ball automaticallyBelow that are 3 more leagues with shorter races each league and more conferences of each league (logically as there are more amateur players)

Races are14.1: 75, 50, 408-Ball: 5, 4, 39-Ball: 6, 5, 4Our last match reporthttp://hpbv.de/cgi-bin/show_spiel_0809.cgi/spielnr=53133Oberliga match reporthttp://hpbv.de/cgi-bin/show_spiel_0809.cgi/spielnr=11161
Highruns throughout our league system (OL is the highest league, KL is the lowest)http://www.hpbv.de/tabellen/2008_2009/pool/statistics/top_141_sps8.htmlLowest number of innings throughout the leagueshttp://www.hpbv.de/tabellen/2008_2009/pool/statistics/top_141_sps8b.html

Relegation and Promotion is equal to football. Your team is awarded 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. Each match of the day gives you one point, so the best result on a matchday is an 8:0 whitewash

The champion of the Oberliga has to play a special matchday after the season against the two state champions of the adjacent states champions (Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg), one of them promotes to the 2nd nationwide league (under DBU government)

The 2nd league is divided again into northern and southern conference, races are pretty equal to our OberligaThe two 2nd league champions promote to our premier league which plays nationwide from Hamburg to southern Bavaria. Tthere were some crazy ideas in the past years to make pool more popular (14.1 with the whole team of 4, alternating each stroke) and shorter races. They played 9-Ball race to 4 (like me in the lowest league!) but 2 sets with a sudden death if it was 1:1

Now they've come back thankfully to the old system which is 2x 14.1 race to 1502x 8-Ball race to 94x 9-Ball race to 11

The good thing is that in most clubs you have teams spread throughout the leagues, so you always have better players around you. Astoria Walldorf (near Frankfurt) is well known here. Nico Ottermann played for them in his youth. They have a 2nd league team and 10 teams playing throughout the state system. I'm in a rather small club with only 2 teams, one playing in the 2nd highest state league and my team. But we're growing again and have a two well experienced players among us. One former premier league player and a 2nd league reserve player

To qualify for the national championships you have to peform well at the state championships first. Therefor we have a tournament series in 8-Ball and 9-Ball (3 tournaments each) where you can collect points to qualify (first 8 of the standings qualify). After that there is a one off event where the top-8 qualify as well.

The old system you talked about is not active anymore in the men's competition, but it is still used for women, seniors and ladies. You have the B-Class where the first 4 promote to the A-Class and the top 4 of that play the state championships. It's just too many men competing for that system, so they've decided on the tournament series.Juniors have seperate state and national championships and they can simply sign up for the state championships, but have to qualify for the National Championship there

Another good thing is that Pool is regarded a sport here, so young players can join the Army's sports support unit (like Sebastian Staab) so they do a lot of workout and have practice time with a regular income. My improvement for example is hindered by my job which is pretty tough mind-wise, especially throughout the winter as we deal with wool and haberdashery. And the pool season is from early September to the end of May...

We also have a national head-coach (Andreas Huber) who trains our elite players. Clubs who have a coach among their members get rewarded by the associations - players cost a monthly fee the club has to pay (I think 2,50€), but a coach gives you 100€ back. All that is pretty well organized with different levels of coaching licenses. Like "Beginners advisor" (who can more or less only tell you about a correct stance, follow through and a the rules) to a licence close to Huber where everything is one a world class level Especially for the juniors a lot is done. The son of our state youth trainer is aged 11 now, I saw him run 24 at the age of 9. The kids meet twice a month for practice routines and they get tasks for the time between they have to fulfil and show the coach the next time. And it's really really tough. That elite group costs a lot of money (100-150 euro) and the coach let's you sit out 5min if you miss a ball in a routine. Now do the math if you miss 3 balls in a 90min course...

The downside is that there is very little gambling going on and very little big purse tournaments. Gambling was big in the early 90ies. Our club president was one of those and he told me about a poolroom in Wiesbaden (huge US Army base etc.) and he told that Oliver Ortmann (having to drive 150km one way to there) regulary visited that room to play straight pool for money. Door's shut early evening to let the gambling begin....

Nothing of that present any more. You can hardly find someone to play for 10 Euros race to 6. And those you do find are just bangers having no idea about the sport(!) pool. That's why most players don't make it international, beacuse they can't give up their every day job and still make ends meet.

 

[Avathar]

I forgot about the single tournaments...

You start on a local level, where the first 2-maybe 10 depending on the amount of pppl that start (and some magic key that I do not understand) qualify for the next "bigger" tournament, where the qualifiers of the first tournaments come together in a bigger area (like 2-3 groups)
this continues up to state and then national level...
if you reach a certain position on a higher level tournament, you do not have to play from the lowest level, but can compete directly on the level where you stopped performing well.
The first three from the national championships qualify for the european events, but the german billards union can also give wild cards for the likes like Ralf Souquet and others (they are rather rated by their internation successes)

Oliver Ortmann is playing in the Bundesliga regulary, Ralf and Thorsen do not play in Germany much except on the big tournaments like Grand Prixs and Eurotour sometimes.
Nils Feijen plays for a German Bundesliga Team, too..
Still the level of the Bundesliga is pretty high...