Debated writing this up or not, but now that I've had 36 hours to cool my vents it's still bugging me and I wanted to get some others opinions (and here is a place where I'll get a lot of it!).
This occurred this past Saturday at the GSBT tour event at Paradise Billiards in Charlotte. Before I go any further as I know some people won't read the whole thing, this is in no way a criticism of the GSBT or Shannon/Marge who run it. They put on a fine tournament and I understand the decisions they made because as tour operators they are at the mercy of having owners bring their tour into their rooms (ie. they know you don't s*** where you eat).
Paradise Billiards where the event was hosted is a new room that's been open just over 2 months. I was excited as their website lists them as having 20 Diamond tables. My first disappoint was that they in fact only have 16 Diamonds (and 2 GC V's). Second disappointment was when I learned that they would only be using 10 of the tables for the tournament (I was figuring before hand with 20 tables he'd be giving 15 or 16 of them to the tournament). Third disappointment was that it was over an hour from when they opened at noon until they had a bartender. Come on, people like to drink beer when they play pool. Fourth disappointment was the windows in the place weren't tinted. On a sunny day in Charlotte with cars parked all across the front of the building you get a horrid glare off the car windows. But, these are just my "disappointments" at the place, not enough to have written this about purely...
So, I get there at like 12:10pm or so. Register for the tournament then go up to the front desk and ask about a practice table (which was advertised as free starting at noon). The person looks at the computer and tells me that only the tables in the tournament are free for practice, but they have a couple of "tight" Diamonds I can pay for by the hour. I look around and see there are still a couple of tables with only one person practicing, so I figure I'll go jump in on one of those. As I'm about to turn away the girl at the counter tells me to wait a minute, let her check something. She looks at her computer and tells me "You can use the Brunswick if you want". I tell her "sure" and grab a set of balls and head off to practice.
So, now fast forward about 2 hours. By this time the bartender has shown up and I decide to have a beer at the bar and talk to some friends who were there and to meet some new folks and let the people keep playing on the table. After the calcutta starts the girl from the front desk comes up to me and huffingly says "you're the guy who took table 12, you owe us $7.50". I try to very politely tell her "you told me that was part of the tournament and was free practice". She says "no, you're wrong, go up to the desk and pay." So, I wander up to the front desk and see the owner Arthur Rosen at the desk and think to myself "ok, I'm sure the owner will take care of it". So, head up to the desk and explain exactly what happened. He looks at me and says "I know my staff, they explain everything completely, they don't make mistakes, they made it clear you were paying by the hour!". I explain "If they had made it clear, I would have hopped on another table that only had one person playing that was free." He then not so politely says as he's ringing it up "I'll only charge you $5". I really don't give a damn about the $7.50, what I do have an issue with is feeling like I'm being screwed. I held my tongue as I didn't want this to ruin my day as the tournament hasn't even started yet.
So, I go on, have a few more beers play my first match (which I lose since I'm off...) and then head back to the bar. This is about 4:30 or so. Now fast forward to 8:30. I'm finally up for my 2nd match 4 hours later since there are 70 people in the tournament and we're only on 10 tables. What are the other 8 tables doing? Well one of them (a GC V) has a display on it and the tournament desk is setup next to it. Completely understand that table not in play. The other 7 tables they are renting out by the hour. To their regular clients? Nope. They barely have any regular clients. They are renting out the other 7 tables by the hour for practice. I can understand leaving one or two tables for someone who might come, but with the number of people they were all being paid for by tournament participants, so random people coming in wouldn't get a table anyways. So, this causes the 4 hours between matches. I'm hearing grumbling all around and the hours go by about this. People decide to start heading off to do other things and have their friends call when they are getting close to being up. This then causes some tables to sit there for 15 minutes without a match as they wait for people to show up. So, as I said, 8:30pm finally my 2nd match is up, against Arthur Rosen the owner.
I head to my table, get my cues setup and start bouncing a few balls around. About 10 minutes later I head up to the tournament desk and say "Arthur still hasn't shown up yet". I am then informed that he has headed out to the store to buy more food for the bar (this is the _2nd_ time that day that they have had to go to the store to buy food). I'm informed that they won't DQ him as he's the owner and put up $1,000 added (I understand this from the tour's perspective). Also of note, by this time they are already playing people on the next bracket level. I go back to the table and wait another 15 minutes or so and the owner finally shows up. No apologies for making me wait, no nothing. By this time I've basically sharked myself by getting annoyed and play horrid (my own fault). So I graciously tell him good game (no, I'm not being sarcastic). Pack up my stuff, head to the bar to pay my tab (about $30 or so) and head home.
I check the AZ boards later in the evening to see how some friends are doing and see that they had to cancel the ring game since the bar has to close at 2am sharp and they are still trying to get the matches in on the 10 tables...
Oh, and those two "tight" Diamonds that I could pay to practice on, they were part of the tournament. The same tournament tables that they said were free.
So... Opinions... This is a new room. The owner is trying to get people in the door. Has a tiny base of "regulars".
Q1: Do you charge people in the tournament for practice before hand even if they are using tables not in the tournament (aside from my issue with being told it was free)?
Q2: Do you drag on the tournament to 2am in order to make money by selling practice time to participants on 7 other tables?
Q3: Do you put the room ahead of your tournament play? (ie. If you have to leave to do work for your bar, should you drop out of the tournament if your name gets called before you're back _voluntarily_, which keeps the tournament staff from having to be put in the predicament of having to even think about DQ'ing the owner)
To me, this is an owner being an a$$... Trying to milk every dime out of a person no matter what the consequences in the future. Way to build a customer base! This is also the same guy who told the owner of another room he was "going to put him out of business!" Just what we need... Instead of building a new base of players lets plan on taking out other pool rooms. Just what this sport needs... Rumor is he's even offering to pay the weekly fee's of APA teams for the first session if they move to his room (Rumor, but I've heard it from two different people). I wonder if he's going to charge them $12/hour night rate during league after that... (Most rooms in Charlotte give free table time for league play).
Ok, end of my rant. Flame me if I'm wrong... I honestly want to know what people think. I know there are 3 sides to every story...
Brian
