PLEASE HELP-- NEED IDEAS!!! I need some help handicapping a tourney

ugotactionTX

ugotactionTX

I'm in dead rack!
Silver Member
Hey guys, I really have myself in a predicament. I have a "sweet heart" 8 ball scotch doubles tournament tomorrow and need some ideas on how to handicap it.

We have teams that range from 2 C players, all the way up to a Master and and A player. In the past we have played races to 5 or 6 with the difference between team totals (M=7 A=6 B=5 C=4) deciding the spot. However, as of right now I have at least 20 teams coming and only 8 tables YIKES!:eek:

I was hoping to get some ideas on how others would handicap such a mix and make it quasi-fair BUT without having to stretch races out too far. I'm afraid we'll have trouble getting it all finished by Sunday.

any ideas or suggestions? I'm all ears!
 
Handicapping

This type format would be tough to do spot games. I might encourage based upon your rating scheme,that ball spots per game might be an option. If 7's are playing 4's,let 4's take off 3 balls there first time up to shoot. If you want more definition you can PM me,or if you like yahoo chat is possible. OR,if RandyG is available,he would be a Great Resource for this question!!
 
Sorry, just noticed the 8-ball part, lol. That 9-ball chart won't help much.

Not sure how you'd do ball spots in 8-ball. If say an A and a B+ player are playing, a case where 1 game on the wire would seem appropriate, I'm not sure that there is any equivalent ball spot for that. If the B+ player always gets to remove his most troublesome ball, that's going to be hard for the A player to overcome. And you can't let the A player choose which of the B+ player's balls come off the table, because he could choose one that would actually make the runout harder. You could say that all the balls would stay on the table, and the player getting a ball only had to make six of his balls before shooting the 8, and he would get to choose which six balls to shoot, but that's probably too much weight in a B+/A matchup. I don't know.

Spotting games would suck too, because in short races somebody's going to only have to win one game. Winning three in a row and then losing the set by scratching on the 8-ball is kind of a crappy way to go down, lol.

Aaron
 
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ugotactionTX said:
Hey guys, I really have myself in a predicament. I have a "sweet heart" 8 ball scotch doubles tournament tomorrow and need some ideas on how to handicap it.

We have teams that range from 2 C players, all the way up to a Master and and A player. In the past we have played races to 5 or 6 with the difference between team totals (M=7 A=6 B=5 C=4) deciding the spot. However, as of right now I have at least 20 teams coming and only 8 tables YIKES!:eek:

I was hoping to get some ideas on how others would handicap such a mix and make it quasi-fair BUT without having to stretch races out too far. I'm afraid we'll have trouble getting it all finished by Sunday.

any ideas or suggestions? I'm all ears!
Click to expand...

When you say you want to complete it by Sunday, does that mean you want to complete it in 1 day (Late Saturday Night)?

What time are starting the tournament?

Are 100% of the players rated in that Format?

We have similar formats in Arizona and do games based on ratings. In short our numbers equate as 10:M, 9:A, 8:B, 7:C (losely). We take total team handicap and subtract X number of games. Let's say 2 B players are a team 8+8=16. We do a race, depending on time constraints, like Race to total Team Handicap Minus 8 games. You might want to do Minus 10 or something. Then if a Team with a Master and A player play against 2 C players, the race is 10+9 = 19 - 10 = 9, 7+7 = 14 - 10 = 4. 9 - 4 race. that is pretty extreme, but it is pretty fair and the two top players still have the advantage.

We've run 64 Team Scotch doubles in two full days with Handicap - 8 format. And with a cap of 16 being highest a team can be. 32 teams can easily be ran in 1 day if you start by Noon. (And that was on 9 tables)

Also if time is an issue, having players pay a Greens Fee and have the tables open speeds things up. No running for Quarters, etc.

Good Luck!
 
we are going to try and have it wrapping up by early eventing on Sunday. Thanks for the ideas guys... Keep 'em coming please!!!! :D
 
Spotted ball technique

cajunfats said:
This type format would be tough to do spot games. I might encourage based upon your rating scheme,that ball spots per game might be an option. If 7's are playing 4's,let 4's take off 3 balls there first time up to shoot. If you want more definition you can PM me,or if you like yahoo chat is possible. OR,if RandyG is available,he would be a Great Resource for this question!!
Click to expand...

I agree with the option of ball spots per rack of 8-ball. However, I'd personally warn AGAINST having the lower-skill-level player take balls off the table at the beginning of his/her first turn at the table.

Reason: this is an old hustler's trick -- taking balls off the table at the beginning of the inning in 8-ball actually opens the table up for the OTHER player!

Rather, leave the balls on the table, and let the lower-skill-level player shoot at any ball of his/her category that he/she wants. When the required number of balls have been pocketed, that lower-skill-level player leaves the required number of "spotted" balls on the table, then shoots directly at the 8-ball. After the lower-skill-level player makes an attempt at the 8-ball (i.e. if the shot at the 8-ball was missed), the incoming higher-skill-level player then removes the lower-skill-level's spotted balls off the table, and begins his/her turn. (Obviously, if the lower-skill-level pockets the 8-ball, that's a win right-then-and-there.)

Note in this method, once the lower-skill-level player has pocketed the required number of balls, the balls now left are the balls the lower-skill-level player decided to leave on the table as the "spotted" balls. He/she CANNOT shoot at them, and MUST make an attempt at the 8-ball. If he/she doesn't make an attempt at the 8-ball and instead decides to shoot at a spotted ball, that is BALL-IN-HAND for the higher-skill-level player.

This is how a traveling league local to me plays. It's been working well for over 8 years.

Hope this is helpful,
-Sean
 
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Ahh, I just realized that you said 8-ball event.

You'd have to do the races much slower. Keep in mind that Scotch Doubles matches usually run 1.5 times longer than singles 8-ball matches.

I'm not sure if you allow talking/coaching/etc. or not, but limiting the amount of coaching down to once or twice a rack or something will considerably speed things up.

Personally, I would never play in a ball spot 8 ball event where removing balls from the table was the way handicapping went. Maybe that's just me. Game weight seems the most fair IMO.

Let's say you put numbers to ratings.
C 1
B 2
A 3
M 4

Then these are the combinations you'd have for teams to race to. CC racing to 2 games might be rough, might have to put a minimum of 3 limit.
MM 8
MA 7
MB, AA 6
MC, AB 5
AC, BB 4
BC 3
CC 2
 
Suggestion on handicapping

I would do the races just like BCA Nationals Scotch Doubles events; open teams go to 4; master teams go to 7. The open teams in Vegas match up with A, B & C players mixed on a team and master teams might have a Master or Grandmaster player with an A, B or C player.

I think this would be fairest and with table limitations might go faster.
 
Suggestion from Doc

Here's a suggestion from Doc:

One master player per team; Master teams go to 5; all others go to 3.

Quick and easy.....just the way Doc likes it....:eek:
 
Sounds like fun though

I'm no handicapper and never will be foolish enough to be a tournament director but here goes, IMHO you should rate from 10 to at least down to 6. Master players will kill any competition. Add the ratings of partners and divide by two to get a team average. Such as a 7 + 8 = 15/2= 7.5. Let's say they play a 9 and a 7=16/2= 8. Anything over an even number would get a full game spot. So the match in this instance would be 8 to 7. Try one more. A 6 + 8=14/2=7. They play an 8 +9=17/2= 8.5. The match would then be
9 to 7. No handicap is going to be complaint-proof. This looks like your making an effort to be fair by penalizing the top players slightly and your keeping the number of games down. If you want to adjust to reduce the number of games further subtract 2 from each teams average . Then the match would be 7 to 5. That's just an example. You can adjust it anyway convenient to you. With such a disparity in ratings you should insist on a minimum of coaching. Directions from a 10 will always be better that those from an 8.:help:
 
believe me... I'm fine with NO HANDICAPS! However, this is about the 10th annual event and Owner/Sponser of the venue/event wants it handicapped to encourage more teams to enter. I also know that it's next to impossible to handicap a tourney where everyone is happy. It's usually the best teams not wanting to give up the right spot, and the worst teams saying no matter what you do, it's not enough spot. So... I think we're going to have to simplify for tomorrow's event as I'm still getting calls from teams that are coming. I guess I'll come up with something

BTW I just hung up with doc and he gave me some ideas.
 
I'm fond of scotch doubles and play it a lot. In my experience, the team with the best player (singular) pretty much always wins. Or they win as often as Team A's best player would against Team B's best player.

Therefore handicapping can't be a straight up average of the two players. It should be weighted towards the better player.

I wanted to say "average their skill levels and then add a point" but that doesn't seem viable. Like a team with a 6 and a 4 would average out to a 5, but I'd be leaning towards adding a point and calling the team handicap 6. But that wouldn't be fair to them if there's another team that's a 6 and another 6 (who obviously can't be averaged with a team handicap of 7).

I guess all you can do is average their skill levels, round up if it's a partial number, then have the team race to its own handicap. Since there will be few teams that average 6 and 7, most races will be to 5 wins or less.
 
ugotactionTX said:
Hey guys, I really have myself in a predicament. I have a "sweet heart" 8 ball scotch doubles tournament tomorrow and need some ideas on how to handicap it.

We have teams that range from 2 C players, all the way up to a Master and and A player. In the past we have played races to 5 or 6 with the difference between team totals (M=7 A=6 B=5 C=4) deciding the spot. However, as of right now I have at least 20 teams coming and only 8 tables YIKES!:eek:

I was hoping to get some ideas on how others would handicap such a mix and make it quasi-fair BUT without having to stretch races out too far. I'm afraid we'll have trouble getting it all finished by Sunday.

any ideas or suggestions? I'm all ears!
Click to expand...

In a spot like this, I would make the best "teams" go to six, the next best teams go to five and the next best go to four. Maybe the worst teams will only have to go to three games. This is probably the simplest way to handicap I know of. It is up to you (and whoever is helping you) to decide who the best teams are and how all the teams are rated.
 
well.. it worked out great. We had 23 teams that ranked from MA to CC. This is how we ranked them

MA=5
AA

MC=4
AB
AC

BB=3
BC
CC

It was easy to keep straight, everyone thought it was fair, and LOTS AND LOTS of hill/hill matches so the spot was working well. Thanks for all the suggestions, it really helped me decide.
 
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