Rules and Format of a Chip Tournament

jazzman

jazzman

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I work out of town all week and recently played in a 9 ball chip tournament one evening instead of sitting in my hotel. I had a blast and thought it might be something that would go over well at the place that I normally play at when I'm home. I've searched the internet looking for the rules and how to run one with no success. Is there anyone out there that can point me in the right direction on finding the rules and setup for on of these tournaments? Thanks in advance for any information.
 
chip tourney

Well I can tell you how they do it in Columbus at the 8ball Sportsbar. They give you 5 chips for your entry fee. They do a draw just like a regular tournament to get things started. You then play one game...if you win you keep the table and you rack for the person coming on. If you lose, you go give them one of your chips and wait for your name to be called for your next game. Supposedly they are tracking the losers so that nobody can pull a fast one with the chips. Likewise, they are supposed to have them play in the order in which they drop off their chips. This is done until it is down to like a quarter of the field when they start drawing cards to see who plays one another.... That is about the gist of what I have seen in playing there. I think its okay but I cant seem to get in a rhythm in a tournament like that. Plus it is hard as hell because you are already giving up the break every time you win. But, I think it gives average players a chance to get to the money on any given night. I hope that helps. I had never even heard of this format until I moved here. We did not have them in Milwaukee and I do not recall there being anything like this in St. Louis.

Patrick
 
Patrick53212 said:
Well I can tell you how they do it in Columbus at the 8ball Sportsbar. They give you 5 chips for your entry fee. They do a draw just like a regular tournament to get things started. You then play one game...if you win you keep the table and you rack for the person coming on. If you lose, you go give them one of your chips and wait for your name to be called for your next game. Supposedly they are tracking the losers so that nobody can pull a fast one with the chips. Likewise, they are supposed to have them play in the order in which they drop off their chips. This is done until it is down to like a quarter of the field when they start drawing cards to see who plays one another.... That is about the gist of what I have seen in playing there. I think its okay but I cant seem to get in a rhythm in a tournament like that. Plus it is hard as hell because you are already giving up the break every time you win. But, I think it gives average players a chance to get to the money on any given night. I hope that helps. I had never even heard of this format until I moved here. We did not have them in Milwaukee and I do not recall there being anything like this in St. Louis.

Patrick
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I have heard that there is a little hanky panky going on there. The loser goes to the table to drop their chip in the can as the director watches. The problem is some of the losers tap the side of the can and palms the chip. The director is not keeping tabs on how many anyone has left or "lost". The other is slow play. Play slow and you don't lose as fast.
 
the one in columbus is ran awsome..... they had a 20k break an run..... you had to play in the tourney to b able for all the money... sooo they had a chip tourney with 100 plus
 
jazzman said:
Anyone know of a website that will explain how to run one of these?
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Sorry, I'm not aware of any website, but we do two of these a week at my home pool hall and I've played in several at other places. It's a good system that provides everyone the opportunity to play a bunch of games and usually against a bunch of different people.

The only thing we do a little differently than what was previously described is 1) we don't use physical chips, we just keep track of losses on paper and 2) we use the chip count as our handicap system. Better players get fewer chips, and thus can lose fewer times. As soon as someone loses a game, we decrease their remaining chip count and assign them to a new table. Eventually, you'll get to the point where there are only winners remaining and no one can move. When we get to that point, we redraw for the "finals" and play the remaining games on two tables. Eventually, each of those tables will have a single winner remaining, and they play each other for 1st and 2nd.

It *is* possible to game the system a bit by playing very slowly and thus have to win fewer games to make it to the finals. It only helps you, however, if you keep winning - if you lose, you are just helping the other guy. One way around this is to rotate the table assignment. In one place I've played, they do this by *always* sending the loser to the next table, so if you lose on table 2, you automatically play your next game on table 3, even if there are 4 games waiting ahead of you. You just always keep moving down the line, so slow play just makes the tournament take longer.
 
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