Those who went to BCA Vegas,how was it for you? What did you observe? How'd you do? Was it better then ever or worse? Comments good or bad....Just curious....
Any thoughts on bca vegas
- Thread starter NINEBALLART
- Start date
Pros play off site, and I refuse to support that, period. I would gladly pay to see them play if they had kept it at the Rio. All food and drink once you pass the guard on duty at pool playing entrance is crazy expensive. I'm not paying $8 for a salad and $4 for a bottle of water. Attendance seems to be going down, at least for the teams 8 ball. Not sure about the rest of the tourney. It was hotter than Hades outside!!! I'll be glad when they change back to another month in the spring.
I enjoyed seeing many of the same vendors there and prices were pretty darn good. Pool room finally cooled off and was pleasant. Tables played pretty darn good with no bad rolls due to the leveling of the table. Players from other teams were good sports, and we enjoyed playing them. Ate some great food on and around the strip (team mate had a car so didn't have to pay for taxi or uber). Had a great Burrito at Guy's place at the Rio, but overall went else where to eat better food than at the Rio. Overall had a good time even though our team did not nearly perform as well as we should have. Got to see some folks I only get to see at this tourney and that was nice to see them.
I'll be back next year if I'm still breathing.:smile:
I enjoyed seeing many of the same vendors there and prices were pretty darn good. Pool room finally cooled off and was pleasant. Tables played pretty darn good with no bad rolls due to the leveling of the table. Players from other teams were good sports, and we enjoyed playing them. Ate some great food on and around the strip (team mate had a car so didn't have to pay for taxi or uber). Had a great Burrito at Guy's place at the Rio, but overall went else where to eat better food than at the Rio. Overall had a good time even though our team did not nearly perform as well as we should have. Got to see some folks I only get to see at this tourney and that was nice to see them.
I'll be back next year if I'm still breathing.:smile:
I played in several events and overall had a great time. Generally, I think the tournament is very well run. Nevertheless, I walked away feeling like I did not receive my money's worth in two events.
First Event: Open 9 Ball Gold - Entry fee - $120 - Races were 5 on winners side and 4 on losers side. Considering how fast a lot of 9 ball games can go, I feel that races should be at least 6/5 if not 7/6. Finding open tables was no problem that early in the tournament.
Second event: Gold Scotch Doubles - Entry fee $160 - Races to 4 on winners side and 3 on losers. Really ?? We go all the way to Las Vegas to play such short races? I think gold Scotch races should be 5/4 like they previously were. Again, table availability did not seem to be a problem.
Although the entry fees are a little steep, I can live with that if the race lengths are more appropriate. Anyone else feeling that the entry fees/race lengths are not quite right?
First Event: Open 9 Ball Gold - Entry fee - $120 - Races were 5 on winners side and 4 on losers side. Considering how fast a lot of 9 ball games can go, I feel that races should be at least 6/5 if not 7/6. Finding open tables was no problem that early in the tournament.
Second event: Gold Scotch Doubles - Entry fee $160 - Races to 4 on winners side and 3 on losers. Really ?? We go all the way to Las Vegas to play such short races? I think gold Scotch races should be 5/4 like they previously were. Again, table availability did not seem to be a problem.
Although the entry fees are a little steep, I can live with that if the race lengths are more appropriate. Anyone else feeling that the entry fees/race lengths are not quite right?
I thought they were a little short in some of the events also. I only played singles 8-ball and the races to 7 were fine. Some awfully slow players really jammed up some of the brackets though.
I haven't been for BCA in several years. I do not like the Rio at all. I would go if it was back on the strip. Most of the things I dislike you mentioned in your post. I am looking to start playing APA again to go to a different venue in Vegas than the Rio.
Our local players returning from Vegas commented on how slim the fields were this year. Also mentioned the shortage of vendors from past years. Some mentioned the door guards were overly active and the food prices were through the roof! Did not go this year so this is all second hand.
Can tell you the singles event I played in last year with 75 entries was down to 50. Payouts at the top were the same. Didn't check all the payouts.
By summers end, I'll be qualified to play next year. Probably just go out for the Senior Platinum 8 ball and the CSI 8 and 10 ball events.
Lyn
Can tell you the singles event I played in last year with 75 entries was down to 50. Payouts at the top were the same. Didn't check all the payouts.
By summers end, I'll be qualified to play next year. Probably just go out for the Senior Platinum 8 ball and the CSI 8 and 10 ball events.
Lyn
Don't know about the BCA events, but the USAPL 9 ball singles had a 150 entry (175 if past some date), my son came in 7th and got $260. There were 70 players, so for 7th place he got $100 if you take out the entry fee. That seems very low for 70 players. They need to drop the top prizes a bit and distribute the money more to the rest of the field.
Aside from that, the handicap events were as usual for handicap events filled with players too low for their ability. As B+ players we were playing players as good or better while spotting them 5-3. No clue how so many players can keep their handicap low while playing good.
$4 sodas and waters, while in the same hotel they are at least $1 cheaper. No idea who thought that up, why not just charge the same prices as the rest of the place which is already marked up 400%?
Last edited:
Yes it was a short race, but honestly, with discussion allowed it was probably the right length race. My gold singles races to 6 were shorter than the gold scotch doubles races to 4/3. I think I'd just prefer no talking and longer races. The rule that the non-shooting player has to stay at their seat didn't really change things. The ones who would benefit most from a no-discussion rule is the women! Jeezus the way some guys/boyfriends/husbands wanted to mansplain every flipping' shot...
I understand the pro event being at Griff's. It's only 5 minutes away and they provide a free shuttle. I do wish they would work on the seating there. If you're not right in the front row around the table, you can't really see, and you're just jockeying around the guy's big head in front of you to see a piece of the table. I was right in front for the 10-ball, and it was great. I was one row back for the 8-ball, and I wished I hadn't gone. I'm sure bleachers are a pain but even just one small three-row, 15' set would probably double the amount viewing seats available.
I have never played in the events because I don't want to spend so much time in Vegas. However, I have gone to Griff's for the past two years to watch the 8 ball. I agree that you have to get there early to assure yourself a good seat. My friend and I got there at around noon for both Monday and Tuesday in order to get front row seats.
I have mixed emotions about it being at Griff's instead of the Rio. The benefits are that they play on 9 footers. It didn't seem right to have US Open events on 7 footers. I think Mark Griffin said it is too expensive to set up 9 footers at the Rio- however, I remember they use to do it at the other casino (forgot the name of the previous casino BCA was at- Riviera?) Also, the food and drink prices are reasonable at Griff's especially during happy hour. On the other hand the seating was better at the Rio especially on the TV tables where they had bleachers. As others have said, it seems the prices for food and drink have become outrageous at the Rio. They need to do something about that. Maybe people need to start sneaking flasks in their pool cases!
On a side note, I was disappointed in the low turnout. Sure several top pros were there, but it is used to attract nearly all of them in the past. Many big names were missing for some reason.
I did not go this year because of players being allowed to play with little to no Fargo the last couple years. Check the winners of the Gold/Silver/Bronze the last couple years and run those names in Fargo...most have under 200 games. Or at least they did at the time.
CSI as made the Fargo rating the standard for their World Championship, would be nice to see them enforce League Operators inputting games. Most operators around the country do not input games, unless this policy has change recently?
That being said, I did follow another Tucson team that was in the Mixed Gold Teams event. They ended up winning the whole enchilada, couldn't be prouder of these individuals. Ronnie Kidd III, Aaron Purdy, James Leonard, Jeremy Ross, Eric Yagla, and Wayde Bryant. With the exception of Wayde, they all have over 800 games each in the Fargo system. Grats gentleman
Wayde Bryant has 196 games in the Fargo system and may be due to his name being misspelled.....WADE w/out the "Y"
Anyhoo, this is the first year I haven't gone in the last 16 years. I wanted to see if these issues with low robustness would continue?
Here are the winners from this year.
MIXED GOLD Rating Robustness
1) John Bustamante - not found - N/A
2) Juan Parra Jr. - 614 - 2785
3) Jeff Nystrom - 607 - 697
MIXED SILVER
1) Travis Kuenzel - 623 - 211
2) Geoff Gelinas - 573 - 157
3) Subh Mukherjee - 556 - 61
MIXED BRONZE
1) Louie Souza - 548 - 195
2) Bryan Patino - 469 - 287
3) Steve Villarreal - 484 - 250
I didn't put platinum because they have high ratings and it is impossible to sandbag in that division. But you can see the disparity between 1st and 2nd place finishers by ratings. Not sure what the cutoff was to be in Gold and I'm guessing that when John Bistamante's rating come in, it will be in the Platinum category.
Judge for yourself.........JMHO
CSI as made the Fargo rating the standard for their World Championship, would be nice to see them enforce League Operators inputting games. Most operators around the country do not input games, unless this policy has change recently?
That being said, I did follow another Tucson team that was in the Mixed Gold Teams event. They ended up winning the whole enchilada, couldn't be prouder of these individuals. Ronnie Kidd III, Aaron Purdy, James Leonard, Jeremy Ross, Eric Yagla, and Wayde Bryant. With the exception of Wayde, they all have over 800 games each in the Fargo system. Grats gentleman
Wayde Bryant has 196 games in the Fargo system and may be due to his name being misspelled.....WADE w/out the "Y"
Anyhoo, this is the first year I haven't gone in the last 16 years. I wanted to see if these issues with low robustness would continue?
Here are the winners from this year.
MIXED GOLD Rating Robustness
1) John Bustamante - not found - N/A
2) Juan Parra Jr. - 614 - 2785
3) Jeff Nystrom - 607 - 697
MIXED SILVER
1) Travis Kuenzel - 623 - 211
2) Geoff Gelinas - 573 - 157
3) Subh Mukherjee - 556 - 61
MIXED BRONZE
1) Louie Souza - 548 - 195
2) Bryan Patino - 469 - 287
3) Steve Villarreal - 484 - 250
I didn't put platinum because they have high ratings and it is impossible to sandbag in that division. But you can see the disparity between 1st and 2nd place finishers by ratings. Not sure what the cutoff was to be in Gold and I'm guessing that when John Bistamante's rating come in, it will be in the Platinum category.
Judge for yourself.........JMHO
I did not go this year because of players being allowed to play with little to no Fargo the last couple years. Check the winners of the Gold/Silver/Bronze the last couple years and run those names in Fargo...most have under 200 games. Or at least they did at the time.
CSI as made the Fargo rating the standard for their World Championship, would be nice to see them enforce League Operators inputting games. Most operators around the country do not input games, unless this policy has change recently?
That being said, I did follow another Tucson team that was in the Mixed Gold Teams event. They ended up winning the whole enchilada, couldn't be prouder of these individuals. Ronnie Kidd III, Aaron Purdy, James Leonard, Jeremy Ross, Eric Yagla, and Wayde Bryant. With the exception of Wayde, they all have over 800 games each in the Fargo system. Grats gentleman
Wayde Bryant has 196 games in the Fargo system and may be due to his name being misspelled.....WADE w/out the "Y"
Anyhoo, this is the first year I haven't gone in the last 16 years. I wanted to see if these issues with low robustness would continue?
Here are the winners from this year.
MIXED GOLD Rating Robustness
1) John Bustamante - not found - N/A
2) Juan Parra Jr. - 614 - 2785
3) Jeff Nystrom - 607 - 697
MIXED SILVER
1) Travis Kuenzel - 623 - 211
2) Geoff Gelinas - 573 - 157
3) Subh Mukherjee - 556 - 61
MIXED BRONZE
1) Louie Souza - 548 - 195
2) Bryan Patino - 469 - 287
3) Steve Villarreal - 484 - 250
I didn't put platinum because they have high ratings and it is impossible to sandbag in that division. But you can see the disparity between 1st and 2nd place finishers by ratings. Not sure what the cutoff was to be in Gold and I'm guessing that when John Bistamante's rating come in, it will be in the Platinum category.
Judge for yourself.........JMHO
Interesting that the winner of the silver division has a higher rating than 2nd place of the gold division.
I have a friend who won a different division and their rating dropped after scores were entered from BCA Nationals.
There was a player in the platinum who (starting in round 2 or 3) had to start spotting his opponent one game. After the event was submitted he ended up in the 730s.
Had a blast, but would've rather had pro matches at the Rio than at Griffs. I won 3 out of 4 handicapped mini tournaments, which gave the roulette wheels another $300, but it was great. I'd like staying at Bally's better than Rio, but it was what it what was. Table conditions were good, no complaints.
Good stuff!
Yes, you were very busy so we didn’t get to speak for very long. You guys had some long days and also got a raw deal with the booth being so far from the table this year!
I had a few takeaways from BCA Nationals:
1. Regardless of how it's stated in the video, I had thought the reason behind Fargo was for transparency of players skill levels. Even if league operators do not have the updated LMS, I'm assuming there's a way they can enter information just as we do in our city for almost every single tournament. Playing a player that has a rating but has absolutely no robustness does not make an established player feel like it's fair. The winners Fargo rates are shown in post #10. When I looked at the entries, it was easy to determine the cutoff Fargo for each division. The video does not address how Bustamante (not found in Fargo-Gold), John Parra Jr (614-Gold), Travis Kuenel (623-Silver), Geoff Gelinas (573-Gold), Subh Mukherjee (556-Gold) and Louie Sousa (548-Bronse)...ended up in their respective divisions as they are all higher than the cutoff for the respective division. This topic has been pretty much beat to death on Facebook. Ultimately, players were disappointed that they ended up playing someone with absolutely no robustness but you must be a BCA league player in order to play nationals.
2. It seems as if there was a huge reduction in attendance this year over years past. I spoke to many of my opponents and they said they will only be able to play one more year as they have kids in school and the summer allows them to be able to play. Once it moves to March, they would not be able to come back. I also spoke to several players that said they've played in several events in the past years but this year they were only playing one or two. Not quite sure of the reason but overall, attendance seemed very low, even according to the vendors. 2 vendors I spoke with will not be returning next year. Here are the attendance numbers from 2017 vs 2018 for the singles divisions.
2017.........2018
163...........119..............8 ball platinum
384...........309..............8 ball gold
374...........306..............8 ball silver
100.............71..............9 ball platinum
297...........208..............9 ball gold
Unfortunately, this represents about a 25% reduction in attendance.
3. Payouts seemed extremely low. This could possibly be due to the reduced number of attendees. I understand the costs are high for the space, labor, etc. I played in 4 events which was a total of $100 in greens fees. Costs seem extremely high in relationship to the payouts.
I hope whatever changes/adjustments/modifications can be made in order to turn this back into the great event it used to be.
1. Regardless of how it's stated in the video, I had thought the reason behind Fargo was for transparency of players skill levels. Even if league operators do not have the updated LMS, I'm assuming there's a way they can enter information just as we do in our city for almost every single tournament. Playing a player that has a rating but has absolutely no robustness does not make an established player feel like it's fair. The winners Fargo rates are shown in post #10. When I looked at the entries, it was easy to determine the cutoff Fargo for each division. The video does not address how Bustamante (not found in Fargo-Gold), John Parra Jr (614-Gold), Travis Kuenel (623-Silver), Geoff Gelinas (573-Gold), Subh Mukherjee (556-Gold) and Louie Sousa (548-Bronse)...ended up in their respective divisions as they are all higher than the cutoff for the respective division. This topic has been pretty much beat to death on Facebook. Ultimately, players were disappointed that they ended up playing someone with absolutely no robustness but you must be a BCA league player in order to play nationals.
2. It seems as if there was a huge reduction in attendance this year over years past. I spoke to many of my opponents and they said they will only be able to play one more year as they have kids in school and the summer allows them to be able to play. Once it moves to March, they would not be able to come back. I also spoke to several players that said they've played in several events in the past years but this year they were only playing one or two. Not quite sure of the reason but overall, attendance seemed very low, even according to the vendors. 2 vendors I spoke with will not be returning next year. Here are the attendance numbers from 2017 vs 2018 for the singles divisions.
2017.........2018
163...........119..............8 ball platinum
384...........309..............8 ball gold
374...........306..............8 ball silver
100.............71..............9 ball platinum
297...........208..............9 ball gold
Unfortunately, this represents about a 25% reduction in attendance.
3. Payouts seemed extremely low. This could possibly be due to the reduced number of attendees. I understand the costs are high for the space, labor, etc. I played in 4 events which was a total of $100 in greens fees. Costs seem extremely high in relationship to the payouts.
I hope whatever changes/adjustments/modifications can be made in order to turn this back into the great event it used to be.
Last edited:
This is an interesting point.
I took a closer look at the ratings of those who cashed in the mixed 8-ball singles events to see how their Fargo ratings were affected by their finish in their respective tournaments, and the results were eye opening.
First of all, I believe the ratings cutoffs were:
Division - Minimum/Maximum
Bronze - No minimum/463
Silver - 464/534
Gold - 536/625
Platinum - 626/720
I'm least sure of the maximum Gold Fargo rating, but I'm fairly sure it was within 10 points of 625.
They paid out to 32nd place in the Bronze division. Of those 32, 21 finished with a Fargo rating at 463 or under. 7 out of the top 16 finished with Fargo rating of 463 or under. It gets grim when you look at the top 8, in which only 1 player finished with a Fargo rating under the cutoff of 463. Every one of the top 4 finishers in the Bronze division finished with a Fargo rating above 463.
They paid out to 96th place in the Silver division. Of those 96, 71 finished with a Fargo rating at 535 or under. 17 out of the top 32, but only 3 out of the top 16 finished at 535 or under. ZERO of the top 8 finished with a Fargo rating at 535 or under.
They paid out to 96th place in the Gold division. Of those 96, a whopping 88 finished with a Fargo rating at 625 or under. 26 out of the top 32, and 11 out of the top 16 finished at 625 or under. 5 out of the top 8, and 3 out of the top 4 finished under 625.
15 out of the top 16 finishers in the Bronze and Silver divisions ended up with Fargo rating above the established cutoff. Silver in particular seems to be poorly handicapped with 13 out of the top 16, and EVERY player in the top 8 finishing with a rating above the cutoff.
Take it as you will.
Pax,
Taek
If it's the player I noticed I checked his Fargo while I was watching his match ( a few days after it happened) and he had gone up to 755. Now I see he's back to 726.