Celtic,
I am a little surprised about this post.
Are you insinuating (or suggesting) that the prize fund will not be distributed to players?
Not at all, I like everyone else are waiting for that explanation that you offered to finally be delivered so that we can then all make our determination on what we think of the whole situation and its resolution.
Personally though, I was there at the event and LONG before the singles were complete people were talking like crazy about those players from Taiwan and how good they shot. If we all knew about it by the time the big board had begun I am sure the BCAPL had knowledge. I am certainly curious to hear how the players in question were simply left allowed to continue playing in the event, knocking players out of the event, plugging their tokens, until they have finally won the event to only THEN be told they are too good and will not be getting paid.
I think it is very important that the BCAPL explain
1) Why is it that players coming from an international location like Tawain or Spain are not properly assessed by the BCAPL as to which division they should play in? This is not a "new" issue, every single year there are international players in the event that are clearly far above the norm for the open division but since they do not play in America they are largely unknown.
2) Why is it that after many years of people entering the tournament who are too good to have been there and winning large sums of money was it decided that now, with Taiwanese players that the BCAPL was going to go against the precedent they have set of simply paying off the "Bobby Pickle" types of players and suddenly refusing payment?
3) Was the BCAPL aware of the Taiwanese players being very, very good "during" the event as many of the players were? If so why did the BCAPL allow them to continue to play in the event, why did you keep giving them their match cards and make them assume everything was fine and only after they had played through the entire event, spending alot of time, energy, and paying for alot of tokens THEN tell them they are too good and you wont pay?
4) Do you not see the very high level of fault that the BCAPL itseltf has in this situation? It is the BCAPL's lack of ability to police it's own league charters, to properly assess the level of players who enter the divisionalized tournaments in Vegas that led to this situation. You act as if the Taiwanese players are totally at fault but IMO it is the BCAPL who failed to properly assess players that they probably should have assumed might be more then expected given they were coming internationally from a extremely powerful pool nation that rivals the Philippines in depth of talent. You act as if this whole thing surprised you, it is absurd if that is the case, you should have been wary of this before the event even started and keeping a closer eye on things either personally or having a BCAPL employee keeping a close eye on some of the early matches to gague the speed of some of these unknown players so that you could take early action instead of letting things continue right until the end of the event.
The BCAPL year after year simply fails to police this, and TBH it is not that hard to keep an eye on charters and players and perhaps keep an eye on early matches these players play in. The fact is alot of people here on AZB knew what was happening, people watched one of these players drill Danny Smith for cash, the BCAPL though act as if they had no clue right up until the end. Either you DID know and did nothing while the event was taking place, which is quite bad. Or you had no clue and were completely ignorant of what was taking place in your own event, and that is also quite bad. That is the problem with this whole situation. You do NOT take action after the whole tournament is over, you do not let players go through an entire event like that and THEN rip them off by not paying them. You step in early and tell them they are too good and will have to be removed from the event, you do not leave them in to struggle through and win the whole thing and then tell them they are not getting paid. That looks just terrible on this sport, again a tournament rips off some of the players, this time it is a BCAPL event, and your excuse is very weak and you seem to admit nothing of the fault you have in this, and rest assured the BCAPL has alot of fault in letting it all play out the way it did.