Anyone have experience with 3 cushion leagues? I don't know anything about league play. Is it worth the effort? We have two tables now, so I've been thinking about it. How does a league work? I know there are pool leagues, but i don't inderstand how they work or why people are excited to play in them....
I used to play in a handicapped league that included Bob Byrne and Khalil Diab in the regulars. There were three tables and we played short matches and had a single-elimination tournament each night with all the entries paid out as cash prizes. A similar league runs now at Edgie's in Milpitas, CA.
One way to set up the handicaps:
Everyone gets a rating that is 10 times the number of points they go to. For each match they win, their rating goes up one unit. For each match they lose, their rating goes down one unit. Eventually, everyone will find their "correct" level against the others. A top player might be rated 200 and would go to 20 while an average player might be 100 (goes to 10).
This basic system gives no advantage to the top players, so they may not want to participate. One way to handle that is to take 10% out of each week's entries and set it aside for a "scratch" event at the end of the year with no handicaps and open to anyone who has played at least half the time during the year (or season).
Keep track of how late you finish each night. If things stretch out too late, use a match-length table that is 80% or 70% of the nominal 1/10 rating to match length conversion.
You can adjust new players faster for their first season, maybe by 2 or 3 units per match. If you really screw up on rating a new player, move them by 20 or 30 rating points, but let them know when they sign up that this might happen. Known players you can put in according to their records against players already in the system.
