Yep. Add this to the post-covid cost of staying open just makes it prohibitive to add much $$.
A concerning change in average tournament payouts.
- Thread starter u12armresl
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They were a helluva lotta fun back in the day, b4 things got crazy and you couldn't afford to buy yourself. Good way to win some decent coin.
I'd try to sneak in as an unknown and go for cheap.
There's that Chinese arithmetic again!!
I remember most players going for twenty to sixty dollars, the best might break a hundred by a little bit. With just a modest spread in ability there would be a bunch of people that might cash pretty big, enough that might win to keep the calcutta prices from getting too lopsided.
I know I say this in every thread about calcuttas but I like the cash option. The players agree on a set amount, maybe twenty bucks, and everyone that wants in the side pot pays when putting in their entry. The person registering competitors takes the money and adds a name to a list, maybe a minute or two extra at most and now those that want to play for more can.
Hu
The days of buying up 3 and 4 players at a time for a few hundred bucks are long gone brother!!
Yrs ago a friend bought a local guy in one of the Tulsa Billiard Pace monthly opens for next to nothing. These events drew TOP grade talent b ecause of the 24hr action. Well, this local cat doesn't buy half himself and ends up in SECOND. My buddy went to jelly him and he thought he deserved half. WTF??? The guy made no attempt to buy himself but still wanted half. He stormed off like the delusional nit he was.
Cmon, everyone knows the rule, you are only entitled to half when you cough up half of your cost, any cash he got from the calcutta was a generous tip from the guy that bought him.
Apparently he was clueless. He beat Dick Lane and a couple other top players to get to final.
Unfortunately this is fairly common. Jeanette Lee tried to buy half of herself after the fact. The bidder quiet reasonably refused. I think she has a history of that but I will stick to the one time I recall the details fairly well.
A player thinking they should get half with no risk is being ridiculous. Indeed, even ten or fifteen percent can be ridiculous depending on the real costs the bidder spent to win. Many players see this jelly as a requirement, it isn't as players find more and more when outside bidders win. The bidder might have bet tens of thousands that weekend on that calcutta, other calcuttas, horses, dogs, poker, on and on. Plus any smart gambler is keeping a running tally of where they are at for the year or longer. If they are having a great year they might be inclined to toss a little jelly but I can't picture them tossing more than a few thousand regardless of what ten or fifteen percent is.
While on the subject, unless specified in the rules for the event, the buyer isn't under obligation to sell the player 50%. Many players get out of joint about this but have no problem not buying fifty percent if they don't like the odds or don't have the cash. Seems like players wanting to have everything their own way! If I were a bidder it would depend on the way I planned things when I was buying the calcutta.
Hu