a DCC observation relevant to timing

I

InsertCleverNameHere

Well-known member
Overall I feel the Banks field is by far the weakest in terms of average players skills. Lots of gate beaters who just want to be a part of it. I saw many players play that would have a hard time EVER running a rack of 9 ball with their fundamentals/approach to the game. Banks is demanding of your skills and when 2 weak players play matches can take a crazy long time to finish. Some of the folks playing are so casual about it that they don't even care about the result at all and are perfectly content to bunt the balls around the table for 2+ hours. It's just the truth.

I can't verify the timing of this but I was told by a friend of one of the players in a match on table 32 or 34 upstairs that their match was over 4 hours and it was 2-2 and 0-0 at the time he told me this. How is this possible? They must have been sitting talking for awhile or something. No referee involvement at all from what I saw in the banks.

But I saw many matches get put on the Grady rule in one pocket including one of mine. My opponent and I were just super evenly matched and fighting hard. May be hard to picture but we had a game won with an 8 and out and 2 other runs of 6 not a single game was an up table game. The most balls that were ever in the kitchen was 4 and that only happened in 2 of the 5 games.

I don't know the answer to the scheduling problems at DCC but I feel all disciplines should be treated as if they might be the issue until it's figured out. Many different things have been proposed and imo they all seem to have some merit. Maybe even start the 9 ball on day 1? Who knows but I had 2 days where I only played 1 match and I only played 2 of the disciplines(banks and 1Pkt). Maybe I got a bye one of those days but just seems like you should always get in 2 matches(or more) in a day until you're eliminated. Most people I talked to play 2-3 matches per day so maybe I'm just an outlier and that's fine just thought it was strange.
 
I watched that 4:10 match upstairs that you spoke of. I was scheduled next at 12:30 and finally started at 3:30.
There was a referee there for the last 2 hours but he didn't seem to do much except report back to the main desk
Perhaps a time limit could be figured out and added to banks similar to what they have done with 1pkt
 
InsertCleverNameHere said:
Overall I feel the Banks field is by far the weakest in terms of average players skills. Lots of gate beaters who just want to be a part of it. I saw many players play that would have a hard time EVER running a rack of 9 ball with their fundamentals/approach to the game. Banks is demanding of your skills and when 2 weak players play matches can take a crazy long time to finish. Some of the folks playing are so casual about it that they don't even care about the result at all and are perfectly content to bunt the balls around the table for 2+ hours. It's just the truth.

I can't verify the timing of this but I was told by a friend of one of the players in a match on table 32 or 34 upstairs that their match was over 4 hours and it was 2-2 and 0-0 at the time he told me this. How is this possible? They must have been sitting talking for awhile or something. No referee involvement at all from what I saw in the banks.

But I saw many matches get put on the Grady rule in one pocket including one of mine. My opponent and I were just super evenly matched and fighting hard. May be hard to picture but we had a game won with an 8 and out and 2 other runs of 6 not a single game was an up table game. The most balls that were ever in the kitchen was 4 and that only happened in 2 of the 5 games.

I don't know the answer to the scheduling problems at DCC but I feel all disciplines should be treated as if they might be the issue until it's figured out. Many different things have been proposed and imo they all seem to have some merit. Maybe even start the 9 ball on day 1? Who knows but I had 2 days where I only played 1 match and I only played 2 of the disciplines(banks and 1Pkt). Maybe I got a bye one of those days but just seems like you should always get in 2 matches(or more) in a day until you're eliminated. Most people I talked to play 2-3 matches per day so maybe I'm just an outlier and that's fine just thought it was strange.
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I have heard from more than a few past attendees of the DCC, that it's fairly common for attendees to sign up for the Banks division. Apparently, this gets you entry for the entire week, and it's cheaper than paying daily admission.

I have never been, so I cannot confirm this to be factual.
 
bradsh98 said:
I have heard from more than a few past attendees of the DCC, that it's fairly common for attendees to sign up for the Banks division. Apparently, this gets you entry for the entire week, and it's cheaper than paying daily admission.

I have never been, so I cannot confirm this to be factual.
Click to expand...
Yes true. Sullivan set it up this way intentionally, so the spectators were also participants. Banks used to actually have a lower entry fee until about 10 years ago when all 3 disciplines were made equal.
 
bradsh98 said:
I have heard from more than a few past attendees of the DCC, that it's fairly common for attendees to sign up for the Banks division. Apparently, this gets you entry for the entire week, and it's cheaper than paying daily admission.

I have never been, so I cannot confirm this to be factual.
Click to expand...
iusedtoberich said:
Yes true. Sullivan set it up this way intentionally, so the spectators were also participants. Banks used to actually have a lower entry fee until about 10 years ago when all 3 disciplines were made equal.
Click to expand...

This hasn’t been true for years.

Its more to play than watch.

Also when it was true…it only made sense if you were there the first day when the Banks started. It wasn’t cheaper if you showed up for the One Pocket.
 
Terry Aeschliman said:
I watched that 4:10 match upstairs that you spoke of. I was scheduled next at 12:30 and finally started at 3:30.
There was a referee there for the last 2 hours but he didn't seem to do much except report back to the main desk
Perhaps a time limit could be figured out and added to banks similar to what they have done with 1pkt
Click to expand...
Doesn’t even seem possible. How many times did they foul? lol

Sorry you had to see that. I can’t even imagine.
 
bradsh98 said:
I have heard from more than a few past attendees of the DCC, that it's fairly common for attendees to sign up for the Banks division. Apparently, this gets you entry for the entire week, and it's cheaper than paying daily admission.

I have never been, so I cannot confirm this to be factual.
Click to expand...
It was $160 to enter an event, $100 for a general admission spectator pass.
 
Banks was $75 in the past, I'm 75% sure:)

And I think a bunch of the "action room junkies" would buy the banks, oversleep their matches, and instead gamble in the action room 24/7. So some of the banks matches didn't even happen to slow down the tournament.
 
InsertCleverNameHere said:
...snip...

I don't know the answer to the scheduling problems at DCC but I feel all disciplines should be treated as if they might be the issue until it's figured out.
Click to expand...
I agree with this bolded part entirely. Diamond should look to shorten all of the disciplines, not just 1 pocket.

Banks can sometimes turn into an end game like one pocket. But on average, I'd say banks games are usually faster than one pocket.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I agree with this bolded part entirely. Diamond should look to shorten all of the disciplines, not just 1 pocket.

Banks can sometimes turn into an end game like one pocket. But on average, I'd say banks games are usually faster than one pocket.
Click to expand...
Yeah I’m sure the average match times of banks goes down the deeper into the event it gets purely based on the quality of the players. Maybe this is true for all games but especially true for banks.
 
InsertCleverNameHere said:
Overall I feel the Banks field is by far the weakest in terms of average players skills. Lots of gate beaters who just want to be a part of it. I saw many players play that would have a hard time EVER running a rack of 9 ball with their fundamentals/approach to the game. Banks is demanding of your skills and when 2 weak players play matches can take a crazy long time to finish. Some of the folks playing are so casual about it that they don't even care about the result at all and are perfectly content to bunt the balls around the table for 2+ hours. It's just the truth.

I can't verify the timing of this but I was told by a friend of one of the players in a match on table 32 or 34 upstairs that their match was over 4 hours and it was 2-2 and 0-0 at the time he told me this. How is this possible? They must have been sitting talking for awhile or something. No referee involvement at all from what I saw in the banks.

But I saw many matches get put on the Grady rule in one pocket including one of mine. My opponent and I were just super evenly matched and fighting hard. May be hard to picture but we had a game won with an 8 and out and 2 other runs of 6 not a single game was an up table game. The most balls that were ever in the kitchen was 4 and that only happened in 2 of the 5 games.

I don't know the answer to the scheduling problems at DCC but I feel all disciplines should be treated as if they might be the issue until it's figured out. Many different things have been proposed and imo they all seem to have some merit. Maybe even start the 9 ball on day 1? Who knows but I had 2 days where I only played 1 match and I only played 2 of the disciplines(banks and 1Pkt). Maybe I got a bye one of those days but just seems like you should always get in 2 matches(or more) in a day until you're eliminated. Most people I talked to play 2-3 matches per day so maybe I'm just an outlier and that's fine just thought it was strange.
Click to expand...
Like SVB said, they need to raise the ENTRY fee's and buy backs to improve the player experience.
 
markpatrick said:
Like SVB said, they need to raise the ENTRY fee's and buy backs to improve the player experience.
Click to expand...

Great for the pros, not so great for the guys who just want to get in for the experience.

The whole thing about the DCC is how big it is. You start raising the entries and it will get smaller and then the payouts get commensurately smaller too.

Lou Figueroa
 
markpatrick said:
Like SVB said, they need to raise the ENTRY fee's and buy backs to improve the player experience.
Click to expand...
My inclination is that raising the entry would not change things much unless it was double or more. And all that would do is cut 20% of the field. I know I’m not the average person but for a once a year event the dollar amount of the entry isn’t going to change my mind despite the fact that my chances of winning a banner are absolute zero.
 
lfigueroa said:
Great for the pros, not so great for the guys who just want to get in for the experience.

The whole thing about the DCC is how big it is. You start raising the entries and it will get smaller and then the payouts get commensurately smaller too.

Lou Figueroa
Click to expand...
Yeah I mean we already have plenty of “all pro” events. Do we really want DCC to become another one of those? I’d lean heavily to NO.
 
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markpatrick said:
Like SVB said, they need to raise the ENTRY fee's and buy backs to improve the player experience.
Click to expand...
Nope. They just need to fix their broken scheduling. They have plenty of tables for the number of matches that need to be played. Really. If you've ever been there and/or talked to players who have gotten jerked around multiple times as to match start time, I think you will recognize the horrible confusion and inefficiency.
 
I'd be super curious to hear what their conversations were with Digital Pool. I read that DP put tablets on each table for the scores, that ended up having some technical difficulties. I'm sure that can be worked out. I don't think the tablets were tied into the tournament software, but were rather for the purpose of the re-streamers to know the score of the outside table live streams. I'm guessing at this.

But even better, would be if they discussed digital pool managing the table assignments, score keeping, and draw.

Before everyone says the buyback format is different, I'm well aware. I doubt it would be much trouble for DP to make some adjustments to their software to accommodate the buyback format.

One big plus specifically for table utilization, is as soon as the players submit the score, the software would know to assign AND text another pair of players to get on that table.
 
iusedtoberich said:
... But even better, would be if they discussed digital pool managing the table assignments, score keeping, and draw.

Before everyone says the buyback format is different, I'm well aware. I doubt it would be much trouble for DP to make some adjustments to their software to accommodate the buyback format. ...
Click to expand...
Digital Pool cannot even handle scoring at 14.1. Matchroom tried them for the first UK Open. Matchroom stopped using them., and from what I saw there as a spectator, for very good reasons. I don't think there is any chance DP would implement the current DCC buyback format for one event per year, and coordinating with the current tournament management company is also unlikely.

I do like the fact that they are set up to stream many tables and do the scorepad thing, but.....
 
iusedtoberich said:
I'd be super curious to hear what their conversations were with Digital Pool. I read that DP put tablets on each table for the scores, that ended up having some technical difficulties. I'm sure that can be worked out. I don't think the tablets were tied into the tournament software, but were rather for the purpose of the re-streamers to know the score of the outside table live streams. I'm guessing at this.

But even better, would be if they discussed digital pool managing the table assignments, score keeping, and draw.

Before everyone says the buyback format is different, I'm well aware. I doubt it would be much trouble for DP to make some adjustments to their software to accommodate the buyback format.

One big plus specifically for table utilization, is as soon as the players submit the score, the software would know to assign AND text another pair of players to get on that table.
Click to expand...
I tried to use one of the tablets for my second banks match. Didn’t notice them before that. It wouldn’t register my touch for whatever reason and I gave up after it switched to Amazon Prime video out of the blue.
 
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