Challenge Ladder Type Loose Organization.

336Robin

336Robin

Multiverse Operative
Silver Member
I used to spend a lot of time looking at different Tournament formats and things of that nature and all of it had drawbacks somewhere.

I have to wonder if the normal comings and goings of players can't be organized in some loose sort of fashion as to not intrude on their personal time, or keep them out late, and yet let them compete and function as a Social Society without all the drawbacks of having to do tournaments or show up for League Nights.

What if anything like what I am describing do you know of?
 
http://americanbilliardclub.com/play/the-arcs/

The American Rotation League seems to fit the bill. This gives you the freedom to schedule your matches in a round-robin tournament during mutually agreeable times. You have to complete the 9 matches within 9 weeks, but day and time is very flexible. This is a good way to have social competition, but without the rigid schedule that makes commitment difficult.

336Robin said:
I used to spend a lot of time looking at different Tournament formats and things of that nature and all of it had drawbacks somewhere.

I have to wonder if the normal comings and goings of players can't be organized in some loose sort of fashion as to not intrude on their personal time, or keep them out late, and yet let them compete and function as a Social Society without all the drawbacks of having to do tournaments or show up for League Nights.

What if anything like what I am describing do you know of?
Click to expand...
 
National Focus

beetle said:
http://americanbilliardclub.com/play/the-arcs/

The American Rotation League seems to fit the bill. This gives you the freedom to schedule your matches in a round-robin tournament during mutually agreeable times. You have to complete the 9 matches within 9 weeks, but day and time is very flexible. This is a good way to have social competition, but without the rigid schedule that makes commitment difficult.
Click to expand...

Beetle,
You are right they offer that. Its sort of a National Focus they have for some serious players.

I don't know of any more that is using this concept other than them. It would seem to me that some of the Pool Rooms themselves would offer some type of Challenge Ladder that people could challenge up the ladder. I've heard about things of this type but haven't seen one yet.
 
I set up a challenge competition way back in 1986 at my local hangout. Called it Top Gun. I used a 1 x 4 with nails positioned to support the plexiglass nametags.

A player could challenge someone one or two places above them in a race to 3 (8 ball) for 50 cents, which went into a jar. If the Top Gun defended their spot three consecutive times, they won the pot.

There were four that were always on the top spot. A would consistently beat B, B beats C, C over D and D beat A. Funny how that worked out.

Before league started in the fall, no one had won the pot, so we ran a seeded tournament for the $70. I came in second to someone who was not one of the top four.

The next summer, I set up a league consisting of 12 players in a round robin format. Each match was 10 games of 8-ball using the 10 point system and the first experience using BIH for the other players. Players scheduled their own matches. I believe all enjoyed playing in this league.
 
Awesome way to Organize Play!

Inaction said:
I set up a challenge competition way back in 1986 at my local hangout. Called it Top Gun. I used a 1 x 4 with nails positioned to support the plexiglass nametags.

A player could challenge someone one or two places above them in a race to 3 (8 ball) for 50 cents, which went into a jar. If the Top Gun defended their spot three consecutive times, they won the pot.

There were four that were always on the top spot. A would consistently beat B, B beats C, C over D and D beat A. Funny how that worked out.

Before league started in the fall, no one had won the pot, so we ran a seeded tournament for the $70. I came in second to someone who was not one of the top four.

The next summer, I set up a league consisting of 12 players in a round robin format. Each match was 10 games of 8-ball using the 10 point system and the first experience using BIH for the other players. Players scheduled their own matches. I believe all enjoyed playing in this league.
Click to expand...

Inaction,
Thanks for sharing. I like to see it when things work out for something like this that is a loose sort of organization that has no real time table because Pool is something that people should do for pure unadulterated fun.

I find that when I have to conform to a schedule of any kind that is sort of takes the fun out of it for me because I was on a strict schedule for 30 plus years.

Its my belief that there are ways of organizing things that the Room Owner level that can loosely organize the players that do not participate in League System play that will assist them in developing their "Pool Culture" and enjoy camaraderie around the game.

If you know of any others I would love to hear about it.
 
I ran a one pocket "pyramid" tournament at my local pool room a couple of years ago (trying to get more players interested in playing one pocket).

We started with everybody on the bottom level (at the "base" of the pyramid) and anybody could challenge anybody, with the winner moving up to the next level. Then you could challenge anybody one level above yourself - if the challenger won, the players switched levels (winner up one, loser down one). If the challenger lost, no change in levels for either player. If there were no players yet on the level above you, then you could challenge somebody on your own level and the winner moved up (loser stayed on the same level).

We let everybody arrange their own matches, but in order to finish in a reasonable amount of time (the tournament was scheduled to end after six weeks) we required everybody to play at least one or two matches a week - and you couldn't refuse a challenge.

It worked out OK, except it was a lot of work to organize over that period of time (emailing everybody almost daily with the current pyramid standings so they'd know who to challenge, reminding those who were slow in challenging, etc.), especially after a few weeks when people started to lose interest and slack off.

I think it's an interesting format, but I'm trying to think of ways to tweak it for next time.

Good luck,

pj
chgo
 
Our community center tournament format probably won't work for most, but it works for us: typical double elimination, but schedule your match with your opponent whenever it's convenient for you, but it must be with 5 days of your last match. With 16 players it will often take us 5-6 weeks to finish a tournament.

We've only got one table so it makes no sense to require everyone to show up at the "start" of a tournament. And 75% of the players are very casual players; if we make too many demands of them (dictate the day/time of their match), they'll just opt not to enter.

We handicap with a version of games-on-the-wire: You win the match by winning the number of games of your handicap rating. If I'm rated as a 4 I have to win four games to win the match. If my opponent is rated a 6, he has to win six games. Same thing as Race to 6 with two games on the wire.
 
That sound interesting

Patrick Johnson said:
I ran a one pocket "pyramid" tournament at my local pool room a couple of years ago (trying to get more players interested in playing one pocket).

We started with everybody on the bottom level (at the "base" of the pyramid) and anybody could challenge anybody, with the winner moving up to the next level. Then you could challenge anybody one level above yourself - if the challenger won, the players switched levels (winner up one, loser down one). If the challenger lost, no change in levels for either player. If there were no players yet on the level above you, then you could challenge somebody on your own level and the winner moved up (loser stayed on the same level).

We let everybody arrange their own matches, but in order to finish in a reasonable amount of time (the tournament was scheduled to end after six weeks) we required everybody to play at least one or two matches a week - and you couldn't refuse a challenge.

It worked out OK, except it was a lot of work to organize over that period of time (emailing everybody almost daily with the current pyramid standings so they'd know who to challenge, reminding those who were slow in challenging, etc.), especially after a few weeks when people started to lose interest and slack off.

I think it's an interesting format, but I'm trying to think of ways to tweak it for next time.

Good luck,

pj
chgo
Click to expand...

Patrick,
That sounds interesting. The whole regulation of anything pool is something hard to manage and there are rules. Lately I have gotten the idea that maybe rules and requirements are something that there could be less of...not absent...just less of and I've started leaning towards the idea that a system of play could be organized around that premise.

Loosely organized in a way that would enable people to play matches the way they wanted to that start on a given date......end on a given date and averages taken during that time with weight given by how many matches were actually played during that time.

A modified Round Robin or Round Robin format demands that a certain number of matches happen but what if the number of matches didnt matter as much but you were given fudge room and credit for participation over someone who didnt care and didnt play many matchups?

For example: A guy who gets in his minimum matches and only plays 6 of the 12 people in a listed pool of players because of whatever reason vs a guy who plays 8 of them or 10 of them or a person who doesnt play well that plays all of them?

I think the man who figures out a way to be reasonably fair in that in scenario is a guy who has something.

I havent put that one to final thoughts but its on my mind.
 
336Robin said:
Beetle,
You are right they offer that. Its sort of a National Focus they have for some serious players.

I don't know of any more that is using this concept other than them. It would seem to me that some of the Pool Rooms themselves would offer some type of Challenge Ladder that people could challenge up the ladder. I've heard about things of this type but haven't seen one yet.
Click to expand...

Yes there's some tooth to Joe Tucker's league ,, the game is a nock off of 15 ball rotation
I have seen 1 pocket and straight pool leagues that had flex time to get your matches in
The only down fall is you only would get all the players together at tournament time , and the game simply is not a spectators game ,

1
 
Challenge Ladder Software

one stroke said:
Yes there's some tooth to Joe Tucker's league ,, the game is a nock off of 15 ball rotation
I have seen 1 pocket and straight pool leagues that had flex time to get your matches in
The only down fall is you only would get all the players together at tournament time , and the game simply is not a spectators game ,

1
Click to expand...

Where we play pool we just found and are using free software on tennisrungs.com
or dot org.

Its free and you can run a simple skill ladder, make challenges online its really nice and it updates the ladder as people lose and win.
 
Flexible league

I run a handicapped straight pool league with flexible scheduling.

At the start, everyone gets a schedule of who to play during which week and a contact sheet with everyone's name, phone and email.

Players are divided up into 2 divisions by skill level, playing everyone in their division once and a few from the other division, so that people play mostly others near their own skill level.

Players contact each other and arrange to play anytime the home room is open.

Reports on match results and fees are held by the room for later operator pickup.

Standings are updated weekly and published via email to everyone, and are also posted in the home room.

First season we got 18 which dwindled to 14 by the end of the 12 week season. Second season we have 24, so it seems to be a success.

There is a lot of grunt work to keep the stats and recalculate the handicaps every week, but I'm hoping to put up a web site where I'll manage all of that.
 
Straight Pool League

John Biddle said:
I run a handicapped straight pool league with flexible scheduling.

At the start, everyone gets a schedule of who to play during which week and a contact sheet with everyone's name, phone and email.

Players are divided up into 2 divisions by skill level, playing everyone in their division once and a few from the other division, so that people play mostly others near their own skill level.

Players contact each other and arrange to play anytime the home room is open.

Reports on match results and fees are held by the room for later operator pickup.

Standings are updated weekly and published via email to everyone, and are also posted in the home room.

First season we got 18 which dwindled to 14 by the end of the 12 week season. Second season we have 24, so it seems to be a success.

There is a lot of grunt work to keep the stats and recalculate the handicaps every week, but I'm hoping to put up a web site where I'll manage all of that.
Click to expand...

Thats really awesome. I think you have tapped into several great things there.
1. Straight Pool 2. People associating with one another

Both very important.
 
Challenge Ladder Software Free

rpandrew said:
I do that at SeriousPool.com but I'm not really ready to expand out of my local are yet.
Click to expand...

There some free software out there to run a ladder on that was set up originally for tennis.

tennisrungs.com

Its good software, a friend of mine is the administrator of it and he runs a Challenge Ladder System out of my pool room and we can challenges sent to us via email that we either accept or don't. If you don't you can lose your spot on the ladder so you try and meet to play your match. Its working out great and promotes playing with different people.

It could be expanded to different disciplines such at 8 ball, 9 ball, straight pool, one pocket etc.

Its some nice interaction among the players of a room that doesn't require a pool league system format, you meet as you can, if you stall you forfeit etc.
 
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