DCC, fairness to players?

I was this years Senior Tournament Director at the DCC. From a scheduling standpoint, this was our best year ever. We had the fewest forfeits ever. Having the tournament schedule displayed in as many places as practical helped a lot.

Having said that, I agree that scheduling additional events during the DCC like the Straight Pool Challenge, the Fat Boy Challenge should not interfere with the regular tournament schedule. So, I spoke with Accu-Stats and Jay Helfert because I was not happy that One Pocket players were pulled from their scheduled matches to play Fat Boy Challenge matches on the Accu-Stats table. This caused us to play late on Tuesday in the 1P and play one extra round in the 1P on Wednesday.

We will try to get those matches played after hours in the future. The DCC is so big we cannot afford to get behind (especially in One Pocket.)

Also, we modified our tournament software this year. We implemented a new feature called the Dynamic Derby Draw. This allows us to draw a round before the previous round is completed. In the Dynamic Derby Draw we assume that all players will exercise their buyback option and we draw everyone into the next round. All of the matches that involve players from the previous round still playing are displayed for the newest round with a status of TBD. This means that your opponent or table have yet to be determined. Then when the previous round matches are completed then the TBD's change their status to show their opponent and table assignment.

This year we created a master tournament schedule. This was based on assumptions of the number of players, the number of tables, and estimated match times.We pretty much ran the tournament to the schedule except for the times when the Fat Boy Challenge took players out of the One Pocket. This was not built into our schedule. Overall, this year scheduling was much better.
 
I don't know about your situation with Scott Smith, but I will defend him. Any tournament I played with Scott as directer was first class. Didn't matter if you were a pool nobody or a star he treated everyone the same according to the rules.

Never been to the Derby so I can't comment on what happens there. But I will say is anybody surprised? I don't care how big or small the event some things are always true. The regulars get leeway and strangers just pay money and shut up.

My favorite is handicap events where you get a jacked up handicap and the local lower handicap runs three racks, but don't worry Joe usually plays bad.

The latest for me was making it to the hot seat and they decide it was time to raise my handicap.

The inbreeding at some of these places is amazing, but that's the price you pay sometimes if you want to play.
 
Derby is massively different than any other. Can't put times on brackets because there isn't any. Bank pool matches can go as long as 2 to 3 hours and one pocket they're were several matches that went 4 hours and 5 matches that went almost 6 1/2 hours.

DCC is what it is, I don't think it can run much smoother than it did this time. As far as fairness, what happened in the past is not what happened this year. I can tell you that most of the tournament staff that worked DCC this year work with me at alot of events and we are all about fairness and equal treatment to players. Wheather you are the best player or the worst we treat them all the same. Pool tournaments will not survive without all the players
 
Come play at the US Bar Table Championships in Reno Feb 22-28. People that come play at this event know we don't cater to the pros. Everyone is treated the same
 
2l82bgr8 said:
As far as fairness, what happened in the past is not what happened this year.
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It was at THIS years DCC where i know someone who forfeited a match cause he checked, they said that his match hadn't come up yet, so he left and they called it right after he left so when he came back to check 20 minutes later, he had already forfeited.

It was at THIS years DCC where i know someone who's match got bumped a couple of times cause he was waiting for someone in the 14.1 challenge to finish running a bunch of balls, got no real practice time in, while his opponent was in dead stroke when they finally got the match started.

The PAST was the whole "no names" were put on the clock immediately, and the "name" players were NOT on the clock till much much later. I don't know if this happened at all this year as i haven't attended in a long time and i didn't hear any stories from any of my buddies, but if it did, that really wouldn't surprise me at all.
If there is one standard in the pool world, it's the whole "names" having the rules bent for them and the no names not having that luxury and being penalized for doing the same thing.
 
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Russ Chewning said:
I believe the tournament coordinators should look into renting radio frequency paging systems like those used in restaurants. Charge $5-$10 a day per thingamajob, and I would think they could easily cover their costs, and a good percentage of players would not be caught off guard on their match.

Either that, or they could invest in software that would allow one to automatically text a player if their match is up. I would think we have at least a few people in the pool world that have the knowledge to write some programming code that would do this on an internet-connected computer being used to run the tournament software.

This could even be a revenue stream for the promoter. Charge $10 a player for the ability to be texted when your match is up. Split the money 50/50 with the programmer that writes the code that accomplishes this.

Anyone that can do that? There are all sorts of workable scenarios here. Charge $5 a day for the texting.. Charge $20 for the entire tournament.. etc..etc..etc...

I don't know why I didn't think of these ideas before..One of these is pretty much the solution to the DCC scheduling issues. :D

Russ
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Russ,

I suggested all these things years ago when this same topic came up. There are dozens of free or nearly free services to page people via sms from a web browser interface. It would be nothing to have every player's cell phone number in Skype for example and send them a text.

There are services which can be used to send out mass texts.

Using the cell phone which every player has is the way to go.

I think Superstar is right but ultimately it comes down to the player's decision which events to attend and give priority to.

I do not think that so much favoritism should be shown to the pros. It's unfair. This event is supposed to be more democratic than that.

However they might need to have longer grace periods - 30 minutes and better ways to find people.

For example, when you sign in you can leave 3 contact numbers, yours and the numbers of your two friends with you. Then when you are called for a match - you are literally called and there is a 3 way chance that you will be notified in minutes.
 
JB Cases said:
Russ,

I suggested all these things years ago when this same topic came up. There are dozens of free or nearly free services to page people via sms from a web browser interface. It would be nothing to have every player's cell phone number in Skype for example and send them a text.

There are services which can be used to send out mass texts.

Using the cell phone which every player has is the way to go.

I think Superstar is right but ultimately it comes down to the player's decision which events to attend and give priority to.

I do not think that so much favoritism should be shown to the pros. It's unfair. This event is supposed to be more democratic than that.

However they might need to have longer grace periods - 30 minutes and better ways to find people.

For example, when you sign in you can leave 3 contact numbers, yours and the numbers of your two friends with you. Then when you are called for a match - you are literally called and there is a 3 way chance that you will be notified in minutes.
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30 minutes seems like a real long time to me. I like your idea about leaving multiple telephone numbers, maybe when you go on the clock they could text message the other telephone numbers.

I have thought about providing a text message service at the event but you would basically have to be sitting at the Main Desk the entire tournament to make sure each person was text messaged.

I know everyone at that desk is constantly being asked questions by the players but I have to think that they can scroll down a name and punch a button for an automatic text message to be sent out to the player like, "you're on deck".

I've urged Greg to do this for some time but I think he feels that his staff is already overwhelmed with duties.

Temporary staff from the local college for $8 an hour amounts to about $100 a day for 9 days. A thousand bucks is what I estimate the labor costs but it could go a little more. You could get rid of the labor costs if the software was written to interact with the existing software to make the calls automatically at a cost of approximately $3,000.


JoeyA
 
JoeyA said:
I've been told that cost estimates for programming the existing software so that when a player is on deck, a text message can be sent would be approximately $3,000.
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Whoever gave that quote is out of their mind.

I can send a text to any cell phone on Earth from Skype for 11cts per text.

There are dozens of services online that offer free text messaging.

Google Free SMS and you can find plenty. And I am equally sure that there are some pay services that allow a person to have a database and send out mass texts. http://www.txtmobster.com/ $15 for UNLIMITED texts.
 
I thought this years DCC staff did the best job yet of scheduling matches and keeping things running smoothly. The large screens outside the tournament area and screens on TV in the rooms helped a lot. I did not hear many (if any) gripes from players not knowing when their matches were going to be played. The staff kept the players well informed as to when the next round was going to begin. Anywhere you were in the entire tournament (and action room) area you could hear your match being announced. The speaker system was working everywhere!

There was really no excuse for a player to miss his match, unless he fell asleep or wandered off to eat somewhere. And like I said, they did a good job of informing everyone when the next round would begin. All you had to do was check the screens at that time and you would find your name and know what table you would be on and in what order you would play.

In fairness I was criticized for trying to put the Semifinals of the Fatboy Challenge on in the afternoon, while the One Pocket was underway. Two of the four players (Shuff and Efren) were still alive in the One Pocket at the time. We did want to put the Efren-Archer match on the Accu-stats table. That much is true. We were not as concerned with the Shuff-Murphy match. I worked with the tournament staff that was on hand to make this work. I did not make a decision arbitrarily. I ASKED them if this could be done and all present seemed to think it could. Both players would play their One Pocket matches FIRST!

The One Pocket round was scheduled to start at 1 PM. No problem. We would wait for Efren and Brandon to finish their One Pocket matches before having them play Ten Ball. I co-ordinated this with Pat Fleming and he was okay waiting for Efren. It could all work out and the One Pocket schedule did not have to be affected. I waited for Efren to finish his match and then we moved him to the TV table to play Archer. I thought that Brandon was also playing his One Pocket match with Rick Epperson. The plan was for him to finish his One Pocket match and play his semifinal in the Ten Ball immediately afterward.

About 2 PM we got Efren and Archer started on the TV table. I was focused on this match at the time and thought that everyone else was taken care of. WRONG! I go to the tournament desk and find out Brandon had not yet begun his One Pocket match??? There were several open tables in the tournament room and they had him waiting for a table with a match in progress. When I pointed this out to the staff they did call his One Pocket match to one of the open tables, about one hour later than it could have started.

About half way thru the Efren-Johnny match I see that Brandon's One Pocket match is over. I run back up to the tournament desk and ask them why he was not called for his Ten Ball match. I was told that a mysterious someone told them not to play this match now. I never did find out who that "someone" was. Brandon had finished his One Pocket match almost 45 minutes ago. There were many One Pocket matches still in progress, so they agreed to let Brandon play Shannon Murphy his Ten Ball match. So now nearly two hours had been lost to these delays.

Efren and Johnny's match, although long, (about 3 hours) finished well in time before the next round of One Pocket was due to begin. Brandon's match with Murphy actually took less time to play (just over 2 hours) but because of the two long delays, it did cause a hold-up in the draw for the next round of One Pocket. Maybe an hour or so. If they had played him in the One Pocket when they said they would (and could have on any open table) and then started his Ten Ball match right after, there would not have been a problem!

I just want to point this out, because I was made the scapegoat for the tardiness of starting the next round of One Pocket. I do take responsibility for asking the tournament staff to help me co-ordinate the two Ten Ball semifinals around the One Pocket schedule. I would not have requested this if it seemed like it was going to create problems for them. At the time I made this request, everyone seemed to feel it was doable. Somehow, somewhere, someone still unknown to me decided that this was not a good idea. I was never informed of this change in plans by anyone.

In fact it did not have to be a problem if only Brandon had played his two matches on time! As it was, one round and one round only was delayed, but because of the smaller field, the One Pocket still finished well ahead of schedule. Much earlier than last year. It was a problem in name only, but in reality it all worked out fine. None of the One Pocket players were hampered in any way by the delay of the next round, brought on by all this.

I have my own private feelings about why this all took place, but I prefer not to share them on here. I was not on the regular tournament staff and I got involved in the scheduling of one round of the One Pocket, two matches in particular. My gut feeling was that someone was offended by this. So their response was to covertly undermine a very workable plan. No biggie, sh-t happens. But I just want to make it clear to everyone reading this that I did my best to make it all work out, and it could have, if we were all on the same page from the beginning.

In the overall scheme of things it barely had a ripple effect on this year's DCC, but it left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards.
 
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jay helfert said:
I have my own private feelings about why this all took place, but I prefer not to share them on here. I was not on the regular tournament staff and I got involved in the scheduling of one round of the One Pocket, two matches in particular. My gut feeling was that someone was offended by this. So their response was to covertly undermine a very workable plan. No biggie, sh-t happens. But I just want to make it clear to everyone reading this that I did my best to make it all work out, and it could have, if we were all on the same page from the beginning.

In the overall scheme of things it barely had a ripple effect on this year's DCC, but it left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards.
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I don't know the details of this situation but Napoleon said never attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.
 
JB Cases said:
Whoever gave that quote is out of their mind.

I can send a text to any cell phone on Earth from Skype for 11cts per text.

There are dozens of services online that offer free text messaging.

Google Free SMS and you can find plenty. And I am equally sure that there are some pay services that allow a person to have a database and send out mass texts. http://www.txtmobster.com/ $15 for UNLIMITED texts.
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John,
That $3,000 number is for writing code to their existing software. (I don't write code btw).

With SKYPE, Don't forget about paying someone to sit there all day to manually send out text messages when a player's name is called.

JoeyA
 
I like Russ's idea. Those restaurant things were the first thing that popped to mind. I don't think automated texting is necessary, what's wrong with someone manually texting? Several people (besides the opponent, who hopefully is honest) should be aware of a new match starting up, and any one of them can make sure to text the waiting player.

That being said, I can see problems with it... some guys still don't carry cell phones, someone can't get reception, someone claims they never got the text. Still, a halfassed solution would beat nothing at all. It's ridiculous if people are really being made to wait an hour and then get forfeited because they got bored and wandered off too long. Waiting is unavoidable, and if you made someone else wait then you should be willing to wait just as long before taking the forfeit.

Star has a pretty good point about the waiting guy being cold while the incoming player is in stroke. Don't think there's any way around it except to have practice tables available.
 
CreeDo said:
I like Russ's idea. Those restaurant things were the first thing that popped to mind. I don't think automated texting is necessary, what's wrong with someone manually texting? Several people (besides the opponent, who hopefully is honest) should be aware of a new match starting up, and any one of them can make sure to text the waiting player.

That being said, I can see problems with it... some guys still don't carry cell phones, someone can't get reception, someone claims they never got the text. Still, a halfassed solution would beat nothing at all. It's ridiculous if people are really being made to wait an hour and then get forfeited because they got bored and wandered off too long. Waiting is unavoidable, and if you made someone else wait then you should be willing to wait just as long before taking the forfeit.

Star has a pretty good point about the waiting guy being cold while the incoming player is in stroke. Don't think there's any way around it except to have practice tables available.
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An idea that bantied about was AZBers getting all of the names and cell numbers of anyone who wanted to be Texted about being on deck and they would be contacted by an AZ volunteer (s).

Those restaurant things would get lost, misplaced, thrown away etc and who would pay for their replacement, let alone their initial purchase?

It's true that an AZBer (or several) with time on their hands sweating the DCC at home could volunteer to collect and telephone or text message players on deck or on the clock.

While at the DCC I heard at least a few people's name called who were On Deck and I was able to either call them or text them to let them know they were on deck. I know my Christmas stocking will be full this year. :smile:


JoeyA
 
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