DerbyCity responce

[Greg/Diamond]

Greg, Is moving the location even an option?
Indy, French Lick, Jeffersonville, etc.

Moving the location is an option not a real good option right now because we are in a legal contract. I’m not sure but it might be for three more years but that doesn’t mean I can’t get out of the contract. I’ve got a meeting set up with them, which I want to discuss several things that I think it’s very important, but I’m not happy with, I’d like to keep the event where it’s at if it all possible but they’re going to have to do some changes and make things better. We’ll see I’m not asking them for money as they already add money to the event of course not enough but still they do help immensely without their help I couldn’t put the event on , but that’ll mean they can’t do other things that I feel are in Porten. I’m not gonna go into those right now I’m going to talk to the hotel first. I’ll keep y’all posted.

 

[Rospaw1966]

Greg, I do think you should add to the event by doing a weight watches camp type venue. Charge folks a 100 a day or 700 for 10 days to come to the event and STARVE them! ...... Play pool and lose weight! Make millions..... my.02

 

[ShootingArts]

Greg,

Great to see an honest and open response! Hopefully things will be vastly improved for next year, primarily scheduling issues. Reducing dead time on tourney tables seems doable with modern communications. Shorter matches in nine ball seem possible also.

I have to believe that food services can be vastly improved when it is explained to the casino that food could be a deal breaker.

The recent past has been a rough time for Diamond and I was a little afraid that these issues would be allowed to diminish in the public eye only to come roaring back next year worse than ever. Acknowledging the issues is a huge first step towards dealing with them. I think Diamond will find most people patient when the issues are being looked at and addressed.

Easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. This is a great event that all care about. For many that haven't attended it is a bucket list item. Thank you for your yearly efforts and hopefully things will be smoother for you and the staff running the event next year. I think most are well aware that this event wasn't a bed of roses for anyone this year.

Here is to better times ahead!
Hu

 

[Fatboy]

Greg/DiamondGreg/Diamond
thanks to all who participated in the 2023 Derby City Classic, whether as players, fans watching on the stream, or spectators in attendance. While I am delighted to have completed another Derby City Classic, I cannot ignore some of the negative feedback I’ve been getting from various sources in the aftermath of the event.

The 10:00 AMcompletion of the Derby City 9-ball event is not something I am taking lightly. Asking players to play for so many consecutive hours to win the title was regrettable.

I know that the delay put undue stress on the players, some of whom were so tired in the late rounds that they could not perform at peak level. I realize that some had to risk missing their flights out of Louisville to continue competing, and that was hardly fair.

Similarly, the late finish performing in their peak form but got less. In addition, many fans didn’t even get to see the late rounds of nine ball as the matches were played in the early morning.

Spectators in attendance had it just as bad as the players, called on to either pull an all-nighter or go to bed and miss the last matches.

In view of these problems, we at Diamond Billiards will be studying what happened at the 2023 Derby City Classic in order to find methods of improving the management of the event. We are not satisfied with how it went and want our patrons to know as much.

To help us fix the problems, we encourage both players and fans alike to offer us additional feedback through social media outlets and pool websites, to which we'll pay attenti

Fatboy Approved

 

[jay helfert]

Greg/DiamondGreg/Diamond
thanks to all who participated in the 2023 Derby City Classic, whether as players, fans watching on the stream, or spectators in attendance. While I am delighted to have completed another Derby City Classic, I cannot ignore some of the negative feedback I’ve been getting from various sources in the aftermath of the event.

The 10:00 AMcompletion of the Derby City 9-ball event is not something I am taking lightly. Asking players to play for so many consecutive hours to win the title was regrettable.

I know that the delay put undue stress on the players, some of whom were so tired in the late rounds that they could not perform at peak level. I realize that some had to risk missing their flights out of Louisville to continue competing, and that was hardly fair.

Similarly, the late finish performing in their peak form but got less. In addition, many fans didn’t even get to see the late rounds of nine ball as the matches were played in the early morning.

Spectators in attendance had it just as bad as the players, called on to either pull an all-nighter or go to bed and miss the last matches.

In view of these problems, we at Diamond Billiards will be studying what happened at the 2023 Derby City Classic in order to find methods of improving the management of the event. We are not satisfied with how it went and want our patrons to know as much.

To help us fix the problems, we encourage both players and fans alike to offer us additional feedback through social media outlets and pool websites, to which we'll pay attenti

This a good start Greg. I’m not sure why you started a new thread when there was already one on here that had been addressing all the above issues and more for the last several days.

Hopefully you have read this previous thread and given consideration to all the suggestions offered there already. If not I would suggest you do so and respond to some of them.

I consider you a good friend Greg, but you are coming on here asking for “feedback” and failing to acknowledge all the feedback that has already been made. You have in front of you here on AZ a wealth of good information at your disposal. How you and Chad address that of course is up to you.

I looked further and see that some people are repeating their earlier suggestions and giving you valuable input. I commend them for that. I would still advise you to read the entire thread started by SJM.

My suggestion pertained specifically the One Pocket event, which we both know creates a quagmire in the scheduling. I have shared with you before the benefits of the “four ball” rule for speeding up the matches and will do so again. To put it succinctly, it works! You will see that the best players will still be in there battling in the end, as there is no advantage to lesser players.

Your attempts to shorten matches this year with the wiping out of fouls made little to no difference in the length of the matches. I have given you a way to alleviate this problem if you really want to. Like you I am a One Pocket purist and this rule does nothing to diminish the skills required to be a winning player!

You can continue using the current rules and format and the scheduling problem will persist, or you can make the necessary changes and have your fantastic tournament run more smoothly. You don’t need another year like this one.

One last question Greg. Is there anywhere that we can see the actual prize money breakdown in each division? I think that would be of interest to the many pool fans who follow your event.

 

[JAM]

Greg/DiamondGreg/Diamond
thanks to all who participated in the 2023 Derby City Classic, whether as players, fans watching on the stream, or spectators in attendance. While I am delighted to have completed another Derby City Classic, I cannot ignore some of the negative feedback I’ve been getting from various sources in the aftermath of the event.

The 10:00 AMcompletion of the Derby City 9-ball event is not something I am taking lightly. Asking players to play for so many consecutive hours to win the title was regrettable.

I know that the delay put undue stress on the players, some of whom were so tired in the late rounds that they could not perform at peak level. I realize that some had to risk missing their flights out of Louisville to continue competing, and that was hardly fair.

Similarly, the late finish performing in their peak form but got less. In addition, many fans didn’t even get to see the late rounds of nine ball as the matches were played in the early morning.

Spectators in attendance had it just as bad as the players, called on to either pull an all-nighter or go to bed and miss the last matches.

In view of these problems, we at Diamond Billiards will be studying what happened at the 2023 Derby City Classic in order to find methods of improving the management of the event. We are not satisfied with how it went and want our patrons to know as much.

To help us fix the problems, we encourage both players and fans alike to offer us additional feedback through social media outlets and pool websites, to which we'll pay attenti

Thanks for taking the time to listen and share on Facebook and AzBilliards. You're a stand-up kind of guy, and there is no question that you put your heart and soul into the Derby City Classic extravaganza.

The two main themes I have been reading as negative for this year's DCC are quality, cost, and availability of food and logistics of tournament matches.

The positive theme, though, is pool players of all caliber and railbirds gathering together under one roof to enjoy what they love, and that's pool.

For me, the best part of the Derby City Classic is that it is Made in the US of A, keeping pool strong in America. USA, USA, USA all the way with Greg Sullivan and the Derby City Classic.

 

[Chicagoplayer]

One more:

A lot of the tournaments now are putting tablets on the tables, and the players themselves keep score right then and there.

They do this in Europe.
There’s a tablet at every table

This does a few things: 1) it ties to online fans to let them know what the score is. 2) It can tie right into fargorate, and report complete match scores. 3) Players no longer have to come to the desk to tell you the score, and you won't have to chase down players that failed to come to the desk to tell you the score.

Contacting online bracket sponsors would be a good move.
Greg could ask Jayson Shaw, Alex Lely, or Niels how they do it & what they use.

I have not seen these in person, so I don't know what's involved in setting them up. But maybe whichever company does these (along with the brackets) would partner up with you and provide the service. Maybe there is even a way for each player to have a "DCC Player" app on their phone to keep score, instead of you providing a tablet per table.

Good idea!

 

[Guy Manges]

The input from all the DCC Players must be most valuable, I'm sure Greg has addressed this many times, We all know this must be going in the wright direction, Communicating is what it is all about... I pray that that is what this AZB Forum is all about... Guy

 

[CanadianGuy]

good first response by the organizer

 

[lfigueroa]

Hi Greg, long time no talk.

So I think you're victim of your own success, lol. The Derby has grown into a monster success and that is both good and bad. Primarily, I'd like to suggest one of two things happen: cap the entries at a lower more manageable level, or at least bring back use of the upstairs action room tables for tournament use.

I also feel that the tournament would benefit from having staff upstairs, with two purposes: first, to report back down to the desk when matches are over and put the tables back into use. I've seen tables go for long periods after a match before another match is scheduled. Over the course of a week you're probably losing hundreds of hours of potential tournament play. In this regard, some kind of text program to alert players a table is available for their match would also move things along. Their second purpose would be to put players -- 1pocket players, I'm looking at you -- on the clock. Every year there are a few players in the event that are renown for their slow play and easily ID'd. They should not be allowed to slow up the whole event. One match was going so slowly it almost caused me to forfeit when the desk decided to move my match and I couldn't hear the announcement that I was "on the clock" up on the second floor.

As has been mentioned repeatedly, the food situation is not so good. I don't know if food trucks are an option. If the casino had at least opened up the pizza outlet and Cantina it might have been something.

One last thing I'd like to say is your staff at the Derby is, as always, amazing. The logistics are impossible but they put in the long hours and always have a smile and friendly answer to the endless stream of players asking them the same questions over and over. Somehow, the Derby needs to find balance between smoothly conducting such a massive event and making it fun for both players and spectators.

Lou Figueroa

 

[Joe_Jaguar]

I think this man's opinion are 80% more important than anyone else that replies. Please take that into consideration @Greg/Diamond

LMFAO

 

[Joe_Jaguar]

This a good start Greg. I’m not sure why you started a new thread when there was already one on here that had been addressing all the above issues and more for the last several days.

Because he is just as entitled to create his own thread as someone who is nothing more than another spectator who creates their own thread to pontificate.

 

[justnum]

Let vendors into the arena to sell food. I can provide unlimited rice to all players and fans for a small fee. It can be called rice rolling.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Hi Greg,
You need to keep the tables busy. The current system is lousy at that. Long periods of being empty. I've explained how to keep them full with a different buy-back system in the other thread and we have discussed it before. If you keep the tables busy you can have more entries than you already do and finish on time.
Good luck,
Bob

 

[atlas333]

8:54 this morning was your chance to keep your mouth shut. I'm sorry you failed at that.

Because he is just as entitled to create his own thread as someone who is nothing more than another spectator who creates their own thread to pontificat

 

[Bob Jewett]

As far as using digitalpool for scoring, you have to be careful. For whatever reason, they did a bad job at two large events I've been to. The interface from a viewer's perspective is very, very slow and awkward. In my experience cuescore does a much better job.

If you do use one of those or some other scoring system, it will take some work on their part to make it work in the DCC format.

 

[buckshotshoey]

As far as using digitalpool for scoring, you have to be careful. For whatever reason, they did a bad job at two large events I've been to. The interface from a viewer's perspective is very, very slow and awkward. In my experience cuescore does a much better job.

If you do use one of those or some other scoring system, it will take some work on their part to make it work in the DCC format.

Couldn't something like THE BCAPL Scoring App be utilized? I know when my players submit a match, the results are instantly posted to my League Management System and to FargoRate.

Maybe Mike can custom program an app just for use by DCC?

 

[sjm]

The nine-ball event was race to seven up to 2014, the year it was changed to make WPA sanctioning possible, but that sanctioning lasted just one year (2015 only) and, I feel, the races should have reverted to seven then and there.

The purists will always take exception, but race to seven wasn't exactly producing unworthy champions, as in the last ten years of race to seven, the champions were: 2004 Souquet, 2005 Reyes, 2006 Souquet, 2007 Fiejen, 2008 Souquet, 2009 SVB, 2010 Reyes, 2011 Orcullo, 2012 SVB, and 2013 Pagulayan. All of them but Feijen are now Hall of Famers and Feijen is sure to get in soon.

Even at race to seven, the Derby City nine ball was always the domain of the elite. It's because the format asks the top players to do their own heavy lifting. With race to seven, the late rounds of the Derby have always featured the game's giants and the winner always had beaten champion after champion, and, with few exceptions, only the all-time greats were up to it.

I think it's time to go back to race to seven. A middle ground might be race to seven until Round 10 and then race to nine.

The alternative, of course, is to reduce the field size. When I saw that the field size was well over 500 players, I immediately changed my flight home, knowing in full that the event would go well into Monday morning.

It is obvious to any onlooker that late entries were permitted, and that was a mistake. Outsiders looking in should only get in through the wait list.

I'd do entries the way Matchroom does. Fix the field size, give the elite invitations and make everybody else sign up online by an announced date. Who would get the invitations? This would need some discussion, but I'd go with a) everyone who is ranked in the top 32 in either the WPA or Matchroom rankings, b) anyone who has ever won a Derby City event, and c) anyone who got to Round 10 in any event in the previous Derby City Classic.

 

[OldOrvis]

Let vendors into the arena to sell food. I can provide unlimited rice to all players and fans for a small fee. It can be called rice rolling.

As long as you got Danny Harriman wearing a paper hat selling it I support this

 

[Bahgs]

That sounds like a good idea getting a hold of digital pool. I don’t know anybody at digital pool I really don’t know how to get a hold of anybody but I’ll let the people at my company. Figure that out. Thanks for the idea. Hope it leads to something good.

Greg, I reached out to DigitalPool on your behalf. The founder & CEO got back to me just around a half hour ago, I left you his contact information in a DM.