Double Elimination is BROKEN

[Buckzapper]

I like the Joss Tour format, double elimination race to 9, winner breaks.
A race to 3 or 5, or 2 out of 3 sets is for ballbangers, as is the handicapped tournaments. If you don't have the stones to step up to the plate, don't get in.

 

[Island Drive]

I like the Joss Tour format, double elimination race to 9, winner breaks.
A race to 3 or 5, or 2 out of 3 sets is for ballbangers, as is the handicapped tournaments. If you don't have the stones to step up to the plate, don't get in.

Agreed, but if you get up at 7 am, dept by 9am get there by ten, start play around 11 Maybe, and your last match is called at 11pm, being up 16 hours takes the Fun away from the working man and his normal sleep patterns (these are the people with money, and they keep the business profitable, pool players don't nowadays). Old school gamblers/players are used to this, but times now are different, to not consider other options is silly. McDonalds sells burritos, I thought they sold Burgers ONLY. Few rooms can start up 32 matches at the same time due to table count. Buck we're old school and the next generation is upon us. Times have changed, rooms no longer have die hard gamblers players and sweaters like before, that live and breath pool, no time. No more Liscotti, no more Buddy on the road, no more Players on the road, no more roll out nine ball, no more straight pool tournaments for the bangers, no more collegiate 14.1, and on and on. I know I'm getting no where, entrenched thinking of the old dayz/wayz are near impossible to break.

 

[Masayoshi]

Now that's interesting. How long does it take in days to do that? Also are you talking about 2 to 3 rounds of complete double elimination play before redraw or are you talking about running on board down to the 3rd or 4th bracket? Im just not sure how you would handle that or finish in a weekend.

2 or 3 rounds of double eliminations with redraw into a single elimination bracket.

It can only take less time than a full double elimination tournament (usually significantly less time. There is also less waiting time for the winners, especially as the number of players starts to dwindle.

Most tournaments finish in 1 day. Ive been in a race race to 5 150 player tournament that finished before 12:00am.

The Japan Open (not to be confused with the All Japan) is a 500 player race to 7 and 8 tournament that finishes in 3 days (used to be 2 days until they switched to 10 ball).

Tournaments usually just have you draw your spot when you qualify for the single elimination bracket. Also, for some bigger tournaments, the single elimination races are a bit longer.

 

[Roger Long]

I like the Joss Tour format, double elimination race to 9, winner breaks.
A race to 3 or 5, or 2 out of 3 sets is for ballbangers, as is the handicapped tournaments. If you don't have the stones to step up to the plate, don't get in.

Bill has proven many times over that he has the "stones" to do whatever he wants. He now wants to do something different; and he's not alone in that.

Roger

 

[macguy]

I like the Joss Tour format, double elimination race to 9, winner breaks.
A race to 3 or 5, or 2 out of 3 sets is for ballbangers, as is the handicapped tournaments. If you don't have the stones to step up to the plate, don't get in.

Can you explain the logic behind your comment? How is a Double elimination format with a second chance element built in to the system that may match you with a weaker player on the losers side, require more heart then a single elimination format having to beat your single draw no matter who they are?

 

[chefjeff]

I'd like to enter a tourney, get there at 7, have it actually start at 7, and end with a winner at 11 at the latest. I'm not looking to prove I'm the best in the long run....I just wanna have some competition and some fun once a week or so.

Can that be done?

Jeff Livingston

 

[Island Drive]

I'd like to enter a tourney, get there at 7, have it actually start at 7, and end with a winner at 11 at the latest. I'm not looking to prove I'm the best in the long run....I just wanna have some competition and some fun once a week or so.

Can that be done?

Jeff Livingston

Bingo....................

 

[Masayoshi]

I'd like to enter a tourney, get there at 7, have it actually start at 7, and end with a winner at 11 at the latest. I'm not looking to prove I'm the best in the long run....I just wanna have some competition and some fun once a week or so.

Can that be done?

Jeff Livingston

If everbody gets there at 7, start time would be 7:30 at the earliest considering the time it takes to pay entries, make brackets, call matches, etc. 3.5 hours is an extremely short amount of time for any tournament. Assuming matches take roughly 40 minutes each (race to 4) the biggest double elimination bracket you could run is only 16 players if you only play 1 final match.

Probably more realistic is 8 players considering administration time, slow matches, bathroom/cigarette breaks between matches, etc.

With single elimination, you could theoretically run a 32 man tournament or even larger, but that is provided you have enough tables available to accomodate the first round (which is unlikelyfor most places).

The length of a tournament is positively correlated with the number of entrants and the number of tables available, not to mention the amount of slow players. The only ways you could reliably get a tournament to end at 11 is to cap the number of players to a very small number, shorten the races, change the format of the tournament, or make everyone chop when the clock strikes.

None of those options would go without significant complaints by the players themselves. Businesses that use tournaments to attract people into their pool hall would also not be very happy if people were turned away or forced to chop. It also is quite difficult to get people to show up at 7. This doesn't leave much lee way for those people who get off work in the evening.

Hardtimes Sacramento had a decent format for a tournament last time I was there. Everyone is assigned a rank and every round, you play 1 game with the person of the next rank and move up a rank if you win or down a rank if you lose. And the people with the best win/loss records at the end of an allotted time win/get prize money.

This assures that the tournament ends on time, but it also leaves something to be desired in the competition aspect and requires the tournament director to be able to roughly guage every player's speed before the tournament begins. Not the eaiest format to run, but a fun event if run correctly.

 

[Rain-Man]

I like the Joss Tour format, double elimination race to 9, winner breaks.
A race to 3 or 5, or 2 out of 3 sets is for ballbangers, as is the handicapped tournaments. If you don't have the stones to step up to the plate, don't get in.

I think you've missed the original point of the post. No one here is looking to 'even the odds a bit' against the stronger players in the field by single elimination or shorter races. The point is to figure out a way to have the tournaments not take all damn day and night and into the wee hours in most cases... If its a Pro tourney, fine, whatever. But a lot of people have families and jobs and spending 12-16 hours for a tournament just isn't worth it. Hell, even without a family or job it would still suck... It just isn't fun or rewarding and it seems that if they could be shortened up a bit in duration, it would make it a little more appealing to the players..

 

[Paul Schofield]

The point is to figure out a way to have the tournaments not take all damn day and night and into the wee hours in most cases... If its a Pro tourney, fine, whatever. But a lot of people have families and jobs and spending 12-16 hours for a tournament just isn't worth it. Hell, even without a family or job it would still suck... It just fun or rewarding and it seems that if they could be shortened up a bit in duration, it would make it a little more appealing to the players..

Very good. I will also add: Starting a tournament on time is nowhere near as important as ending it on time!

 

[chefjeff]

If everbody gets there at 7, start time would be 7:30 at the earliest (snip excuses).

Everybody's always had excuses for why pool tourneys take forever.

I don't buy those anymore.


Jeff Livingston

 

[chefjeff]

Very good. I will also add: Starting a tournament on time is nowhere near as important as ending it on time!

YES IT IS!!!!

When I asked my business mentor about time management, he said he took numerous courses on that subject and the one point they all made, and the only t/m he uses is:

If you leave on time, you arrive on time.


Jeff Livingston

 

[Paul Schofield]

With some thought and effort, I devised a modified double elimination format to save time. I started a thread on the subject:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=266298

The thread is long and comprehensive. There are pictures of charts and full explanations describing the shortcomings of DE. I am not a fan of DE (even my own modified format) but it suits our purpose better than any of the other well known formats for now.

 

[336Robin]

With some thought and effort, I devised a modified double elimination format to save time. I started a thread on the subject:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=266298

The thread is long and comprehensive. There are pictures of charts and full explanations describing the shortcomings of DE. I am not a fan of DE (even my own modified format) but it suits our purpose better than any of the other well known formats for now.

Paul I will check your thread out but...

For Myself:

I can understand how a working man wants to play and get home but for me I like to play in the Winter when Im not working as much so I can have and dedicate an entire Saturday/Sunday to a tournament everyonce in awhile.

Then I don't want to stand around all day. I want play. That's why I like the Modified Round Robin format. You are split into Pools and you play everyone within that Pool of People. Then who places the highest in the pools goes on to the Single or Double Elimination format for the finals. If I know that Im going to get a lot of pool for my money I feel value is being offered. That way I when I do go home on Saturday a loser Ive played pool all day and lost. Not stood around waiting all day and played just 2 matches. I always feel I didn't get much chance to play in that scenario. Just isn't that appealing to me. I think people at least want Pool, they want to Play not talk about it.

 

[swisslife77]

With some thought and effort, I devised a modified double elimination format to save time. I started a thread on the subject:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=266298

The thread is long and comprehensive. There are pictures of charts and full explanations describing the shortcomings of DE. I am not a fan of DE (even my own modified format) but it suits our purpose better than any of the other well known formats for now.

HI Paul!
I was very much interested to discover your "modified double elimination" format, and I went to read the post linked here above, but I couldn't find any charts or similar!!
May I ask you to send some more info, even in PM, please?

Thanks.

 

[Island Drive]

Reality/Nice Perspective

Paul I will check your thread out but...

For Myself:

I can understand how a working man wants to play and get home but for me I like to play in the Winter when Im not working as much so I can have and dedicate an entire Saturday/Sunday to a tournament everyonce in awhile.

Then I don't want to stand around all day. I want play. That's why I like the Modified Round Robin format. You are split into Pools and you play everyone within that Pool of People. Then who places the highest in the pools goes on to the Single or Double Elimination format for the finals. If I know that Im going to get a lot of pool for my money I feel value is being offered. That way I when I do go home on Saturday a loser Ive played pool all day and lost. Not stood around waiting all day and played just 2 matches. I always feel I didn't get much chance to play in that scenario. Just isn't that appealing to me. I think people at least want Pool, they want to Play not talk about it.

:thumbup2::thumbup::thumbup2::thumbup:

 

[Masayoshi]

Everybody's always had excuses for why pool tourneys take forever.

I don't buy those anymore.


Jeff Livingston

You don't buy that the tournament can't possibly start at the exact moment you show up?

You might as well whine that a round of golf takes more than an hour.

Unless you make players play race to 3 or less or under a 15 second shot clock, tournaments will take time. If you can't handle that, maybe tournaments just aren't for you.

 

[336Robin]

Taking Time

You don't buy that the tournament can't possibly start at the exact moment you show up?

You might as well whine that a round of golf takes more than an hour.

Unless you make players play race to 3 or less or under a 15 second shot clock, tournaments will take time. If you can't handle that, maybe tournaments just aren't for you.

Mayayoshi,
On that subject I will say this much. I do understand what youre talking about and I agree.... however.

Ive observed people who take too much time at the table and sure thats a part of it but Im not sure it should be a part of competition at a tournament. A tournament is for you to exhibit the skills you have learned.

Looking at a shot and its possible outcomes for extended periods of time I dont think has much of a place in competition. Your supposed to come to table with the skill youve acquired and put it in play and I would like to see tournaments with a time rule. My rule would be you have 30 maximum seconds to approach the table figure the shot and outcome and get down into position and start your shot routine. Ive seen some really long shot routines that take 20 to 30 seconds and Im not complaining about that. Just be able to get down and do it in a reasonable time.

When 9 ball racks start running 10 to 12 minutes and not from successful safeties but from slow play or slow play tactics, thats enough to get on peoples nerves and keep people out way too late. If you know youre a slow player and you drag it out maybe you need to change something. Dont make it everyones fault for coming out to the tournament.

I dont think that a tournament is the place to learn to play. I think you need to bring the game youve got and play it but I do understand what youre talking about.

 

[chefjeff]

You don't buy that the tournament can't possibly start at the exact moment you show up?

You might as well whine that a round of golf takes more than an hour.

Unless you make players play race to 3 or less or under a 15 second shot clock, tournaments will take time. If you can't handle that, maybe tournaments just aren't for you.

No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that it should start exactly when I get there. But yeah, even that is possible with today's tech.

Now, here's how it happens. I get there an hour early to practice. Buy table time, drinks, etc. and bring a friend who might like to get into pool.

At 7:15, the TO is still filling out forms. He takes a phone call from one of the best players in town who is going to be late. I see the chart and I have a bye in the first round.

One hour later and the auction is about over and play is going to start. But first, the TO has to go out and have a smoke (in public, btw).

Two hours later, my turn is almost here!!! (Can't you just feel the market value from my having come to the pool hall, yet?) I check the chart again and the TO surprises me that my bye has been changed to where I'm now playing the good player who finally lowered himself to a our level and decided to finally show up. The excuse from the TO?: "He gets a break as he plays pool more often than you do." I see now where I am positioned on the pool totem pole. Me no likey.

After 3 hours of rip-roaring fun, I'm in the losers' bracket and my friend, who thought he might like to take up pool again, had to go home before he got divorced.

I'm right behind him.

Does THIS sound like a long-term business plan?


Jeff Livingston

PS I quit playing golf on a Tuesday afternoon when it took 3:15 to play 9 holes and the club wouldn't refund my money for the cart of the back nine when I had to go home to live an actual life.

 

[Paul Schofield]

HI Paul!
I was very much interested to discover your "modified double elimination" format, and I went to read the post linked here above, but I couldn't find any charts or similar!!
May I ask you to send some more info, even in PM, please?

Thanks.

Go to page 6 and read the rest of the thread. There are many charts posted for you to take a look at.