How to Increase Play/All Levels

[Cbrown1]

It is interesting to me that your examples here all involved fundamentally changing the game. I am not in favor of ball spots or giving people extra ball-in-hands, i.e., creating a new game to make a competitive situation.

[...]


Yes, we agree



In football, there are no high-school teams who play against Alabama; the best in one county plays against the best in another county. They are purposefully seeking out competitive situations. There are a number of ways to do that. The main way it is done in the NFL is through the draft, where the best performing team chooses last amongst the next year's new players. It is a system designed to keep matchups competitive.

This has nothing to do with how championships are decided. Championship events are just that: everybody competing to see who can lift the most weight. If you can lift 400 lbs and I can lift 300 lbs, you beat me in the competition.

But the next week, when we are training in the same gym, things are different. You spend time doing 360 pounds repeatedly and occasionally trying to lift 410. I spend time repeatedly doing 260 lbs and occasionally trying 310. I admire you, the guy who can lift more weight. And I may aspire to be like you or better. But my way to do it is not to try to lift 360 lbs repeatedly. That's futile. And you really get nothing out of beating me by lifting 320 lbs. If we compete by you trying to exceed 400 and me trying to exceed 300, then the winner between us truly is determined by grit. If everybody in the weight room is competing like that once a month, then we are really all supporting each other's development. We really are a community where the best are most admired and the connections are strong. And then when it's championship time, we are proud to give you a big sendoff and cheer you on.

In pool we do a lot of our training by competition. Our opponent is the weight we put on the bar, the resistance we experience. I think of us like teenaged tigers play fighting. If we can get regular competitions that look like and feel like championship competitions but really are challenging all of us to be the best that we can be, that's a good thing.

If you play me a race to 11 even,
you win whether you focus or not.
You win whether you make good decisions or bad decisions.
You win whether you pay attention to your shot routine or ignore it.
You win whether you are drunk or not.
You win whether you got decent sleep and ate a good breakfast or are existing on no sleep and donuts.
You win whether you get down low on the shot and keep your body still or not.

I lose with all the same "whethers."

You playing me an even up race to 11 is like you (the 400 lb weightlifter) putting 300 lbs on your bar and me putting 400 points on mine. The winner is not determined by grit at all. There is no grit involved for either of us.

Think of handicapped competitions like play-fighting that gets us as ready as we can be for championship competition. Isn't it better is hundreds of pool players around you can make you sweat when they have a good day or you have an off day rather than just a handful?

I think you risk ruining the bloodline of pool by handicapping professional pool tournaments. in no other pro sport do they “help“ lesser teams and people with scoring assistance. They handicap the betting.Handicapping is genetically altering pool dna instead of allowing natural selection. What ends up happening is that the best don’t win the percentage of the time natural selection dictates they should. As such, the best players will quit because they get tired of losing to artificially boosted lesser players and not being able to cash in tournaments and therefore end up not financially being able to support their efforts. One of my friends here was a top regional player and ended up quitting pool for the same two reasons listed.

I think it is unfair to use Europe as a comparison to the US based on the fact that the US pro pool system is broken by any measure, with no one in charge. Because of this, the only people attempting to run it are acting in self interest. The end result is a system that is being pulled in 9 different directions that ends up going nowhere. I have no doubt that the creator of a handicap system would se the benefit of a handicap system at all levels. I think Fargo Rating is a meaningful system that is very useful , and I think handicapping has a place in local leagues and local tournaments where participation is the driver, but not to dilute the US pool bloodline.

The good news is that natural selection will eventually win out. It always does. The bad news is that genetically altering results like handicapping may cost US pool 10-20 years.

in the mean time, I am sure Europe is rooting for the US to continue diluting its pool bloodline......

 

[mikepage]

This sounds like you are only valuing “grit” expended at the time of a competitive event. What about the lifetime of grit training and practicing and creating the ability to life 400 lbs? (Kind of a not so apt analogy to start given that physical strength has a huge genetic component...lots of people are freakishly strong with absolutely no training).

I am making a distinction between the two. It's not that I value one and not the other.

I guess my point is that the investment (grit) in an event consists in the life leading up to that event. While I respect anyone wanting to improve themselves at anything, I’m not sure I see the intrinsic value of someone who may slack off and not try to hard, establish a fairly mediocre baseline, and then surpass it by a larger margins than I, a person who has invested decades in an activity, who is vastly further along in my learning curve, and who has significantly less headroom to improve into. And then a few months later, another new person in their learning curve, who stands to make giant qualitative improvements, comes along and surpasses their novice level with a slightly better than novice showing. Carry this concept through to its conclusion, and the awards will go to the newest and least skilled players who strive for a brief time to surpass their introductory skill set. And the most invested players will ultimately lose all the time, because they have built a game that is close to the ceiling, or their ceiling, and further improvement will be in much tinier increments than the beginner. This is the ultimate conclusion of handicapped pool. Perhaps I’m wrong, but this is how I see it.

There are serious dangers of treating this and also many bigger issues in the world as zero-sum games, as though there is a fixed amount of utility in the world and all we can do is figure out how it is distributed.

There was another comment in this thread about taking something away from the pros or something: viewing these ideas as promoting taking reward formerly assigned according to hard-earned demonstrated performance and redistributing some of it to more casual players. What I'm talking about is just the opposite.

I am talking about simultaneously increasing the pot of money and distributing it preferentially in the demonstrated skill direction, with the hardest working highest skill players getting the most. I think I need when I have some time to back up and work to encourage people to frame this issue like an economist would. We have to learn, imo, to treat all $$ associated with tournaments as expected gains and losses to understand how this stuff fits together.

 

[briankenobi]

So you saying it's ok for an amateur, to enter a pro event with NO chance of ever beating Shaw/Filler/SVB and pay entry. Your entry fee is chum, all you'll get is play time to watch the pro shoot.

In essence your Guaranteeing of paying them to show up, and YOU are playing/donating to them with ZERO chance of EVER winning a race to 11 even.

I'd rather invite the pro and his wife to dinner and pay and enjoy that time, instead of the obvious outcome loss of $150, who likes that.

Some want to hob knob with the pros, and so be it.

So Local pro JV.....answer this question.

Will a player entering an event with NO chance at Winning against any top pro, increase play for the venue?

Or JV, since your a local pro, would you be more likely to enjoy your chances of playing SVB with a 6 game spot race to 11 or even?

If your the amateur playing in such an event, you already know you have no chance and your ok with that. This happens because pool does not have an actual pro tour that you have to qualify to be on like golf or tennis. So you get pro level players and amateur level players competing against each other where as other pro singles sports, you don't have this. But if an amateur got to play tennis at Wimbledon, they know there is little chance the can compete with the top players but would love the opportunity to play them.

 

[mikepage]

I think you risk ruining the bloodline of pool by handicapping professional pool tournaments.

I am not suggesting that; it would be a terrible idea

[...]

I think it is unfair to use Europe as a comparison to the US based on the fact that the US pro pool system is broken by any measure, with no one in charge. Because of this, the only people attempting to run it are acting in self interest.

While European countries do things differently from one another, none handicap championship events or regional events to determine who plays in the national championship or local club events to determine who plays in the regional events. We are working with one European country to incorporate Fargo Ratings into this sort of thing. It involves no handicapping. The handicapping discussion is outside all of that.

One point of confusion is many in Europe refer something like the competition pyramid described above as their LEAGUE system. The US generally has no equivalent to that and so no word for it, and Europe generally has no equivalent to the very different thing people in North America call LEAGUE. This invites confusion, like top European players hearing LEAGUE is handicapped in the US. And that of course sounds crazy to them. Ironically, though, the situation is even crazier than they think because the US doesn't even HAVE a competition funnel system like the Europeans mean by the word LEAGUE. We at FargoRate wouldn't be working 60+ hours a week and devoting our professional lives to this effort if we didn't think we were getting all the tracks laid and building that train.

The end result is a system that is being pulled in 9 different directions that ends up going nowhere. I have no doubt that the creator of a handicap system would se the benefit of a handicap system at all levels. I think Fargo Rating is a meaningful system that is very useful , and I think handicapping has a place in local leagues and local tournaments where participation is the driver, but not to dilute the US pool bloodline.

Fargo Ratings is a rating system, not a handicap system. If nobody ever had interest ever again in running a handicapped event, we'd be doing the same thing we are now. A benefit to having sound ratings, though, is if you DO want to handicap something, you can do it more reliably.

in the mean time, I am sure Europe is rooting for the US to continue diluting its pool bloodline......

Why would Europe want US pool to be weaker? I'm pretty sure that would be a bad outcome for everyone.

 

[mikepage]

IMHO, it's unreasonable to expect an even chance, to beat a better player, in a handicapped event. I would possibly suggest using Fargo to find a dead even handicap, for a match. Then use a conversion factor, .85 or .80. The better player has the advantage of his skills rewarding him. The lesser player can still pull off a win, on the right day.

This is essentially what the FargoRate HOT, MEDIUM, and MILD handicap charts have built in.

 

[Tin Man]

I think you have played in tournaments around MN for which the "B" division always has a few AA players and the A and AA divisions always seem to find a few master-level players who have been hiding in the weeds. And this is all part of the game... If that's what you mean by "real life," then I invite you not so much to change your mind but instead just to open it to the possibility that it doesn't have to be like that, that it isn't that way everywhere, and the attitudes don't have to be what you experienced.

I've run over 1,000 tournaments in the last decade, and they are pretty close to half straight-up and half handicapped. For most of the decade, I've run a straight-up big table 9-Ball tournament and a handicapped 8-Ball tournament on 7-ft tables each week. You've played in some of my bigger straight-up tournaments. For all but a small handful of those 1,000 tournaments, every player on the planet has been invited to enter and play.

We (FargoRate) take in maybe 7,000 tournaments a year. Bouncing around to different pool "communities" gives us a sense of the real-world range of attitudes about the local culture and that players have toward one another. We work to understand what makes the healthy communities healthy and what encourages growth and development. Increasing numbers isn't just about increasing alcohol sales with more out-for-a-good-time weak players. It's about increasing the number of players who get the bug and think about pool when they are going to sleep and when they are driving to work.
[...]


I get that you are butting heads with better players when you fly out to turning stone. And I love that. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that because you step up and play better players there that local players stepping up and playing you even is kinda similar. It isn't. First TS is a culminating event of a decent size pool tour. And second, you are in the black bar here. Sure there are players a bar or two above you. But the majority even at TS are well below you. And the average level of play for people who would like to play tournaments in your area is 4-5 bars below you.


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Hey Mike, as always I appreciate the thoughtful reply. I will never quit wearing my Fargo Billiards hat. They're going to bury me in that thing.

As for the conversation, it's tough for me to express myself because I don't fully understand where my feelings come from. I could respond to the TS graph about how I lose more money playing pro events than local players would lose playing open local events. I could go into how if you and I played races to 11 you might lose, but you could be excited about your level of play or making it to 8 instead of 3 and that you don't need to be handed a win to feel good about growth and accomplishment. We could get into why people really play this game, what incentives drive different people, and I'm sure you have a lot of different thoughts on all of this. I would find them interesting to read. But in the end these are peripheral.

To me the main point is this: I've acknowledged that handicapping can, at it's best, engage a wider range of skill, increase player pools, and increase competitiveness between players. I have no problem with people that run handicapped events or the people that play in them. I'm not trying to get you to stop running events, nor to get others to stop attending.

And yes, I am certain you run these events better than anyone and I have no doubt it would be a better experience than what I've had in Minnesota. And I'm willing to agree to the thought experiment that if I met the right unicorn handicapped tournament I might be willing to go out on a few dates and see where it leads.

The only thing I've seen missing from this exchange is any validation on your part that maybe handicapped events aren't for everyone. That maybe there is a small subset of players who are borderline crazy with competitive drive, to whom the pursuit of accomplishment is almost a spiritual journey, and the idea of warping the field on which we play is unbearable. And that maybe those players are better off sticking to traditional events.

I fall in this bucket. I cannot explain to someone how I feel inside to someone who doesn't feel the same. Maybe I have a mental illness, spotaphobia. My aim isn't for you to feel the same way. I guess I was hoping for a mutual understanding. I find it odd that handicapping has become so mainstream that a player who wants to play even up against the world is considered uncultured.

 

[SBC]

Joey Ryan talked about this, in a podcast with Mike Page and Steve Ernst. High level players don't like giving that much weight, they aren't looking for a 50-50 proposition.

If the payouts are bigger because it's some kind of mega event...the pros will always be willing to outrun the nuts.

It's an idea that really could work...just somebody needs to try it.

The one thing I know about pool though is there are rarely upsets. If I guy wins over a better player it's because he's been putting in the work to become the better player. Skill levels are always changing...so it is hard to keep things "even" by handicapping.

I'd certainly be willing to pay $1000 entry in a pro/am event if it had a legitimate chance at a big payday. I know there are many amateurs who would as well.

 

[SBC]

In JV's case as well as mine I think we'd rather play even** but we're not exactly bangers.
With bangers the race would have to be 27-2 to give them a chance and what kind of
tournament format would support that. How would the draws work? Shane draws
Bergman and plays even while Shaw draws a banger and plays him 27-2.
I admire your desire to increase participation I just don't think this model will fly.
**While myself or JV would still be an underdog playing 6-11, your right we'd have a
slight (1 out of 20 maybe) chance. I can't speak for him but for myself it wouldn't be much
of a thrill. Needing weight to beat someone isn't necessarily congruent with our mindset.

Don't think the handicaps need to go to banger level.
Pros to 9
Shortstops 8
AAs 7
A 6

I held several events with 3 or 4 pros in fields 16 to 20 filled out by solid amateur players...none I'd consider over AA. We played them 9 to 7. The pros were obviously still favorites. That said we had many matches that were competitive and 3 or so matches where top pros lost in money rounds. We all know how quickly giving 9 to 7 can suck when you are down a couple racks.

 

[The_JV]

......That maybe there is a small subset of players who are borderline crazy with competitive drive, to whom the pursuit of accomplishment is almost a spiritual journey, and the idea of warping the field on which we play is unbearable. And that maybe those players are better off sticking to traditional events.

I fall in this bucket. I cannot explain to someone how I feel inside to someone who doesn't feel the same. Maybe I have a mental illness, spotaphobia. My aim isn't for you to feel the same way. I guess I was hoping for a mutual understanding. I find it odd that handicapping has become so mainstream that a player who wants to play even up against the world is considered uncultured.

I don't think this subset is as small as some may believe. I'd wager any competitive player above 600 could fall into that group.

If I may be so bold. In my region, which includes Toronto, any "major" event (prize money worth chasing), will draw in the top talent which includes Mr Pagulayan. Now when that man throws his hat in the ring, it's pretty much fore gone conclusion who's walking away with the big cheque....lol.

That didn't stop people from filling up the non-handicapped, single elimination, $500 entry field that recently went down. It went so fast that by the time I even heard about it, it had been full for some time. Most of the guys I knew in the field were donating just to get the chance to play the likes of Alex. I know I would have....

Nothing wrong with handicapped tournaments. I have the option not to play. However in my utopia, handicap tournaments are regulated to cheap entry fees. The people that want the handicap against the best, are only doing so because of the cost. There's no pride in shooting big game if it's legs are tied. Nobody would complain about a straight up race against SVB if it only cost them $20.

Let the players enjoy the fruits of their labours. I didn't bust my balls getting decent at this game just so I can give the world to someone who picked up a cue last year and wants to feel like they can compete. Again, I can choose not to play. "Big" pay day tournaments should be excluded from handicaps so skill decides the winner not appled chairty. Regardless of how that charity is calculated

 

[SBC]

I don't think this subset is as small as some may believe. I'd wager any competitive player above 600 could fall into that group.

If I may be so bold. In my region, which includes Toronto, any "major" event (prize money worth chasing), will draw in the top talent which includes Mr Pagulayan. Now when that man throws his hat in the ring, it's pretty much fore gone conclusion who's walking away with the big cheque....lol.

That didn't stop people from filling up the non-handicapped, single elimination, $500 entry field that recently went down. It went so fast that by the time I even heard about it, it had been full for some time. Most of the guys I knew in the field were donating just to get the chance to play the likes of Alex. I know I would have....

Nothing wrong with handicapped tournaments. I have the option not to play. However in my utopia, handicap tournaments are regulated to cheap entry fees. The people that want the handicap against the best, are only doing so because of the cost. There's no pride in shooting big game if it's legs are tied. Nobody would complain about a straight up race against SVB if it only cost them $20.

Let the players enjoy the fruits of their labours. I didn't bust my balls getting decent at this game just so I can give the world to someone who picked up a cue last year and wants to feel like they can compete. Again, I can choose not to play. "Big" pay day tournaments should be excluded from handicaps so skill decides the winner not appled chairty. Regardless of how that charity is calculated

Why can't there be both?

Somebody could make a 256 player event with $1000 entry...maybe 50k added from sponsors who would flock to be part of a big event. Make it so advanced amateurs win a chunk of that and see how big it could be.

What do you think of the guy who thinks he's a great player and gambles with all the next tier guys? He never wins. He's everybody's sucker right?....So what's the difference between him and a bracket filler who has zero chance in a pro event?

 

[Jimmorrison]

There can be both, as we all know, there already is. Plenty of Pro level players sign up for handicapped events. No one is suggesting this should be the norm, or replace Pro tour. There is no Pro tour to replace.

 

[Jimmorrison]

I am not a Ma Bell, the system is the solution, type of guy. Granting FargoRate a monopoly in gathering data is a little distasteful. It may have some negative, unintended consequences, down the road. But for now, if every league used LMS, if every event sent in results. It would be a great thing for pool. I predict it would increase entries a lot. You could structure tournaments much like they are now. The divisions would be based on FargoRate, not letters. Games on the wire, within your division. Based on the numbers and if your FargoRate is established. This would eliminate those lifelong A, AA guys that win almost every tournament, every year. As a group, they play on each other’s teams, the minimum required to qualify. Everyone knows who they are, including the vendor. Nothing is ever done about it. Then the vendor cries, when they can’t fill a bracket. Good shooters, not wanting to spot weaker players, I get that. It makes sense, at the highest level. When I and my guys travel, we often have to spot stronger players. Try and fade that. We play anyway, just cause it’s the only game in town, and we like pool.

 

[Island Drive]

If you go hill hill with jayson shaw you have a TON more pressure because the odds of him winning are still so much higher.

No, because he's Expected to win, your not.

And that alone will bring in more players your skill level, which will be good for bu$ine$$, and will increase play.

I've seen players that were Never supposed to win in the finals, but got to the hill and broke, made a ball and had the 1/9 combo for the win. All pros know this is a possibility the Reality of the moment.

 

[Jimmorrison]

No, because he's Expected to win, your not.

And that alone will bring in more players your skill level, which will be good for bu$ine$$, and will increase play.

I've seen players that were Never supposed to win in the finals, but got to the hill and broke, made a ball and had the 1/9 combo for the win. All pros know this is a possibility the Reality of the moment.

If someone can host a tournament, structured like your first post, and get a thousand entries. More power to em, I’m all for it. Personally, I’m not interested in a 2-27 race against Shaw. I’d rather watch as a spectator, then a participant. Enjoying a cup of coffee and getting ready for my next match. I’m also not looking for a 3-15 match against TinMan, or 2-10 against JV. The skill levels are just too disparate, the match doesn’t mean anything, whatever the outcome. If I’m in a hall, shooting at a table, and approached by measureman. He suggests a race to 7 for a hundred. If I take that bet I am considered a complete fool. Why should I accept that same match, or worse, in a tournament? We are one hundred FargoRate apart, 4-8 is even. Do I insist on that? No, 4-7 makes him a strong favorite. Is that the only way I’d play? No, I’d take two on the wire, race to seven. I’d dig in and really try to focus on the match, just for the fun of it. Odds are I get beat, but if I win or play well, at least it means something. To me, anyway.

 

[Island Drive]

I've spotted and been spotted many times in my life....understanding your/and your opponents abilities is good stuff. I played Steve Gumphries in DeValle's/Beanies pool room in VA early seventies, he gave me all the breaks, BUT this particular, E. Coast Below Ground pool room was Damp, balls were not cleaned (roll out 9 ball) race to 11. I almost NEVER made a ball on the break, and never had control of the table After the break, the conditions beat me. Now if we had been in CO where it's dry, completely different game.

 

[The_JV]

I've spotted and been spotted many times in my life....understanding your/and your opponents abilities is good stuff. I played Steve Gumphries in DeValle's/Beanies pool room in VA early seventies, he gave me all the breaks, BUT this particular, E. Coast Below Ground pool room was Damp, balls were not cleaned (roll out 9 ball) race to 11. I almost NEVER made a ball on the break, and never had control of the table After the break, the conditions beat me. Now if we had been in CO where it's dry, completely different game.

I also have given weight countless times, but usually argue the idea if someone is offering it up in my favour. That doesn't make me special. I just don't see value in winning in that manner. If it's matter of eveing the odds in a money game, well in these cases I'm usually stepping up in an effort to measure myself, so again, I don't want the weight.

Locally back in the day, I trash talked the top player (joe Lawrence) into giving me all the breaks. He had supposedly given a buddy of mine the same game the day before and still came out ahead. I on the other hand, tortured him...lol. I wilingly accepted his backers cash. Joe was a special case... He carried himself with an air of invincibility and thought he could literally spot the planet and come out ahead.

These days, when offered anything I generally just respond with "your sure", and then let the chips fall where they may.

I may need the weight, but I don't want it. It's just he cloth I'm cut from...

 

[SBC]

I give up handicaps all the time. When I give a guy the 8, or the 7 out...whatever...when another player beats me, he gets the cash. The cash is how we keep score. I'm not going to say that he only beat me because of the spot, because it's fair and even more importantly, it's what I agreed to. If you don't make fair games, especially as the better player, you soon won't have anybody to gamble with.

I've always like the idea of an advanced amateur pool series for better players. If the top tier players won't give up weight, they don't need to play. What pool needs is more opportunities for players at all levels. We have plenty of leagues for casual players who play on barboxes.

 

[Island Drive]

I lived N. in Colorado Springs for decades and retired south, 2015. New town, new friends and diff league.

In our league a few yrs ago, the locals invited me into their weekly/Sat. bar table ring game 9 ball 1$ on the 5 $2 on the 9, 4-5 handed game. So I joined in with this group, all new friends and none of us were under 60, cept one. I won $15 in 4 hrs and had not played in quit some time, frustrating to of played that bad. I practiced the following week, go into the game the following week and won $150. After doing that I knew that my skill level would dismantle their game....their friendships were more important than the money. I told em the following week I was no longer gonna play, I was not willing to break up their game because they all had no chance. Being their friend and such was more important. Now if it was 50 yrs ago and I was living hand to mouth, I would probably of come back each week and won $30-$50 and ''milk em''. The two yrs I was in the league I won all the cues, prizes etc bestowed upon the top shooter, so I quit, the teams in our league felt having me was unfair to all, I agreed and quit. I have a good player that comes to my home pool room and I always give em 2 on the wire to 11 for $10 sets. He has only won one set in 3 mths, but this is not about the money, it's about lockin' horns and not racking and playing safeties etc. If good players come over we just play for $20 sets max, if it gets higher feelings will get hurt with some, and I'm not willing to risk friendships by jacking the bet and workin' someone, those days are gone. We all roll different and I just happened to travel and work and play for years, and the road taught me about ''real life'' and what to expect or not in a pool room, which is basically life condensed in a small area, for all to see.

 

[The_JV]

I give up handicaps all the time. When I give a guy the 8, or the 7 out...whatever...when another player beats me, he gets the cash. The cash is how we keep score. I'm not going to say that he only beat me because of the spot, because it's fair and even more importantly, it's what I agreed to. If you don't make fair games, especially as the better player, you soon won't have anybody to gamble with.

I've always like the idea of an advanced amateur pool series for better players. If the top tier players won't give up weight, they don't need to play. What pool needs is more opportunities for players at all levels. We have plenty of leagues for casual players who play on barboxes.

See, I never hand out weight when I'm gambling. Either you want to try and beat me or your don't. However, I'm also the kind of player that's more than willing to play for nothing. You may not get my "step on throat" game, but if you want that then it has to be worth that grind.

As far as running out of players to gamble with... Well ya, there might be 3 guys that will depending on the bet. But that's remedied by an hour drive down the road, where I become the sucker...lol

I agree the world of NA pool is dominated by handicapped leagues already. Consider them farm teams. If someone wants to put their big boy pants on and step into the world of competitive pool, then it should be just that. The game at the higher levels isn't about balance. It's about being the best.