Joe T
Well-known member
Our goal is to unite 64 clubs around the country in an effort to create a self sustaining tour model that makes sense for the players (current and future), the clubs and our industry.
The current format calls for;
Each club to host exactly 8 players that play a 7 week in house round robin.
We're playing American Rotation to 150 points, each weekly match takes on average 2.5 hrs (excluding NC
A player can choose to compete as an amateur or professional, a pro would pay $25 per match and an amateur can pay $15 per match. Pro's play for full cash prizes all the way through, regional and national payouts. The most an amateur can win is $750 travel money if they happen to qualify for the national event. We added the amateur status option for those players that didn't think they could actually win but still wanted to compete with higher level players.
At the end of 7 weeks the top 4 players from each club then move on to a 1 day regional event with 8-16 players max.
At the regional it's a 1 day event typical between 0-4hrs travel time, there are no fees and half the field would win some money (25% of the country cashes). It is a lil top heavy as we have to ensure the 2 players that qualify for nationals are guaranteed $250 cash on the spot and then $750 travel money.
So a typical 16 player regional might pay out;
$1000 to 2 national qualifiers and they can win more at the nationals
$200ea to 3rd 4th and $100ea 5th-8th
If a player chooses amateur status the worst that could happen is they play 7 matches (about 18hrs of pool on average) and they're out $105.
The national championship are 1-2 day long events, mostly on a weekend. Whenever possible and what will be almost all the time the nationals are held in conjunction with other pro events, usually the day before or day after. Our first nationals was held the day before the US Open in VA and everyone qualified had that minimum $1000 no matter what. Our next nationals will be held Jan 25th-26th the first Sat Sun of Derby City.
Right now we give the clubs the schedule and they choose to set any time they like, all on 1 day or maybe hold the 4 weekly matches on 4 different nights to kind of feature it or some simply put out the schedule and let the players make their own times, its very very flexible schedule. We ask the rooms to donate the table time, which we personally don't like doing but if we took $5 out of our potentially 512 players fees, our national prize fund would drop about $17,500, doesn't work. And we don't want to raise it $5 either because our main goal is to make it as affordable as possible for players to compete on a national level. We do allow players to pay or room owners to charge a lil extra if everyone agrees to it and proudly some players have.
Seems like the biggest problem is simple finding and uniting 8 players. The players seem to love the concept, 95% of th eroom owners also like it and want to help but we can't seem to get the 8 players all on track as easy as one might think. This is almost understandable as we as pool players have pretty much been trained to see what's out there and then we show up, we're not used to forming our own events.
Another problem I believe is that the handicap system that are out of control in many areas are simply changing our current players mindsets; If I were a B or C player and you told me I could play a 2hr match of 15 ball rotation with better players once a week for $15 or 42 weeks out of the year there is no freakin way you could keep me away. Now players are simply saying "I can beat so and so so why should I play without weight?" idk but I think handicaps have a place in our game but out of control handicaps are also causing damage to it?
You can see more about the mission at www.ABCPL.info or American Billiard Club Association on facebook. And I would appreciate your thoughts. The game itself is being very well recieved, players are really liking it and nobody in the events has said I like the format but we should be playing a different game so I would like to keep focus on the concept of trying to unite these 64 rooms with 8 players at each one so we can have 5 or 6 national event held in conjuntion with other ongoing national events like DCC US Open BCAPL Nationals, Turning Stone, SBE and whereever else.
If you're interested in watching they're streaming VA playoffs live today starting at 1pm from Diamond Billiards in Midlothian www.diamondbilliardsva.com where we'll have our first female player to qualify for regionals
Gwen Townsend actually finished 1st place in her room Fast Eddie's. Ozzy Reynold the Action Pool Tour founder also came in 1st at Pockets in Newport News so those two players will be abttling it out with 6 other players for 2 spots at our DCC Championship.
The current format calls for;
Each club to host exactly 8 players that play a 7 week in house round robin.
We're playing American Rotation to 150 points, each weekly match takes on average 2.5 hrs (excluding NC
A player can choose to compete as an amateur or professional, a pro would pay $25 per match and an amateur can pay $15 per match. Pro's play for full cash prizes all the way through, regional and national payouts. The most an amateur can win is $750 travel money if they happen to qualify for the national event. We added the amateur status option for those players that didn't think they could actually win but still wanted to compete with higher level players.
At the end of 7 weeks the top 4 players from each club then move on to a 1 day regional event with 8-16 players max.
At the regional it's a 1 day event typical between 0-4hrs travel time, there are no fees and half the field would win some money (25% of the country cashes). It is a lil top heavy as we have to ensure the 2 players that qualify for nationals are guaranteed $250 cash on the spot and then $750 travel money.
So a typical 16 player regional might pay out;
$1000 to 2 national qualifiers and they can win more at the nationals
$200ea to 3rd 4th and $100ea 5th-8th
If a player chooses amateur status the worst that could happen is they play 7 matches (about 18hrs of pool on average) and they're out $105.
The national championship are 1-2 day long events, mostly on a weekend. Whenever possible and what will be almost all the time the nationals are held in conjunction with other pro events, usually the day before or day after. Our first nationals was held the day before the US Open in VA and everyone qualified had that minimum $1000 no matter what. Our next nationals will be held Jan 25th-26th the first Sat Sun of Derby City.
Right now we give the clubs the schedule and they choose to set any time they like, all on 1 day or maybe hold the 4 weekly matches on 4 different nights to kind of feature it or some simply put out the schedule and let the players make their own times, its very very flexible schedule. We ask the rooms to donate the table time, which we personally don't like doing but if we took $5 out of our potentially 512 players fees, our national prize fund would drop about $17,500, doesn't work. And we don't want to raise it $5 either because our main goal is to make it as affordable as possible for players to compete on a national level. We do allow players to pay or room owners to charge a lil extra if everyone agrees to it and proudly some players have.
Seems like the biggest problem is simple finding and uniting 8 players. The players seem to love the concept, 95% of th eroom owners also like it and want to help but we can't seem to get the 8 players all on track as easy as one might think. This is almost understandable as we as pool players have pretty much been trained to see what's out there and then we show up, we're not used to forming our own events.
Another problem I believe is that the handicap system that are out of control in many areas are simply changing our current players mindsets; If I were a B or C player and you told me I could play a 2hr match of 15 ball rotation with better players once a week for $15 or 42 weeks out of the year there is no freakin way you could keep me away. Now players are simply saying "I can beat so and so so why should I play without weight?" idk but I think handicaps have a place in our game but out of control handicaps are also causing damage to it?
You can see more about the mission at www.ABCPL.info or American Billiard Club Association on facebook. And I would appreciate your thoughts. The game itself is being very well recieved, players are really liking it and nobody in the events has said I like the format but we should be playing a different game so I would like to keep focus on the concept of trying to unite these 64 rooms with 8 players at each one so we can have 5 or 6 national event held in conjuntion with other ongoing national events like DCC US Open BCAPL Nationals, Turning Stone, SBE and whereever else.
If you're interested in watching they're streaming VA playoffs live today starting at 1pm from Diamond Billiards in Midlothian www.diamondbilliardsva.com where we'll have our first female player to qualify for regionals
Gwen Townsend actually finished 1st place in her room Fast Eddie's. Ozzy Reynold the Action Pool Tour founder also came in 1st at Pockets in Newport News so those two players will be abttling it out with 6 other players for 2 spots at our DCC Championship.
