Input needed on tournament idea

[Cdryden]

I am going to start a private tournament with some of my pool playing friends. Here is the basic idea.

1 match per week.
Double elimination.
No handicap.
Very long sets, like 50 games of 8 ball, or 100 games of 9 ball or 500 points of straight pool.
I also am considering doing a mix of games like 25 games of 8 ball, 9 ball and 10 ball. The point is to have long sets where skill will win out over luck.

I am also thinking of trying to work out a point system. Ex: 1 point for every game won. Then when you get down to the final 2 players player A has 320 points and player B has 295 points. The last match is played to, say, 500 so player A has an advantage since he acquired more points throughout the bracket. This may give the winner of the looser bracket an advantage since he will have had more games in which to get points. I haven't really sat down and done the math yet!

Anyhow, have any of you done something like this before? Any ideas? I figure with a field of 8 people this could take almost 3 months. The nice thing about only doing 1 match per week is that people will get a chance to practice up, plan their strategy and so on. It also gives people time to make their side bets and have some friendly trash talk before the match.

 

[DogsPlayingPool]

My only suggestion is to perhaps re-think the match length. The TAR 28 8 Ball match to 15 was 4.5 hours. Sometimes it can be difficult for 2 players to set a time every week where they are both available to play each other. It would probably be best to pick a race length that both players could complete in one session - unless all the participants are retired and have nothing to do everyday.

 

[Cdryden]

My only suggestion is to perhaps re-think the match length. The TAR 28 8 Ball match to 15 was 4.5 hours. Sometimes it can be difficult for 2 players to set a time every week where they are both available to play each other. It would probably be best to pick a race length that both players could complete in one session - unless all the participants are retired and have nothing to do everyday.

Good point. I may do a practice run with one of the people that will be in the tournament to see how may games we get for 3-4 hours of playing time.

 

[ShootingArts]

time

Good point. I may do a practice run with one of the people that will be in the tournament to see how may games we get for 3-4 hours of playing time.

There is the danger of a player deliberately dragging their feet when they are ahead but I have been trying to figure out how to play set time matches for awhile. Say two or two and a half hours of each type of pool, call a winner at the end of each time period. Idea seems to have some potential but I haven't ever tested it. A chess style time clock keeping up with each player's total time might be a thought.

Don't know, just food for thought maybe.

Something else that you might consider is a ladder tournament. If a search doesn't turn up info I'll see if my bookmark still works.

Hu

 

[AtLarge]

... The TAR 28 8 Ball match to 15 was 4.5 hours. ...

According to Justin, the 8-ball match was 3 hrs and 47 min. (http://forums.azbilliards.com/showpost.php?p=3682249&postcount=21). That was for 26 games, so the average game length was 8.7 minutes (including intros, racking, breaks).

But one of those 26 games was extraordinarily long (over a half-hour I think you said); omitting it, the other 25 games averaged 7.8 minutes per game.

 

[DogsPlayingPool]

According to Justin, the 8-ball match was 3 hrs and 47 min. (http://forums.azbilliards.com/showpost.php?p=3682249&postcount=21). That was for 26 games, so the average game length was 8.7 minutes (including intros, racking, breaks).

But one of those 26 games was extraordinarily long (over a half-hour I think you said); omitting it, the other 25 games averaged 7.8 minutes per game.

Right. So throw out the one long game and the race to 15 for two pro-speed players was say 3 1/2 hours or a little less. That makes a race to 50 around 3 times that, or 10 1/2 to 11 hours - for two guys the speed of Schmidt and Deuel.

Same deal with race to 100 9 Ball. When TAR does that they do it over 3 days. Don't know what the average time per day is but I have never heard any viewers complain they didn't get their money's worth. Let's say 5 hours on average to go to 33 each day. That's a 15 hour set - again for pro speed players. I have the TAR SVB v. Alex DVD, race to 100 10 Ball. Over 21 hours for two of the best players on the planet.

There better be a lot of added money to make up for the table time the players are going to be forking out. :grin-square:

Maybe this is a more realistic scenario. My weekly BCAPL plays 8 Ball. One game right after the other. 20 games total which roughly equates to a hill-hill race to 10. Rarely is it over in less than 4 hours and usually goes closer to 4 1/2. Now the speed of the players varies of course, but by and large most everyone is at least half decent and some are very good. So let's knock time off because in league the players shake hands and say good luck each game, and call it 3 hours for what amounts to a race to 10. A race to 50 then is 5 times that, or 15 hours. Take off a 1/3 off that and it's still a 10 hour set.