Yes and what aggravates me (as dead money) is the time it takes for the Calcutta before these small tournaments.
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My rant: Finals shouldn't be played at 1AM on a multi-day event
- Thread starter Tin Man
- Start date
Yes and what aggravates me (as dead money) is the time it takes for the Calcutta before these small tournaments.
I think the player/table ratio is not the problem. Towards the end of rounds you see 80% of the tables sitting unused. That's the problem -- not keeping all the tables busy.
Yes, most of my local/regional tournaments are like this. And the finalists almost never actually play because they just want to go home. I assume it’s mostly just lack of planning: Too many players, not enough tables, races too long, not starting on time, etc.
I like to play in round robin tournaments. It wouldn’t work for pro tournaments like Derby City (though Matchroom’s Premier league thing has a round robin format), but just what I like to play in. I kinda hate the uncertainty of elimination formats - you could be out and home by noon, or playing until 2 AM. With a round robin format you’re going to play a fixed number of matches, and so you're going to be home at a more predictable time.
I like to play in round robin tournaments. It wouldn’t work for pro tournaments like Derby City (though Matchroom’s Premier league thing has a round robin format), but just what I like to play in. I kinda hate the uncertainty of elimination formats - you could be out and home by noon, or playing until 2 AM. With a round robin format you’re going to play a fixed number of matches, and so you're going to be home at a more predictable time.
If you do get back to tournament play, and you want to fix the disorganization, you may need to volunteer to either be or help the tournament director. I'd say that 50% of them simply don't know how to keep things moving. It's hard.
So givin that the banks goes off first, are you saying the 1pocket and 9ball players should come in earlier to use those tables?
Lou Figueroa
middleofnowhere
Registered
I wasn't there so I can only comment from the sidelines. But with the number of players you're talking about and BuyBacks it sounds like a catch 22. It will not fit the time frame they've allotted themselves. Unless you want to do it like the old Johnston City tournaments and go on for 3 weeks I doubt there's much they can do.
I went through the possible scheduling with Greg. Banks would start as soon as 32 players were physically present. There would be nothing but banks until you were down to the final 64 at which time there would be about 20 open tables and the one pocket would start. The people still in banks would not be able to enter the one pocket until they got knocked out. That would be fine as they could miss the first 20 16-player qualifiers for one pocket and get in one or more of the last 44 qualifiers.
Similarly, the nine ball would start when the one pocket was winding down and tables started to open up. Again, the people busy with one pocket could not enter the nine ball until they were done with one pocket.
No offense taken. I realized immediately after I sent it, I should have broken it down into a few paragraphs. Wile typing, I had multiple interruptions from my toddler, and just ended up sending as is. Kids aren't helpful for your pool game or much logistically, even though they are amazing in general lol.no offense brother but just looking at this wall of letters gave me a headache.
Understand completely. That's kind of why I said it is what it is. Running pool tournaments is a thankless job and mostly a thankless volunteer job. If it's for profit at all, then players really have a right to complain and often neither players or people running the tourney end up happy. As much as pool has moved forward, it's still stuck in the mud in so many areas. For the most part, the people who are organized in their own lives, work professional jobs, and would have a shot at doing something with it, aren't looking for a major volunteer project. That's another issue is trying to run and play in pool tournaments really doesn't work. I've never tried it, but watched many try and fail and say the exact same thing. That's not saying there won't come a time in my life where I won't try to help the game. Many ways to do that, most of which, doesn't really fix the issue of running and getting pool tournaments done in a timely fashion. The better players want longer races and longer races take time, which creates much of the issue. Even shorter races, without a shot clock (hard to see that happening, especially with amateur pool) is a scheduling nightmare. With the pros, determining match lengths could be more predictable with a shot clock. Without one, well, good luck.
I've only been to the Derby once (2008 or 2009) and watched the Fatboy challenge. 16 players, single elimination, 9' tables and the best of the best. My wife (gf at the time) and I got in the room early and got good spots. Only 20' away from Efren vs Parica, Busty, SVB, Oscar, Morra, Bryant, Mika, Corteza, Moore, Feijen, etc. I believe it was a race to 15 and night one was round 1. After all the matches were done, to my left was Souquet vs Chamat. Their match ended roughly 2 hours later then most everyone else's did. I think matches didn't start until around midnight to begin, but I think it was 6am by the time we got back to the hotel. Would have been 2 hours sooner, but we only had passes for that day and I couldn't get myself to leave. I think Souquet eventually won like 15-13. I bring this up because it just shows the variance without a shot clock. There were a few other matches that were close, but this one took an extra hour and a half longer than whatever the last one was to finish up. When the match ended, the only other people in the room were gambling and watching that. Even though the conclusion of round 1 was very late, I still enjoyed the event very much.
We lived in Evansville, IN at the time, had no money, but for my Birthday present she got us passes for the day, hotel in the area, etc. She brought a book and read the whole time, but has generally been supportive of me and my pool endeavors over the years, even if she rarely participates. She's definitely a keeper. She's also ok with me always being able to have a man cave with a pool table, which is key. That way I always have access to playing pool, no matter how busy we are.And yet, she still married you. Definitely a keeper.
Derby is Derby and I've never actually been but have always wondered about the logistics of how it is ran. Sounds like there's serious room for improvement.
When it comes to sports in general, many tourney organizers only care about getting as many people/teams to play as possible. A few years back, my son's soccer team had a tournament where he and his 10 year old teammates had to be out on the field (I should say pitch but I won't) and ready to go at 6 AM! That was a blast
I was about the only one complaining. I was also about the only one complaining when his baseball team got eliminated from a tournament in a well played 4 inning game, because of a 1:15 time limit. Both tourneys were ridiculously overbooked.
Few people even care about such things they just accept them and move on. When it comes to pool, for so long we were in the "beggars can't be choosers" situation. But times are a changing. I think one of the greatest parts of social media from a pool player's perspective is the competition it is creating at the grassroots level for tourneys. Promoters that aren't upfront about their business, will have the players going somewhere else, and if you're stuck there until 2 in the morning playing, the whole world will know about it. So I think there's actually a chance we will see better run tourneys in the near future.
When it comes to sports in general, many tourney organizers only care about getting as many people/teams to play as possible. A few years back, my son's soccer team had a tournament where he and his 10 year old teammates had to be out on the field (I should say pitch but I won't) and ready to go at 6 AM! That was a blast
I was about the only one complaining. I was also about the only one complaining when his baseball team got eliminated from a tournament in a well played 4 inning game, because of a 1:15 time limit. Both tourneys were ridiculously overbooked. Few people even care about such things they just accept them and move on. When it comes to pool, for so long we were in the "beggars can't be choosers" situation. But times are a changing. I think one of the greatest parts of social media from a pool player's perspective is the competition it is creating at the grassroots level for tourneys. Promoters that aren't upfront about their business, will have the players going somewhere else, and if you're stuck there until 2 in the morning playing, the whole world will know about it. So I think there's actually a chance we will see better run tourneys in the near future.
But when the banks kick off there are 457 player physically present.
I don't know exactly but after 2 1/2 days a lot of guys had not bought back in, and the field had been significantly whittled down, though I don't know by how many. But then you've got 375 1pocket players physically present and the whole event is going like a house ablaze. The last match on the first day of the 1pocket started 11PM Sunday and some guys did not get to play their first round 1pocket match until noon Monday. IOWs, all tables were in play -- good luck finding an unused table several days into the tournament AND THEN you get the mogul horde of several hundred 9ball players.
So I return to my point about the player to table ratio being the problem. I'm not sure how, with the number of players they're letting in that unused tables are the issue.
Lou Figueroa
I'm saying there doesn't have to be. Players could reserve a "first 128" spot or a "second day" spot. Or just show up when they feel like it and enter a qualifier. Just don't be too late.
I've seen many times at the end of rounds when most tables were sitting empty because they were waiting for slow matches to finish so they could do the next draw. This is a big problem. Really. You need 100% utilization or everyone gets to wait for no good reason and the finals run into Sunday morning.
There is a special feature built in to the current draw software that does a speculative draw prior to a round finishing. That could let you start a round before the previous round finishes. And I have seen them not use that feature for whatever reason. I have spent considerable time talking to the guy who wrote the current software.
shot clock at every table. it's that easy. one slow fugger can delay a tournament several hours.
I don't see how players reserving playing spots helps -- you still got all the tables going.
So, maybe you saw unused tables at DCC events when the turnouts were smaller but with huge numbers like this year I'm not so sure it's the case. For me it's just too many players and not enough tables. If they just cutoff entries at say 300 players an event I think the problem Tin Man was addressing goes away.
Lou Figueroa
This year, Wednesday and Thursday late afternoon, early evening, tables were not utilized. Of the 18 tables on the main floor, it looked to me like only two or three matches were being played and the other tables were used for practice. I was only able to attend on Wednesday and Thursday. This lull on both evenings was a mood killer for me.
I love this event and I think this year was the best field ever. I don’t know the answer to the lull, when the different games are all in the mix, but I will always attend. It’s an incredible event, regardless of a few problems.
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Or league play…there’s no momentum or time limit on workday leagues that makes for a long day…
Or set a time limit per game and I can even see problems with that.
It's a pity that a tournament with such a high status is run so poorly. Things like shot clocks and winner breaks are not solutions to scheduling (there are other arguments for them but televised snooker tournaments work just fine without them). The solution is actually thinking about the schedule when you, um schedule it. It's the first and last job of the organizer.