No heart? or just business?

azhousepro

azhousepro

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Here is one that I would like to get the opinions of the folks here on.

My local room has a "break and run" contest during every tournament. (Fri, Sat and Sun evening and Sat afternoon) Raffle tickets are sold and the person whose ticket is drawn gets to try to break and run a rack of 9-ball on a bar box for 60% of the pot. If the player does not run the rack, they get $5 per ball made and the pot rolls over to the next tourney. A second and third ticket are drawn for a chance to break and run with the winner getting $100 and $50 if they can run on that attempt.

Well, the pot is just a little over $7000 right now. That's right. The next person who breaks and runs with the first ticket drawn is going to pocket a little over $4000. (The pot will be around $3000 after that, because the winner gets 60% and the other 40% stays in the pot)

You do not have to be playing in the tournament in order to buy tickets for this contest. The past couple weeks, one of the best players in town has been hitting the room every night to play in the contest. Here is the thing though. The locals are buying tickets and giving them to him in the hopes he can have their ticket drawn and run the rack. Then they will split the winnings with him.

My opinion is that this shows absolutely no heart by any of the players doing this. I can understand going down and buying tickets for yourself, but to buy tickets and hope someone else will run the rack for you is very weak.

I asked a couple people who I respect the opinions of, and they said it was just business. People are doing it for the best chance to win the money.

What are the opinions of the regulars here?

By the way, the player in question has been drawn twice in the past week or so and dogged the run one time and failed to pocket a ball on the break the next time.

Mike
 
AzHousePro said:
By the way, the player in question has been drawn twice in the past week or so and dogged the run one time and failed to pocket a ball on the break the next time.

Mike
Click to expand...

Now, that part of the statment is simply, JUSTICE, Mike. Yes, it shows lack of heart but how are you going to stop it?
 
Well in my opinion, to answer your question, it is just business, and they do not have heart...

Personally I would rather attempt it myself, I guess the money comes into play, but I still think its not worth as much as the feeling of doing it in front of all those people..

Whether you can do anything to prevent this from happening? I don't know..

You can prevent it, or just let them do what makes them happy, whether they secretly regret it or not...

They are playing with their own money anyway, so I guess in due course they even out.
 
record the players name and number when the ticket is bought,,,,,,,,,,,,,if they dont match up, dont let em play
 
billfishhead, hit it right on the money, It's not business, it's typical B.S.
The excitement of the average person running the rack will generate a bigger and better lottery.
Maybe a round of drinks and or a weeks vacation
that you didn't have to save for.
 
Michael Webb said:
billfishhead, hit it right on the money, It's not business, it's typical B.S.
The excitement of the average person running the rack will generate a bigger and better lottery.
Maybe a round of drinks and or a weeks vacation
that you didn't have to save for.
Click to expand...

Won't work. They just give the better player the $ to buy the ticket.
 
Umm, how much is the pot up to, and where/when is it? ;)

P.S. I do think what they're doing is pretty nitty.
 
Maybe they'll learn their lesson when the good player hit's the pot and quietly slides out the door
with out splitting.
I'm bad, that could never happen.
 
Michael Webb said:
Maybe they'll learn their lesson when the good player hit's the pot and quietly slides out the door
with out splitting.
I'm bad, that could never happen.
Click to expand...

Even worse Michael, on the way out the door the guy hands the sucker his five back and says, "Thanks for the loan".
 
If you want to avoid these kind of dealings, sell 1 ticket per person and list down their name and number. It would reduce the income from the sold ticket though since the tickets being sold would be limited to only 1 per person.
 
only one ticket fer round per player,,,,,,,,,,,,if munbers dont match up,,,,,,,,,,,,,disqualify player from jackpot shots

yeah someone can buy his ticket, but it gives more players a chance
 
AzHousePro said:
Here is one that I would like to get the opinions of the folks here on.

,,,,,g though. The locals are buying tickets and giving them to him in the hopes he can have their ticket drawn and run ,,,,,

I asked a couple people who I respect the opinions of, and they said it was just business. People are doing it for the best chance to win the money.

What are the opinions of the regulars here?

By the way, the player in question has been drawn twice in the past week or so and dogged the run one time and failed to pocket a ball on the break the next time.

Mike
Click to expand...

mike,,,you've answered your own question,,,if the wording was correct...",,,,the person whose ticket is drawn gets to try to break and run a rack of 9-ball ". so the person who's ticket is drawn must break and run. they can't have friggin' efren reyes come into town and run it for them.

i would go back to the original intent of the rule, and tell them they can't do this. and if they don't like it, i would suggest to them that it is THEY(the ticket holders) who have bent the rules. ie,,,they were perfectly willing to try and break and run themselves when the pot was $100 or whatever, but now that the pot is huge, they are cheating to get part of the pot.

i would also remind them that the reason the pot is so big is because of their participation. that had the better players been playing all along, the pot would never have gotten so juicy.

clearly, THEY are in the wrong, but because nothing has happened except the pot getting bigger,,,,,then you can change back to the original intent of the rules with no harm done. if they cry, which i expect some will, tell them to stop crying about getting a chance for 4 frigging thousand dollars!!!!!

if joe semi-pro wants a crack at it, tell him to buy 3 dozen tickets and increase his odds to get picked. although i think one ticket one player should be the rule.

if it hasn't happened already,,,,the bigger the pot gets, everyone from the four corners will be dropping into your room. how great is that!!!
it would be a crying shame for some hustling, cheating bullsh*t to bring it all to an end.
 
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AzHousePro said:
My opinion is that this shows absolutely no heart by any of the players doing this. I can understand going down and buying tickets for yourself, but to buy tickets and hope someone else will run the rack for you is very weak.

I asked a couple people who I respect the opinions of, and they said it was just business. People are doing it for the best chance to win the money.

What are the opinions of the regulars here?
Click to expand...

9 ball on a barbox (8ft table?), and nobody broke and ran out yet. How long has this been going on? Can people buy as many tickets as they want?

IMO, and I’ll state this again IMO, that is too much money for a local break and run pot. But this is beside the point.

To answer your question though, yes I think it is heartless. It means that there aren’t enough players that are willing to step up to the plate and test themselves. Sad. This also gives one a glimpse about the player mentality and the rating/handicap system problems (that others have discussed) in the area. To some it’s all about the money not how they get it. That’s why I don’t feel huge pots should be allowed on small local tourneys, too many potential problems. Maybe divide it up among the three different nights.

Rick <--- (Arrrrrnolds voice) Give me address there.
 
Our local room had a contest like this got to around 300 and some guy who never runs out snaps it in on the break. The way they did theirs is if you were in the tournament you pay $1 extra for a chance to get drawn out.
ps.
It's a nice chunk of change, but it shows no heart at all to win it like that.
 
Mike all you gotta do to fix this is switch from raffle tickets to a name-drawing. That way whoever's name you draw has to be the one who tries to break and run.
 
It shows some heart on the part of the people buying the tickets. They are basically buying a lottery ticket to win a chance at winning something. That takes a lot of moxie or stupidity to do over and over again. I understand the intent of the jackpot series but when it's done as you described Mike then the business is inevitable. This is the natural evolution of this kind of scheme.

You really don't even need the tournament. Just run the lottery.

I ran a tournament in Germany for a year that is still running over ten years later. This tournament is handicapped single elimination with a jackpot. $2 from every player goes into the jackpot. Two players from the tournament were drawn to break and run out - all nine balls must be made. The tournament has a guaranteed prize fund no matter how many people show up. $200/$100/$50/$50/$20/$20/$10/$10 and this is the draw. When the jackpot is high we would have close to a hundred players coming in on a Monday night from as far away as 120 miles.

Our jackpot got up to $7000 and maybe higher since then. I snapped it off once for $900. The point is that only players who played in thr tournament got to participate in the jackpot and there was only one chance per player per night. People could make all kinds of savers if they wanted to, i.e. if either of us gets drawn and makes it then we split, but no one could take someone else's turn.

The guaranteed prize money combined with the jackpot made for a successful long running tournament. I think that is what you are looking for.

John
 
To all those asking where this tournament is, there can't be that many poolrooms in AZ. Just call around and ask which one has the jackpot tournament and you'll find it within ten minutes.

www.poolrooms.com
www.playpool.com

to find poolrooms.

John
 
Break and runs

Well it sounds a little fishy that a guy can just walk in and participate..

We run one that is $2 per ticket $5 for 3 tickets.. only players that participate in this tourney can enter. On top of that you have to buy a ticket for the week, to be eligible to get in for that week. In other words if you bought 5 tickets 3 weeks ago and that night you don't buy a ticket, and you get drawn, you don't get a shot. It works really well and now that its about 1400 we get alot more players to that Thursday night tourney. Guys are now buying 10 and 20 bucks worth of tickets...

BTW its handicapped b/r also.. if you are a certain spot or + you do it on a tighty and if you are scratch or a minus you do it on a bucket. Oh and you have to run out. 9 on the break means you made a ball and keep shooting.

Joe
 
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