Pace of Play

Island Drive

Otto/Dads College Roommate/Cleveland Browns
Silver Member
Traditional Flo Charts Don't help the room owners, the players and the competitive game itself.
A team event in IA finished well past 3am.
Very few if any room owners LIKE every table being completely tied up, and very few players enjoy playing into the next day Sunday and then have to play again after a nap the same day. Golf is realizing speeding up play is important as many other pro games feel the same.
We know there are opinions on both sides, but what's the benefit to players/game of any sport being up for a match 12-14 hrs?
 
Traditional Flo Charts Don't help the room owners, the players and the competitive game itself.
A team event in IA finished well past 3am.
Very few if any room owners LIKE every table being completely tied up, and very few players enjoy playing into the next day Sunday and then have to play again after a nap the same day. Golf is realizing speeding up play is important as many other pro games feel the same.
We know there are opinions on both sides, but what's the benefit to players/game of any sport being up for a match 12-14 hrs?
That's normal for poker every damn day during the World Series.

And the breaks you get are never long enough due to the massive amount of people
 
Baseball has added the pitch clock and has limited the number of throws a pitcher can make to hold a baserunner on. These changes have made a big difference and have made the game much more entertaining.

Pool is on the opposite trajectory, and slow play is a bigger problem at the pro level than it ever has been. Managing the game's entertainment value does not seem to be terribly important to either pro players or event producers. To be fair, Mike Zuglan's Joss Tour has long been the exception. Mike gets in the face of players that play slowly, and habitually slow players can have a hard time signing up for events like Turning Stone that routinely fill the field.

Sad to say it but slow play in pool, at this point, almost qualifies as a tradition. Amateurs watching the pros surely note how slowly most of the pros play and I'm sure many of them either copy it or use it to justify, or at least rationalize, their own lethargic pace of play.
 
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Local tournaments should ALL be single elimination, luck counts, 9 ball. That's a fast game, and fast format. It also leaves open tables much earlier for regular paying customers. It also promotes action as eliminated player have time and tables to match up.

8 ball should be banned. Takes forever. Double elimination, especially TRUE double elimination, takes forever (for any game).

The priority of the TD IMO is a reasonable end time to the event.
 
One of the reasons i don't play tournaments like that anymore. I played in a APA league once and i think they were susposed to be done at 10pm. I finished my matches about 9:30pm and there was still a few to go.
 
And the priority of the room owners business is Also of equal priority. Good post x99
 
One of the reasons i don't play tournaments like that anymore. I played in a APA league once and i think they were susposed to be done at 10pm. I finished my matches about 9:30pm and there was still a few to go.
I agree. I love league play, but the tournaments run by my local league seem to never start on time, then run on into the late night or early morning. Not for me!
 
Make speeding up a priority. Institute shot clocks at every level on every table at every venue, including league and even casual play. It's 2026, for God's sake. With a little thought the technology could cost almost nothing and be run by AI.

Make it fun. Make Earl the ambassador of timely play.
 
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