Question Regarding Handicapped Tournaments
- Thread starter ChrisinNC
- Start date
If you do not handicap a C or D player against strong B or A players with ball spots instead of game on the wire spots the weaker player has almost no chance to win the match and will play the games incorrectly;almost always shooting wildly at the 9 at every chance.
You alienate strong players by making the match more even? I don't get that. Passion has nothing to do with skill level - every A player started out as a D player! Anyone who knows pool will know that making each individual game more even will always make the match more even as well. You can certainly combine games on the wire spots with balls inside each rack spots.
When an A player has to win 7 games to 3 vs. a D player - and everything else about the match is standard 9 ball - the A will win the match 95% of the time. He has to completely screw up to lose 3 games to a C in a race to 7. However, give the C player last 5 balls and Alternate breaks and I say the match is now 65 to 35 favor of the A player- big difference from 95 to 5. if a D cannot run 3 balls- they just are not yet ready for competition.
I have been playing tin tournaments for 37+ years- I think that I know a little bit about handicapping.
DeeDeeCues
Well-known member
I've seen handicapped tourneys and leagues alienate better players. Why would they come to play something where they have a fifty percent chance (or worse) against a lesser player who will likely crow all night about beating someone great?
In general I dont think there is however since you own the venue that might be another story. Generally, the way I look at it is most tournaments probably would never happen if the TD wasn't allowed to play. Handicap TD's especially tend to hear a lot of crap about handicaps being wrong and is just part of the course.
That's sort of the only way they are going to win a game. I used to give up 10-2 against the lowest rated player in a local league. It was a fair match. They won once on lucky shots or hung balls with a score of 2-0. That was my fault.
One of the features of FargoRate is that they provide handicap tables in three different "fairnesses". The heaviest handicaps are such that the lower ranked player never has an odds advantage. The higher player is 50% or better to win the match, but never at a disadvantage.
The two other levels of Fargo-based handicapping are something like the better player never being worse than 60% to win against a weak player and the least fair maybe 70% to win. You can choose the advantage for the better player according to which spot table you choose.
As for the "works much harder at the game" argument against handicapping, I've seen middling players who worked much harder at their game than some top players, so that's on a case by case basis.
IN my opinion handicapped tournaments are held to give everyone paying their own money a chance to enjoy the matches and benefit from the overall experience with a fair opportunity to receive a financial reward at the end. They should not be structured to insure that "better" players have a more than equal opportunity to cash in that day.
Those that play the best under fair handicapped rules should cash- in. Fairness in a handicapped scenario should translate into equalizing the opportunity as much as is reasonable. In the end, those who perform best that day should do well. If someone does not want to show up because they feel they do not have a better than 50% chance to cash- in- that someone probably should not play in handicapped tournaments, and, instead; make their own gambling games that favor them in much higher percentages.
The cream almost always rises to the top in almost any tournament- handicapped or not- if you can't handle going home a loser once in a while then I don't think you are in the right place - period. Every pro has been shut out 7-0 at some time in their tournament career and every pro has probably shut out someone else 7-0 at some time in their career. I have been on both ends of that outcome and know that it is just part of the game.
Those that play the best under fair handicapped rules should cash- in. Fairness in a handicapped scenario should translate into equalizing the opportunity as much as is reasonable. In the end, those who perform best that day should do well. If someone does not want to show up because they feel they do not have a better than 50% chance to cash- in- that someone probably should not play in handicapped tournaments, and, instead; make their own gambling games that favor them in much higher percentages.
The cream almost always rises to the top in almost any tournament- handicapped or not- if you can't handle going home a loser once in a while then I don't think you are in the right place - period. Every pro has been shut out 7-0 at some time in their tournament career and every pro has probably shut out someone else 7-0 at some time in their career. I have been on both ends of that outcome and know that it is just part of the game.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
This strikes me as mostly right. Giving bangers games on the wire in 9 ball is a bit like that old 8 ball hustle where you let your opponent remove balls from the table after the break. It doesn't really help. Giving players the 8, 7, or 6 out makes sense if you want to make a competitive tournament. If you want to set up a tournament that allows the A players to rob the bangers, they probably won't like giving up the 6-out, understandably. But, it provides incentives for the newer players to try to learn to run balls.
I actually wrote an app for this problem. It allows for a something like a chip tournament. Everyone gets a bankroll, negotiates their own spots, and the tournament organizer has tools like bet minimums and a rake to speed things along. I wrote it to run fun nights in my local room, but if you want to use it, feel free. I don't see a dime for you downloading (no ads, no in-app purchases), just a fun different way for folks to play competitively together.
The Tank Billiards Tour - Apps on Google Play
Score keeping application for in-person billiards tournaments.