running an "in-house" league...

[krupa]

There are no 14.1 leagues in my area but I know there's interest in it. This past Spring, I started a weekly pick-up game with a mailing list. The problem was, that I could only play at the same day/time and that didn't work for many people, and other people were n0t willing to use the mailing list to match-up at times that were good for them. So it pretty much petered-out.

All of this is exasperated by the fact that we have no pool rooms in town. The two places in town (excepting private homes) to find 9' tables are Cornell University and Ithaca College. (Hey, guess where I live!)

Be that as it may, I will not give up my desire to play 14.1 regularly. So now I want to try to start a local league. I don't think I'll get enough interest to go to 14and1.com, so I thought my first attempt will be to run a local, no-handicap league.

Based on the number of players, I would match everyone up two or three times, and they would have that many weeks plus a couple for convenience, to arrange to play their matches. For instance, being the pessimist that I am, let's assume I get three other people for a total of four. (this is usually the amount of people I would get for my weekly pick-up games.) So in 12 weeks, everyone would play everyone else 4 times, yes?

So I would have the session run 14 weeks and by the end everyone submits their records and we have a couple matches of playoffs and that would be the session.

Now I finally come to the questions:

Does this sound sane? I admit this is not original, and I think other people do the same thing, but wanted to run it by the experts again.

How do you chop the league dues to pay-out winners at the end? Assuming a small turn-out at first, I would pay-out 100% of the dues in winnings (few people = limited time/resources required to manage it all)

Any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
-matthew

 

[Bob Jewett]

The way most of the 14.1 leagues around here run (which are single-room-only), is with handicaps. There is just too large a range of players to interest many of the beginning/weaker players. If you want to try handicaps, here is an overview: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/2003-06.pdf Other handicapping tables are available at: http://www.sfbilliards.com/14.1_charts.htm

That format is that one day per week is set aside to play and whoever shows up then is matched up, usually with the possibility to play a second match if the first ends soon enough and there is someone who wants to play. There is no requirement to play every pairing and since the handicaps are more or less 100% there are no matches to avoid or cherry-pick.

I also play in a more traditional league in which each player plays each other player once. Players are supposed to arrange times on their own. Some people are hard to contact. There is one time/day (Sunday afternoon) that is more or less the "standard" time to play.

As far as payouts, most of the leagues charge $10 per match per player half of which goes to the house and half goes to the prize fund. Rather than depend on the finish order at the end of the season, there is a playoff of the top 25% or so of players. There is usually a high-run prize that is based on a player exceeding his expected high run -- weaker players have a lower goal.

The league operator is unpaid except that the room may give them free tables time. Some room owners run the league themselves. With a "drop in" league there is no scheduling to worry about, and the LO just has to arrange matches each week for those who show up and keep track of wins/losses.

 

[mosconiac]

I've been running 14.1 leagues for a few years now, so I know a lot about formats & what people like/dislike. I'll help you as much as I can.

Format: Round robin with "position week" at the end (you play the player closest to you on the leader board). With 16 players, this works out to 16 weeks (4 months) of play so its a big committment by the players.

Dues/Payouts: Dues are $5 per player per week. When I began running leagues, I paid 100% back. As the league grew, I was racking up 30-40 hours of labor throught the session. At the players insistance, I started holding back a small amount from the dues for my effort. I am forced to pay all finishers (I was told "This is a league and league players expect to get paid in the end, even if it's only a dollar.") I start at $10 and add $5 more per higher position until I get to the top. Then I distribute the surplus amongst the top 3-5 positions. First is usually in the $150 range. The house charges $5 per player for table time.

I ask everyone pay 100% of their dues by the 4th week ($80 with 16 palyers). This is far & away the most aggravating thing about running leagues. PEOPLE WILL "FORGET" TO PAY, ASK FOR MORE TIME, & TRY TO STIFF YOU. I've had people finish low (win $20) and have $60 in outstanding dues. I had to chase them down to get that $40. FUN! Other leagues require 100% payment up front or you don't play...maybe I'll go that way too!

Schedule: My leagues are a flexible schedule league meaning the "home" player is obligated to establish the match time with the "away" player. The match can occur at any time during the week, so the players can work around their lives. This is a VERY popular aspect of my leagues.

Handicapping: I handicap my leagues on a D- through 5A basis. This accomodates the wide range of players in the room. It gives absolute novices the chance to compete with very strong local players. Handicaps are adjusted (weekly) depending on match results.

Race Length: Races are anywhere from 75 to 150 depending on the handicap of the better player in the match. Two "D" players don't need to spend 5 hours playing to 150, so they go to 75. A "C" player goes to 100. A "B" player goes to 125. I play as a 2A & I gave up 110 going to 150 against a D- last night. I won 150-131.

Scoring: A win is an automatic 2 points. A player can earn as much as 3 bonus points based on score differential. If the player earns 2 more bonus points, their handicap ratchets up one. The losing player ratchets down one.

High-run bonus: I also pay a bonus for the highest run in the session. This is usually about $75-100.

Year-ending tourney: This year I added a tourney to be held after the spring & summer sessions. A large portion of the pot is established by witholdings from the league dues. Those that play both sessions in a given year will get a free-roll, double-elimination entry. Those that skip a session will be given the option of a buy-back once their free-roll, single elimination is gone. This generates more $$ for the pot & entices people to play every session.

 

[krupa]

Thanks for all the information!

It seems the handicapping and scheduling issues go hand-in-hand.

When I was polling interest last spring, most people said they'd be interested but didn't know when they could play. The APA has a big presence here, we also have a weekly NAPA league, and a popular weekly bar tournament. So I was thinking that allowing people the entire session to get their matches in gives them the necessary flexibility. Then, when they realize how much they like it, they will drop other things. :grin:

Obviously, if I give people the whole session to play, I can't regularly update handicaps. The weakest players I know probably wouldn't care if there was a handicap or not, but I could change them at the end as well. Assuming I do handicaps, how do you initialize the whole system? Is there a translation from APA skill level? It's not perfect but most players in town have played APA at one time or another.

When giving people the freedom to schedule matches, what do you do if they can't agree on a time? Do both take forfeit?

As for money, I was going to make it an upfront, pay or you're SOL, system.

Thanks again
-matthew

 

[Lucavi]

Hey there,

I was in a similar situation to you myself. I live in the northern burbs of chicago and I couldn't make it to the leagues run down south at Red Shoes and IBC so I opted to start my own and garnered some interest.

As for getting players to comit to your league, for every 2-3 people that express interest in joining you can probably expect 1 person to actually commit. Some may take more harassment than others to get on board:smile:. Set a start date and give people time to decide.

I use the 14and1 system for handicaps but did not sanction due to lack of player interest in traveling to events (we started too late to send anyone to the nationals at Red Shoes).

Players pay weekly dues of $15. I negotiated an allocated weekly time players can play their match for $5 table time along with some small prizes for weekly high-runners. $10 goes to the prize fund and if players decide to match up on their own they only need to pay the $10 fee, but are responsible for their own table time otherwise.

As for collecting dues, players can pay at their will, however, I ruled that any player behind any more than 4 weeks at any time will be dropped from the league no contest.

I ended up with 9 players to start, 1 was dropped due to leaving town indefinately (4 week rule), and one dropped due to disability. So now I still have 7 at about 2/3rds the way through (19 weeks). Players have a 2 week period to play their match, and cannot play future scheduled matches before their current match. I only had one match so far where the players failed to match up, I got 2 different excuses from both players and ended up treating it as a tie. Otherwise it would be treated as dual or single forfeit, depending on the circumstance of the failure to matchup. Make sure the players understand what you plan to do as consequence to this kind of situation to help prevent arguments.

I created a handbook that includes the 14and1 handicap descriptions WPA rules and a few league-specific sportsmanship rules to settle potential arguments plus the 4-week payment rule. If you'd like a copy feel free to PM me your e-mail address.


If a lot of your players are league players and don't regularly play 14.1 you may want to remind them how difficult this game is! Some matches can get fairly heated if the players get frustrated. There really isn't a good standard to handicapping 14.1 based on other league handicaps (particularly APA), so you may want to go with something already established to the game itself such as 14and1 and others mentioned in this thread.

 

[Bob Jewett]

The way most of the 14.1 leagues around here run (which are single-room-only), is with handicaps. There is just too large a range of players to interest many of the beginning/weaker players. If you want to try handicaps, here is an overview: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/2003-06.pdf Other handicapping tables are available at: http://www.sfbilliards.com/14.1_charts.htm ...

If you do choose to handicap, let me point out a few benefits of the above method. Adjustments to ratings are easy to do after each match. There are a lot of rating levels -- roughly 300 in the league that just finished -- so that you can do a small adjustment each week even on established players. It is easy to adjust match lengths for the available time and for consistently slow players.

As far as figuring out ratings for new players, it is always hard. If there is someone in the system that they have played against, you can put them in at a rating that gives a roughly fair match against the established player. I would be hesitant to use APA ratings directly without example, but after the first session you should be able to guess at a translation. However you start a new player, make sure you tell them that if you see after a couple of weeks that you made a mistake that you will do a special adjustment to get their rating closer to right.

 

[krupa]

If you do choose to handicap, let me point out a few benefits of the above method. Adjustments to ratings are easy to do after each match. There are a lot of rating levels -- roughly 300 in the league that just finished -- so that you can do a small adjustment each week even on established players. It is easy to adjust match lengths for the available time and for consistently slow players.

As far as figuring out ratings for new players, it is always hard. If there is someone in the system that they have played against, you can put them in at a rating that gives a roughly fair match against the established player. I would be hesitant to use APA ratings directly without example, but after the first session you should be able to guess at a translation. However you start a new player, make sure you tell them that if you see after a couple of weeks that you made a mistake that you will do a special adjustment to get their rating closer to right.

So do the initial ratings matter if the relative values are all right? I know the relative abilities of people but don't know what ratings to assign.

Thanks!

 

[Bob Jewett]

So do the initial ratings matter if the relative values are all right? I know the relative abilities of people but don't know what ratings to assign.

Thanks!

No. The absolute ratings -- whether the top player in your league is put in as a 400 or a 1000 -- makes no difference. All of the handicaps are calculated according to difference of ratings. If you make that top player too low, say a 300, then you run the risk that some player will end up with a negative rating. That's brutal to the ego. I'm rated at around 770. The weakest player in the league is about 460. That means that if I go to 130 they go to 15. Try 800 for your best player.

If different rooms try to use the same system for their in-house leagues, then the absolute placement makes a difference. If one LO uses high ratings for new players and another low, players either have to have separate ratings for each room or traveling players will have either a tough or easy time. In this area the leagues were started by a small set of LOs and all of the ratings roughly match up, although the rooms do not share adjustments so far as I know. Eventually they will drift apart.