Should Calcuttas be seeded?

Snapshot9

Snapshot9

son of 3 leg 1 eye dog ..
Silver Member
With going to play in a 128 player Handicapped 9 ball tournament this afternoon, I got to thinking about the Calcutta, which usually takes 3-3 1/2 hours to complete, and got to wondering if an arranged order to auction would be better than just auctioning everyone off in the order that they happened to sign up. BTW, I remember James Walden going for
$1,350 before in this annual tournament I am playing in this afternoon.

Usually there are 5-10 players in the tournament that are favorites, and with them just being auctioned off by order of signup, in which the majority of the auction money is taken in, would it be better if they were evenly divided into the total number of players or not?

I would probably be for ANYTHING, that would help speed up the Calcutta in any way, but what does everyone think?
 
Snap,

I've seen many calcutta's and by nature they are all ready seeded by the amount of money bid. The best/fairest I've seen have the chart drawn before the bidding begins, a pro auctioner, and they start with selling picks of the litter. By starting with picks of the litter the big money is front loaded and everyone else is better able to determine what 'their' long shot is worth. Once they start down the list the players that don't immediately get the minimum bid are passed over by the auctioner(to be packaged at the very end of the calcutta). The professional auctioneer is worth the money paid them because they are fast, generate excitement, and they make people bid higher than they would if 'joe blow' amatuer is running the bidding.
Good luck and have a good time.....:)
 
Snapshot9 said:
I would probably be for ANYTHING, that would help speed up the Calcutta in any way, but what does everyone think?
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How about a silent auction. I think it could work. Everyone signs a slip with a dollar amount that they are willing to go up to. Then the slips are sorted by dollar amount. If there are multiple slips with the same amount they would be drawn for picking order. People could sign as many slips as they like. Whoever has the highest bid gets to choose the first player. There will be some low-ball bidders that do not get to choose any players. I think it would be interesting.

Tracy
 
I've always thought that calcuttas automatically seeded and were a very efficient and fast method to enhance the total value of a tournament. I'm not sure I'd want to make any changes to something that works good already. I go to a few tournaments just because they have calcuttas.
 
DaveFagan said:
I've always thought that calcuttas automatically seeded and were a very efficient and fast method to enhance the total value of a tournament. I'm not sure I'd want to make any changes to something that works good already. I go to a few tournaments just because they have calcuttas.
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I agree with you.

I don't let anyone see the draw before the calcutta. In fact I like the players drawing their own #s as they ae sold.
Stacking the picks at the top of the sheet will also take away from the excitement and value of the calcutta. Calcuttas can be as much about momentum as anything. When players are stacked at the top and once they are sold, the big buyers will leave. Nobody wants that to happen.
 
Snapshot9 said:
With going to play in a 128 player Handicapped 9 ball tournament this afternoon, I got to thinking about the Calcutta,
Click to expand...
Handicapped? Calcutta? Don't get involved, IMO.
 
The ones I always ran/participated in were conducted before the draw and the players drew their positions. Most of them would also have "blind draws" were several spots were auctioned off and if you won, you picked which player you wanted. Seemed like this pumped up the calcutta!
 
The way we play it is; you are given the chance to buy 1/2 of yourself if you so choose. They cant just buy you and not let you in on it. Is that pretty standard?
 
Around home, when we have a bigger tournament, we start the calcutta's with blind bids.We will continue the blind bids until nobody is willing to pay the minimum blind (usually $50). At that point we start at the top of the list and sell the remaining players. The calcutta's can take a while, but without them, IMO, the tournament doesn't have a chance.
 
Snapshot9 said:
[...]

I would probably be for ANYTHING, that would help speed up the Calcutta in any way, but what does everyone think?
Click to expand...

3 - 3.5 hours is ridiculous, imo. You need a good auctioneer, yes. But a professional auctioneer is not the way to go. The best auctioneer for a pool calcutta is someone who thinks quickly on his or her feet, has some experience doing it, and--importantly--knows the players.

I like having a minimum bid, say $5 or $10, and starting each person by giving the player himself the opportunity to open the bidding on himself. This does a few things. First, it helps to identify the horse so other people see who it is, put a face to the name. Second you don't spend a bunch of time finding an opening bidder for someone who's going to go for $10 in the end.

So, quickly,

"Next we have Joe Smith. Where's Joe?" [Joe raises his hand]. "You in for $10?"

If Joe doesn't bid the minimum on himself, you give agout 5 seconds for someone else to bid on him. If nobody jumps, Joe goes in the "hat," which gets auctioned off at the end. It's important to train people that they have to jump fast to get a bid on these longshot players. The worst thing you can do is give people the feeling you're going to have a long drawn out, gooooooing once.... goooooing twice process for every player. Three quarters of the players are going for pretty cheap, and you've got to get through them pretty fast.

If you know Joe's only worth $10 or $15, then you quickly pan the crowd, "got ten looking for $15....got ten looking for $15... ten going once, ten going twice... sold to himself for $10"

I like to start not with real the top dogs but rather someone who's up and coming, playing strong lately, and for whom some knowledgable people are talking about him "being due..." This could be a semi-ringer from out of town for example (as long as you're covinced several people with money know about him). Hopefully three or four people will have decided they have special knowledge of this up-and-comer and will bid him up pretty high (because each has decided they'e going to essentially do wjat it takes to get this person.)

In other words, if you start with Walden, and he goes for $800, then maybe this up-and-comer would later go for $200. But if instead you start with the up-and-comer, he may go for $300 or $400. Walden then may later go for $1200 to $1500. Those early bids set the scale.
 
What about assigning numbers to each player and placing the numbers into individual envelopes. Shuffle the envelopes and auction. Write the winning bidders name on outside of envelope. No one will know who they got until everyone pays. Always wanted to try this just to see if it would work.
 
Unfortunately the more complicated you make a Calcutta the more wiggle room there is for shenanigans.

One additional rule that had to instituted here (when we used to have Calcuttas) was the player had to be in the room when he/she was auctioned off. Years ago there were a few incidents of players not showing up for the Calcutta to wait and see what they went for before deciding to play or not. If they went for too much in their estimation they did not think buying half was a good bet.

It just worked out better in the long haul being required to be in the room.
 
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