Three cushion league ideas.
- Thread starter puma122
- Start date
The two that come to forefront are Carom Cafe http://caromleague.appspot.com/ and Check with Zensteve about the Carom Club in MI
In my experience, average is a really, really bad way to do a handicap system at 3-C. It promotes total, lock-up safety play and does not encourage players to play the right shot. If they can drive their own average down, they drive their spot up and it becomes impossible to beat them by normal play.
Make your adjustments dependent only on wins and losses. Start everyone with a rating that is 10 times the number of points they go to. Move their rating up one tick for each game they win and down one tick for each game they lose. This makes the adjustment automatic and simple and obvious. It also eventually makes the handicaps perfectly fair if you consider 100% handicaps fair. If the stronger players complain, give them their own scratch tournament at the end of the season -- say the top 4 rated players who have done a minimum number of matches.
Usually I've seen such leagues as drop-in leagues where whoever shows up each week gets to play, but you may need to schedule rounds if you only have a table or two.
I have come to the conclusion, as Bob Jewett suggests, that the best way to handicap players is by their wins/losses, and also their wins/losses against players of equal level or above.
I have started to compile such records and it is actually very eye-opening and telling. It sure beats using just the average. There are many players that don't have high averages but it is extremely difficult to beat them. They may average .600 but their defensive play is so strong that you end up always averaging only .500 or .550 against them. Of course I am not referring to our top players who can break safeties better than the rest of us.
I have started to compile such records and it is actually very eye-opening and telling. It sure beats using just the average. There are many players that don't have high averages but it is extremely difficult to beat them. They may average .600 but their defensive play is so strong that you end up always averaging only .500 or .550 against them. Of course I am not referring to our top players who can break safeties better than the rest of us.
Excellent feedback. I'll touch bases with you directly Steve. I like the idea of not using average, but basing it on win loss and going up\down based on your results. We only have 1 table, so we were thinking scheduling would probably be the way forward.
Thanks again!
Thanks again!
