Top cities for league level play?

fastone371 said:
I always hoping for a singles league where you might play one or two matches per night. I suppose it wouldn't even have to be at 1 hall as long as the players agreed on where the match would take place and that it happen by a certain date.
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I could be wrong but if I owned an establishment there is no way I would promote a singles league, just not enough people buying food and drinks. Tough enough by me to find a two person team league. The places by me that have two person leagues, also have 3 person leagues. We are really fortunate that within 35 miles of me, and I live 25 miles out of town, we have two establishments now with 8 tables ea, and leagues at least 3 nights at ea place, if not 4 nights. Also most leagues fill with a waiting list. There also are weekly tournaments, sometimes Friday and Saturday, and occasional singles matchups. Organized pool is expanding in my area, in part do to great league operators and good establishments, and we are not a big metro area.
One possibility might be for an informal group of players asking an establishment if they can reserve X amount of tables on a night that the tables aren't normally all in use. You then would be a league operator, ha ha.
 
muskyed said:
I could be wrong but if I owned an establishment there is no way I would promote a singles league, just not enough people buying food and drinks. Tough enough by me to find a two person team league. The places by me that have two person leagues, also have 3 person leagues. We are really fortunate that within 35 miles of me, and I live 25 miles out of town, we have two establishments now with 8 tables ea, and leagues at least 3 nights at ea place, if not 4 nights. Also most leagues fill with a waiting list. There also are weekly tournaments, sometimes Friday and Saturday, and occasional singles matchups. Organized pool is expanding in my area, in part do to great league operators and good establishments, and we are not a big metro area.
One possibility might be for an informal group of players asking an establishment if they can reserve X amount of tables on a night that the tables aren't normally all in use. You then would be a league operator, ha ha.
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That's why I mentioned the possibility of the players determining themselves when and where their match would take place. The 4 man leagues in our area seem to have declining participation. Spending 3-4 hours to shoot 4 games of pool gets old pretty quick. We had some 2 man leagues that were fantastic, I think they still exist.
 
We do a 2 and a 3 person league here. Scoring different for ea. 3 person league you shoot individually 6 games, ea person twice.
2 person league, shoot individually, first to a team handicap wins.
No way I would sit around 4 hrs to shoot 4 games.
On the 3 person leagues, it usually goes 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hrs depending on who you shoot against. Some like to think alot and some like to play a lot of safties, ha ha.
 
fastone371 said:
I always hoping for a singles league where you might play one or two matches per night. I suppose it wouldn't even have to be at 1 hall as long as the players agreed on where the match would take place and that it happen by a certain date.
Click to expand...

I did two singles league like this, one straight pool and the other 10-ball. Both had around 16 players and a round robin (15 week) schedule.

Straight Pool --worked like a charm because straight pool players are responsible
10-Ball -- a few of the players several weeks behind and hard to get hold of to schedule matches

My recommendation is for each week have a scheduled match the two players may play any time. But 7pm on the 7th day is the default time. So 7pm Monday if match hasn't been played and Bill shows up and Joe doesn't, Bill gets a default win.

Our singles 10-Ball was an unhandicapped race to 7 with a twist

Each match carried 3 points and winning the match gets you 1 of those points.
The other two points depend on the expectation from the ratings. Let's say the hot race-to-7 match is you 7 me 4.
You hold me below 4 --you get both points
I exceed 4 -- I get both points
Score is 7 to 4 --we each get a point

So total scores for the match are 3-0 or 2-1
 
muskyed said:
I could be wrong but if I owned an establishment there is no way I would promote a singles league, just not enough people buying food and drinks. Tough enough by me to find a two person team league. The places by me that have two person leagues, also have 3 person leagues. We are really fortunate that within 35 miles of me, and I live 25 miles out of town, we have two establishments now with 8 tables ea, and leagues at least 3 nights at ea place, if not 4 nights. Also most leagues fill with a waiting list. There also are weekly tournaments, sometimes Friday and Saturday, and occasional singles matchups. Organized pool is expanding in my area, in part do to great league operators and good establishments, and we are not a big metro area.
One possibility might be for an informal group of players asking an establishment if they can reserve X amount of tables on a night that the tables aren't normally all in use. You then would be a league operator, ha ha.
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My hall has has two in house singles leagues. The eight ball league has 50+ players. You play two matches (different opponents) of 5 games. All league dues goes back to the players. Also a doubles league, and a teams league.

Hall owner really tries to support and promote pool. The weekend crowd pays the bills, the weekly league nights are mostly pool.
 
MmmSharp said:
My hall has has two in house singles leagues. The eight ball league has 50+ players. You play two matches (different opponents) of 5 games. All league dues goes back to the players. Also a doubles league, and a teams league.

Hall owner really tries to support and promote pool. The weekend crowd pays the bills, the weekly league nights are mostly pool.
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Sad thing is one of the pools halls i went to, would throw out cash paying players for league players. Then on top of that give them premimum tables. I use to work in a pool hall and i know league players don't pay the bills. You're lucky to get them their any other night besides league night.
 
Zerksies said:
Sad thing is one of the pools halls i went to, would throw out cash paying players for league players. Then on top of that give them premimum tables. I use to work in a pool hall and i know league players don't pay the bills. You're lucky to get them their any other night besides league night.
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League players are money in the bank, the room owner knows that they will be there week in and week out. Even if they get a break on greens fees I have yet to see a league where the league players are not spending a fair amount of money on drinks, shots, and food. On league nights the bar keep is running around like crazy, on cash nights things are much more relaxed. The cash players show up when the wind blows the right way then you might not see them for 2 months. The regulars who come in as cash players know the schedule, they know the good nights and bad nights to show up and they work around it. No different than bowling leagues at bowling alley.
 
mikepage said:
I did two singles league like this, one straight pool and the other 10-ball. Both had around 16 players and a round robin (15 week) schedule.

Straight Pool --worked like a charm because straight pool players are responsible
10-Ball -- a few of the players several weeks behind and hard to get hold of to schedule matches

My recommendation is for each week have a scheduled match the two players may play any time. But 7pm on the 7th day is the default time. So 7pm Monday if match hasn't been played and Bill shows up and Joe doesn't, Bill gets a default win.

Our singles 10-Ball was an unhandicapped race to 7 with a twist

Each match carried 3 points and winning the match gets you 1 of those points.
The other two points depend on the expectation from the ratings. Let's say the hot race-to-7 match is you 7 me 4.
You hold me below 4 --you get both points
I exceed 4 -- I get both points
Score is 7 to 4 --we each get a point

So total scores for the match are 3-0 or 2-1
Click to expand...
I like that idea, maybe I will pitch something like this to the guy that runs leagues in our area. Everything is 8 ball league play around here, Im thinking 9 or 10 ball leagues might draw a lot of interest.
 
fastone371 said:
I like that idea, maybe I will pitch something like this to the guy that runs leagues in our area. Everything is 8 ball league play around here, Im thinking 9 or 10 ball leagues might draw a lot of interest.
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I mentioned our hall has 2 singles league. The 8 ball is most popular, but the second one is fun as well. Alternate weeks is a different game. You 8 ball on week, 9 the next, then 10. Starts back at 8. A bit of everything. Races to 7 with handicaps, and pays out by game count end of session. People like the variety.
 
desert1pocket said:
Could be a challenge, I know when I searched names of better players I used to play in AZ about half of them just showed "AZ" as the location without a city. And even the players who did have a city listed, it was often a suburb rather than the main city, for example Scott Frost is listed under Tempe rather than Phoenix. Of the 10 or so better Phoenix players I searched the only one actually listed as being in Phoenix is Mitch Ellerman. Maybe you have a lot more detailed data than what's available on the app/website though.
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When did you play in AZ? Curious if we know each other.
 
iusedtoberich said:
Leagues don’t have 600 level players. Maybe 3% are in the 600’s. Your question is not valid.
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The "vibe" surrounding league play varies a lot from place to place.
In some places top players wouldn't waste their time playing league and the league players can't even name the top players.
But it's not like that everywhere. In some places it would be almost unheard of for good players to NOT play league.

I mentioned Calgary AB. Here is one pool room, Leather Pocket.
It has league on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Tuesday is strongest--36 players, all over 500

500-540 - 1 player
540-580 - 6 players
580-620 - 7 players
620-660 - 15 players
660-700 - 5 players
700-740 - 1 player
740-780 - 1 player

Thursday has 54 players with several over 600 and 554 as the median
Wednesday has 67 players with several over 600 and 525 as the median

Overall 32 of the 136 players are over 600
 
Quesports said:
In Addison is The Pyramid Club 16 nine foot gold crowns. The have a large ACS league that attracts many top players in the area.

I played on a team with several top level players, Mike Eck, Scottie Cohen myself and others that came and went.

Overall it may be one of the top spots to play league pool in Chicago and suburbs.

Chris’s was not a big league pool room while lived there but it may have changed after Buddy passed.

There is another very good league north of Chicago in Grays Lake called Shooters. Another high quality league which is also ACS.

By far in found the ACS to be the best pool league of them all. The handicaps were adjusted every week based on previous weeks scores. No sandbagging ever. My handicap floated between 55 - 58.

Shane McMinn played one session and if I recall his handicap was 66 or 68..
He played an entire session and never lost a set!

Good times.
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I played in that league and yes very good competition. I ran a very strong BCA league back in late 90's at The City Pool Hall. We had strong completion there too. We had George Fels, Joey Gold and several others that now play at Pyramid. It didn't last too long, a year or two.
 
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