Pask, I would recommend looking through the listing of Pool Billiard Clubs throughout Europe. There are many in Germany,Austria,Netherlands,and Sweden. If you travel to any of these countries you will need personal contact with someone within that club to set up dates to match up with some of the local talent. If you and your player are talking about gambling,you can only discuss money on the spot at the time of the matchup. It will be a lot of fun,but 10 times more work. Start small with just a couple of locations in a short trip. Is your location in France closer to Switzerland or Germany? There is a lot of detail work involved,not just drive up say hello and play some pool! Good Luck.
As per Tournaments,the EPBF Website has Links that will take you to clubs that have Tournament Schedules also.
Thank you for your advice. For the moment I've started by regestering Pro9 forum regarding the UK, where many local/national tournaments are listed for the UK, including also a calendar with other European major events. There are also other European guys on this forum. I've also started some research on national pool federations websites for Germany and the Netherlands, and EPBF as well. The EPBF tends to list more big official competitions, but not opens except those of the Eurotour. My friend isn't interested in the Eurotour because it's a too expansive tour (each registration fee cost around € 150). He's more looking for opens with a good entry fee / prize money rate, involving good players and with double KO elimination (in order to make the trip worth it). And beside an open, he'd like to find other local tournaments to play as well, even if there are less important. So he would have a good play trip worth the price.
I've obviously been thinking of organizing each trip with all features beside playing pool : best accomodation prices, plane and other transportation, local people to contact, etc. But you know, it looks like kinda wide open space as I'm starting from scratch. That's why I posted my message here. I didn't think about money game until you talked about gambling. Personnally I never bet when I play, but my friend does sometimes. I'll tell him about what you said.
I live in Tours, and my friend has recently moved to Nantes. I'll join his club there next September and play for it in official competition on next season. My current club here in Tours unfortunately doesn't provide any good support for US pool. Tours and Nantes are on the West of France, but it won't be a big deal. There's an international airport in Nantes, and my friend doesn't mind taking plane to travel (sometimes it can be less expensive than train).
Here we go:
This week end in Switzerland:
http://www.gpobiel.ch/
SVB, Oliver Ortmann, Sandor Tot, Daryl Peach, Marco Tschudi and many more will be there. The event includes two challenge matches involving SVB against 2 elite swiss players (race to 50 for 5k). There will be a live stream of the event and of the challenge matches
HERE.
At the end of July, in Gstaad (Switzerland), there will be a big 10 ball tournament with a prize money of 70,000$. Link and registration
HERE. Stephan Cohen and Vincent Facquet have already registred for this one.
BTW, who is your french player?
Thanks for your help! I tell you what, Biel 9-Ball Open was the first I found interesting just after my friend asked me to manage his tour! Unfortunately it'll be too early for him. He won't have time to get ready, regarding praticing or preparing the trip. So he told me he wouldn't go for it. But sure he will next year.
Switzerland looks like a great place to play pool. I should keep looking out there. I didn't know about Gstaad 10-ball tournament. Looking forward to it. My player knows Stephan Cohen and Vincent Faquet personnally. So I'll tell him about this tournament, and maybe he'll contact them as well. My friend's name is Raphaël Ribis. You may never have heard about him as he's never done any official European competition so far. However, he's made some national official opens here in France, and he also go to the Open de Paris and the Killer tournaments (in Paris too) every year. These two opens are unofficial but welcome European top players (Souquet, Ortmann, Fejen, Peach, Homann...) and US top players too (Stevie Moore for the Open de Paris this year). My friend finished 17th out of 128 at the Killer open last September.
I honestly believe he can make it by touring all over Europe. He's got more free time now, more money and he's pretty much motivated. And when he palys in competitions, he does well and is mentally strong. He's shown me a lot of things about pool that have tremendously changed my play. I really improved a big step forward since I met him. In exchange of managing his schedule, he'll teach me high-end lessons and will really coach me for next season's competition for French Championship. Also beside this deal, I really think he deserves a good tour to gain experience and improve. And as an 'ordinary' player, this endavour would be very rewarding for me if my friend can make it. So, I'm taking it very seriously.
Thanks again to the both of you for your help. Other people can keep posting tips on here of course.
