trying to sell the idea of different pool games for tournaments

[StormHotRod300]

Ok, today i was talking to the owner of the pool hall i frenquent about tournaments, and starting a couple up, and she is all for it, because she wants the same thing, plus variety is the spice of life too.

I brought up doing a 10ball tournament or even a 7ball tournament, and she mentioned wanting to do 9ball tournaments on 9ft tables, cuz everything in town is done on stupid 7ft tables.

Plus with doing 10ball or 7ball its better if you play them on 9ft tables. But the problem is you only get maybe 12 or so people who would want to do a tournament on 9ft tables.

Now i made the comment, that if you " lay down the law " and say look, its going to be on 9ft tables or nothing, people will eventually give in. Of course i am sure to get people saying, well they will go other places to play tournaments, well in the small city i live in this is the only place that gets people to show up for tournaments.

The two places in town, have or had fliers up for tournaments they would run, but u might only get a handful of people to show up IF That!

Now my other idea was to post fliers about the tournaments but not mention that they would be on 9ft tables untill the start of the tournament, after everyone has paid. Now as mean or crooked as it may sound, it might be the best way to do it.

But the other problem is getting people to want to play 10ball or 7ball, which the average pool player probably hasnt heard of. Because they only want 9ball cuz of being able to shit the 9ball in, and go for the easy win.

Anyone have any Idea's on a good way to sell the idea of 10ball or 7ball, along with playing on 9ft tables.


dave

 

[pimp]

hey that might work just put fliers its a poker tournament and then you get a huge turnout. Then when they find out its really a pool tourny the pool hall can make extra cash by renting out cues because everyone left their cues at home.

 

[StormHotRod300]

Pimp, good idea lol.

Actually, i think that is one thing that hasnt affected pool in my area is playing poker. I know a couple guys who play poker in groups and do tournaments n stuff, but nothing like with pool players just quiting and going to poker.

But seriously, the main problem in my area for shooting pool, is there is a every other Sunday handicap 9ball tournament, and its on 7ft tables. And the problem is, we get 20-30 people which is nice, and it mainly consists of people who have the handicap of 4-6games. And depending on who shows up, there is about 5 or so people who hafta goto 7games or more.



Now, the better players probably dont care what size table they play on, but all the low handica players dont want to play on the 9ft because its too big, or i cant reach, or i never played on one b4....

And getting people to try 10ball or 7ball is probably just as hard to do.

 

[mjantti]

If you are dealing with beginners, it comes all down to how persuasive you can be. For instance, 7-ball is easier for the beginners than 9-ball. You get hooked much less often, you can still luck in the game ball etc. It's basically the same with 9-ball, but with less balls on the table. (ESPN has different set of 7-ball rules).

We've had a few handicapped 7-ball tournaments when we realized we are going to have too many entries to go through a whole tourney in one night. So, we switched over to 7-ball to make the matches go faster. Hardly no one complained.

I'd say don't go to 10-ball with beginners. They have hard time going through a rack of 10 balls. The 1 extra ball makes a difference in running out and in the break.