Why do you play so many short races in the US?

TheThaiger

TheThaiger

Banned
I'm always surprised when I see comments about your tournies that are races to 2/3/4 etc.

I can't imagine playing a tournament less than 7 and am only really comfortable with 9. Five or under and you can lose to anyone.
 
TheThaiger said:
I'm always surprised when I see comments about your tournies that are races to 2/3/4 etc.

I can't imagine playing a tournament less than 7 and am only really comfortable with 9. Five or under and you can lose to anyone.
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If our country was only a couple of hours across, I'm sure I could understand. I'm not going to a tournament to play races to 7 on 4 tables with 16-32 people. I prefer to leave before the sun comes up.. and most bars close by 2:30am.
 
TheThaiger said:
I'm always surprised when I see comments about your tournies that are races to 2/3/4 etc.

I can't imagine playing a tournament less than 7 and am only really comfortable with 9. Five or under and you can lose to anyone.
Click to expand...

I don't like it either
They do it so all players have a chance
And for the fans
 
The little tourney I run is race to 2 on both sides unless we have more than 16 then its race to 2 on the winners side and race to 1 on the loosers....reason being is that we only have 2 tables and longer races would keep us there way to late...If we had a place with 8-10 tables I would love to stretch it out to races to 5...
 
One of the best weekly tournaments in Fayetteville, NC is barbox 8-ball and a race to........1, and you're supposed to try and make a ball on every shot. It's in a strip joint with a $5 entry fee and $300 added. On a side note, at one point it got up over $500 a ball in the nine ball break and run contest which got broke and run by a fairly well known player. It's funny where the decent money in pool is at sometimes.
 
Banks said:
If our country was only a couple of hours across, I'm sure I could understand. I'm not going to a tournament to play races to 7 on 4 tables with 16-32 people. I prefer to leave before the sun comes up.. and most bars close by 2:30am.
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Isn't the real problem the pace of play? Some of the matches I see streamed or on youtube are absolutely painful. Some women's matches in particular have literally put me to sleep. Maybe what I have seen is not representative, happy to be corrected.

I also think safety play is given waaay too much emphasis on AZB and in the US, at least from what I've seen. I'd actually like to see safety play limited to a set amount per match, say 3 per 7 racks, although it may be too difficult to enforce. This would force more people to play attacking, attractive pool, and to go for their shots more, which would speed the whole thing up immeasurably.

There is only one certainty in pool: it must become faster and more exciting. To the casual viewer, it can hardly be slower and more boring.
 
UGOTDA7 said:
One of the best weekly tournaments in Fayetteville, NC is barbox 8-ball and a race to........1, and you're supposed to try and make a ball on every shot. It's in a strip joint with a $5 entry fee and $300 added. On a side note, at one point it got up over $500 a ball in the nine ball break and run contest which got broke and run by a fairly well known player. It's funny where the decent money in pool is at sometimes.
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Sounds perfect on every level! Let's hope the winnings were invested wisely...:canoodle:
 
Well IHO i think the best format is $50 entry, race to 10, single elimination,no hamdicap. you can win something and dont have to stay all might,and the better player usually comes out in the longer race. Of course if i was playing with Efren, i probably wouldnt like it at first,but getting comfortable playing him would increase my game 3 balls,and pretty soon i wouldnt be intimidated and would run out on his ass....;)....its all psycological man. How come you can run 3 racks against Joe nobody and play the greats and cant make 3 balls,its all in our heads....your only as good as your competition...
 
TheThaiger said:
I'm always surprised when I see comments about your tournies that are races to 2/3/4 etc.

I can't imagine playing a tournament less than 7 and am only really comfortable with 9. Five or under and you can lose to anyone.
Click to expand...

In the large tournaments, it's double elimination - so it moves things along. In you have 150 players playing on 12 tables, you can imagine how long it may take to run the matches and the wait between matches can be many hours, even with short races.
 
prewarhero said:
yeah like those TAR races to 100, i hate those short races. Troll
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And you don't think you are pushing a button with your input?!

I don't think the op was a troll and I think using TAR as an example is no good, as it is the sole example of its length.

There certainly are lots of events in the usa that are races to 3 or less. I think it is something that developed from necessity. The weekly event I sometimes do is usually race to 4, 3 on the losers and that shit doesn't end before 1am. Doubling the race length would be unworkable.
 
Black-Balled said:
There certainly are lots of events in the usa that are races to 3 or less. I think it is something that developed from necessity. The weekly event I sometimes do is usually race to 4, 3 on the losers and that shit doesn't end before 1am. Doubling the race length would be unworkable.
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My favorite weekly Saturday night tournament always fills up (it's capped at 32 entrants), and we also go to 4/3. It's common for the final match to finish right at or just after closing time.

I suppose they could lengthen the races and make it single-elim, but I like it the way it is. The top players usually still end up in the final four, yet it does allow us mere mortal A players a chance to have a good run at the cash. :)

-Blake
 
TheThaiger said:
I'm always surprised when I see comments about your tournies that are races to 2/3/4 etc.

I can't imagine playing a tournament less than 7 and am only really comfortable with 9. Five or under and you can lose to anyone.
Click to expand...

I agree. Most tournaments, especially around here, are 8-ball race to 3 both sides and are on barboxes. There are the occasional "tours" such as the Simonis satellite tour (9-ball race to 7 alt break on barboxes). I was asked why I didn't bother playing in the LA Amateur tour and it was, because of what we agree on; Race to 3 8-ball on a barbox; Every event had a different top 5... It was absolute crap IMO.

Every now and then there are 9-ball race to 7 tournaments, but the majority I find are race to 2 or 3 8-ball matches that are a coin flip. I'd rather find someone to match up with and gamble than to pay $10-40 for entry and deal with the BS.
 
The small weeklies are very short, because a large portion of entrants are not strong players. I'm not big on tournaments because I hate the idea of getting home at 6:30, only to rush to a tournament before it starts at 7, so I can play 4 matches to get to the hot seat where I can win maybe $20 or $40 and pay a $20 bar tab when I leave at 1am.

We've got our regional in a week and a half.. here are what they've set up for this time. They had some pretty bad overruns in the past, but Bad Boys has really helped get that under control. The tournament has had a day or so added and the races were shortened a game, I think. We'll have Dan Louie, Stan Tourangeau and a few other decent players. :thumbup: $30,000 added based on last year's field.. it looks like there may be a few more than last year, iirc.


Master Mixed Scotch Doubles (46 entries) - Race to 5/4 - Sunday/10a

Open Mixed Scotch Doubles (137 entries) - Race to 4/3 - Sunday/10a

Chinook Winds Open (?? entries) - Race to M7/W6 - Monday/4p

Men'sB Singles (290 entries) - Race to 4 - Monday/6p

Men'sA Single (193 entries) - Race to 5 - Tuesday/10:30a

Men's Senior Singles (59 entries) - Race to 5 - Tuesday/12n

Men's Master Singles (66 entries) - Race to 6 - Wednesday/9a

Women's Master Singles (46 entries) - Race to 5 - Wednesday/9a

Women'sA Singles (78 entries) - Race to 4 - Wednesday/9a

Women'sB Singles (85 entries) - Race to 4 - Wednesday/9a

Women's Senior Singles (8 entries) - Race to 4 - Wednesday/3p

Men's/Mixed Open Teams (77 entries) - Race to 13 - Friday/9a

Men's/Mixed Open-B Teams (?? entries) - Race to 11 - Friday/9a

Men's/Mixed Master Teams (18 entries) - Race to 13 - Saturday/9a

Women's Master Teams (15 entries) - Race to 13 - Saturday/9a

Women's Open Teams (?? entries) - Race to 9 - Saturday/9a
 
Well the short answer is usually time related. If you own a pool room you are giving up your tables to a tournament to pool players that are usually cheap as hell.

The other reason is there are to many whiney *****es who know the linger the race the less chance for them to win. So, in order to keep players tournament director do what they have to do to keep a tournament going.
 
DAVE_M said:
I agree. Most tournaments, especially around here, are 8-ball race to 3 both sides and are on barboxes. There are the occasional "tours" such as the Simonis satellite tour (9-ball race to 7 alt break on barboxes). I was asked why I didn't bother playing in the LA Amateur tour and it was, because of what we agree on; Race to 3 8-ball on a barbox; Every event had a different top 5... .
Click to expand...

But isn't the fact that lots of people have a chance to cash directly rated to a decent turnout?

I have killed a more than a few weeklys by winnin them over and over again.

Nobody is gonna play week after week if is money waster.
 
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