Would you have done this?

L

LPHooper03

Shape Shooter
Silver Member
I was playing in a local 8-ball singles tournament. Small tournament only ~25 players. I worked my way through the winners bracket and was the winner of the bracket. While I was waiting for the losers side to finish, I was watching all of the other games happening. A good friend of mine (whom I beat and put in the losers bracket) ended up winning on that side. So, for first place and second place is what the match was for. He would have had to beat me twice in order to take first. It was a race to 5 for both of us and the prior match I beat him 5-2.

What we did was split the money for first and second. I had people waiting on me, so we could all go out. The payout wasn't that biased towards 1st or 2nd place, 85-50 I believe. So instead of playing and wasting another (potentially) 1 1/2 hours, we just split the money.

I thought it was a good idea at the time because I had been playing pool for 8 hours and was getting a little cranky. But now, I wish that I would have played him and beaten him, just to say that I got first. I still consider myself the winner though. Should I feel cheated for robbing myself of the last match? Or just feel victorious because I went undefeated?
 
Its not a bad thing really to split, and is often done when its getting late.

But if your asking for oppinions Ill give you mine. Its not about the money, its about learning how to play when your in the hot seat. The difference between first place money and what you got for splitting or what you could have gotten had he beaten you (short race anything can happen) is minimal. But the experience and confidence that comes with finishing out tournaments is priceless.

Not to mention that if I were going to split I would have atleast made him beat me the first set LOL.

Woody
 
you'll figure it out...

99% of all these little tournament finals don't get played.
A-side winner and B-side winner just split 1st and 2nd place $$ (especially if they are friends).
Very few people care about bragging rights once they've won a few of these things.
A bird in the hand.
Oh yeah, for what its worth, you can't really consider yourself the winner.
 
when i and a friend came upong this situation, we decided to forgo the time and split the money. To decide who was the winner we flipped to see who won :thumbup:
 
I've made the agreement to do that with a friend... we plan on playing the games out anyway, unless people are dying for the tournament to be done with. Nothing wrong with it, it's a nice gesture for the stronger player to make and nobody really feels like they lost... if the stronger player wins, he was supposed to and he gave his buddy a few bucks. If he loses, he gets to keep a little more than he would have anyway, and his buddy feels so good about winning that he doesn't mind having a smaller payout.

As for how you feel in your case, I think that's just kind of automatic and can't be dictated by people telling you how you're supposed to feel. If the bragging rights are more important to you than the money and you feel doubt about whether you really are the winner, gamble the winnings or the difference with him :)
 
Should have had someone make a side bet on Him, being the odds loser, and dumped...


:)

J/k (maybe)

But in the small tourneys it is done all the time, I would have played the games out just to see, often times the pressure at that time will get you and its learning how to play tired and pressured you learn from.. (as others have stated)
 
LPHooper03 said:
What we did was split the money for first and second. I had people waiting on me, so we could all go out. The payout wasn't that biased towards 1st or 2nd place, 85-50 I believe. So instead of playing and wasting another (potentially) 1 1/2 hours, we just split the money.

QUOTE]

I would have split also. The difference was $35 if you won but by splitting the difference was only 35/2 = $17.50. You could also have played that 1 1/2 hours and then ended up in 2nd and now you would have not only lost that $17.50 you could not brag about going undefeated.

I think you did the right thing.
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Nothing wrong with splitting, especially between friends.

The only time I think it's wrong to split is when the bar/room added money to the tournament and you are plugging quarters into the tables. Otherwise if you have a crowd watching, it's good to play it out as people will spend more money in the room that is putting on the tournament.

Did you tip out the Tournament Director? That's fairly common in Arizona, not sure about other areas.
 
the fair split of the difference between first and second was 75% to you and 25% to him. thats the right way to chop it.
 
In small tournaments I split if the other player wants to. I would never split and then "play it out". Bad idea to play in a finals match with nothing on the line since you won't be under pressure to win (thats not a good habit to get into).
 
Mr. Olson: That's based on the idea that nobody plays seriously unless there's money in it. I respectfully beg to differ :)

I always play to win and I don't think putting money on it makes me try any harder or play better. Especially since it's not enough money to care about. I'd play hard in that situation because it's a tournament, not because of the 35 bucks.
 
Almost every tournament I have played in, I have been in the money, except 2. Never have I seen someone, when playing against me want to split the money. I know it happens and I see it happen, but I was just curious to see what ya'll thought.

I have played this guy for money about a half dozen times and we have gone even up almost every time. If it had to go either way, I would say I have the upper hand. Seeing as he would have had to beat me twice....AND the fact that he is under a lot of pressure to beat me twice, I think I would have nabbed him. In the first match, I broke and ran 2 of the 3 racks I broke. I was hitting them good, so I don't really have doubt that I would have played well.

I'm not looking for people to tell me how 'I' feel, but moreso how 'YOU' would feel if you were in my shoes. I honestly don't do it all for the money...I do it for the love of the game and the challenge. It's about 70/30 money/experience, LOL! But seriously, I do love playing the game and it's the lack of the challenge yesterday, that I am disappointed about.

Besides, he's one of those kind of guys that when you beat them, they get all pissed off like it's your fault, lol. You all know the guy..... It would have made it that much sweeter, haha.
 
well if he has to beat u twice and u were the one that put him on the b side to begin with then there u should have gotten a bit more of the money.

or u could just asked him for a match later on when u guys play again. i figure if u guys are friends anyways u'll probably play him again real soon and the winner of that can take the 85.
 
stuckart said:
Nothing wrong with splitting, especially between friends.

The only time I think it's wrong to split is when the bar/room added money to the tournament and you are plugging quarters into the tables. Otherwise if you have a crowd watching, it's good to play it out as people will spend more money in the room that is putting on the tournament.

Did you tip out the Tournament Director? That's fairly common in Arizona, not sure about other areas.
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No, I didn't tip out the director. He was actually just the owner of the sports bar and does these every few weeks. It isn't common around here, but I have done it in the past. You are now making me wonder why I didn't tip him. Usually I'm pretty good about stuff like that.:embarrassed2:
 
lol this definitely should not be that big an issue.

first it's just $17. second it's your friend. third there really isn't much bragging rights to a tournament like that.

If this is something you're looking back on and regretting then you need to just calm down and enjoy life more.
 
CreeDo said:
Mr. Olson: That's based on the idea that nobody plays seriously unless there's money in it. I respectfully beg to differ :)

I always play to win and I don't think putting money on it makes me try any harder or play better. Especially since it's not enough money to care about. I'd play hard in that situation because it's a tournament, not because of the 35 bucks.
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It's not about the money it's about staying focused and keeping mentally tough to win the tournament. Playing in the finals for fun isn't a good lesson to learn and I guarntee you that your not as focused in the finals when you have split the money already as opposed to not spliting the money. You have already mentally celebrated the victory before the finals. There is also the fear of losing the finals that people split the money since they are guarnteed a little more money.

We may disagree with each other but I just wanted to clarify my position.
 
CreeDo said:
Mr. Olson: That's based on the idea that nobody plays seriously unless there's money in it. I respectfully beg to differ :)

I always play to win and I don't think putting money on it makes me try any harder or play better. Especially since it's not enough money to care about. I'd play hard in that situation because it's a tournament, not because of the 35 bucks.
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Playing seriously and playing when there's cash involved are two TOTALLY different things. You truly might think you're concentrating hard even for trophies; but, throw $500 cash in and I guarantee you you play different. Better? Worse? I don't know. It affects people differently. When that long draw shot comes up at 8-8 for a few Benjamins, you'll think about it differently. There may be people out there that truly play the same, but I wish I could believe that. There's plenty of people that play like Zeus for $5 entry local tourneys. Put up $200 and see how serious you feel. Even if a guys makes $500,000 a year, if he's only played for $10 a game, then playing for $1000 is out of the comfort zone. It's not what you have, it's what you're used to. How do you think these big cash players got those nerves? By doing it.
 
I guess I can't entirely disagree. I get the idea that by splitting, I have taken away the option of 'losing'... because I'd get my same reward financially whether I bear down or just play lazy.

I'm just saying that to me, the $17 dollar difference isn't enough to alter my gameplan or make me work harder. It's just not enough money to care about. So in this particular case, my motivation would be to win the tournament in front of all the people watching and show I'm a better player than the guy I just split with. And that's enough for me to play as well as I can play. Even in dinky local tournaments, I bring it up a notch and sweat the small stuff on every shot, just because it's a "tournament". The actual winnings are not at all why I enter.

Now if you wanted to make crawfish's case and start talking about $500, 1000 bucks instead of McDonald's money, I may have to concede the point. I don't think I'd shoot any better... but I'd for sure shoot differently. Actually I'm pretty sure I'd shoot worse. I can get the shakes in tournaments (happened just recently in the vnea thing up in canada) and that was a situation where I had literally 0 expecation of making a single dime.

I don't think playing it out can make me a worse player... because it just seems impossible that not playing can improve someone. I never heard of a pool player getting better by avoiding the table. If I somehow have a mental problem where I don't bear down because there's nothing on it... avoiding these 'play it out' situations in the local tournament won't cure that mental problem, it will still show up at some point down the road.
 
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