Your Regionals, Cities - LTC's. Tell me about them

[Celophanewrap]

How do your Regionals, Cities - LTC's go? Does your LO get a Hotel Grand Ball Room or an Event Center or some such other space and bring in tables and vendors and the whole works, or does your area have LTC's in a big pool hall and they bring in a mobile tip repair guy, or is your area small enough that you can play your LTC's on 4 tables in the local bowling alley.
Our LO gets a centrally located smaller event center and we play ours over a weekend on about 25 or 30 tables. The Valley distributor brings them in on his way to Las Vegas. There are a couple of local vendors, a cue guy, food and beverage 2 or 3 roving referees. Our LO tries to create a sort of Las Vegas atmosphere. It's kinda fun having all the teams that you almost never see in one place. It's a good experience.
I am hopeful that soon we (APA in this area) will have in place something like the Rocky Mountain Challenge, like you guys do in the North East (New England states?) I think you play it in Connecticut or the South West Challenge, I think that teams from AZ, CA, NV, NM play in it. That always sounded like a lot of fun.
So, what do you all do, what's it like?

 

[WillyCornbread]

Just got back from the Hudson Valley, NY tournament in Albany at the Hilton.

Was a nice setup, all Diamond Pro Am tables with about 30 in the grand tournament room and about another 15 or so outside the room for practicing. No vendors, but had a decent food / booze setup, plenty of referees and the whole thing was run very very well.

The biggest concern to me (my first regionals) is that it's pretty much impossible to finish a match within the 3hr timeframe, and the sudden death rules disregard handicaps so it becomes a strategy to try and slow down even more for teams with multiple high rated players.

With that said I had an absolute blast, played 8 and 9 ball and played the best pool of my life, while under pressure. This was my first real competition other than league night, so I really didn't know what would happen when I was playing in this environment.

9 ball team got bounced in the second round but the eight ball team made it to the semi finals. I arrived an SL5, rackless'd my first 2 opponents with a break and run in each match so I got raised to a 6 for the semi final matchup but it didn't end of mattering.

Lastly, I only really witnessed a couple of people that were clearly under rated - it looked to me like the sandbagging complaining is a vegas thing or overblown by people who just didn't play well against a lower skill level player.

b

 

[drv4]

Ours in Austin is at a pool hall. Back to back weekends 9 ball then 8. We made it to the finals in both and lost both of them. 9 ball was 40-40 non sudden death last match, 8 ball we got curbstompped in the finals, our team decided to not show up at the worst time. Had a blast, maybe I can qualify for singles this October.

 

[fastone371]

We have 2 different state tournaments, BCAPL and WSPA. WSPA is a state organization, usually has 80-100 tables, 7' Valleys. There is food, on sight cue repair and a few vendors, maybe as many as 6. The singles and team are on separate dates. The venue was a resort conference hall.

The BCAPL tournament had 60-70 tables last year, 7' Diamonds, on sight cue repair, 6 -10 vendors, singles and team are held on the same 5 day week/weekend. It was held in a conference hall of a resort, very, very nice tournament and very well organized. This is the one I look forward to the most every year, I usually only play singles 8 ball, 9 ball too if contested.

 

[nicksaint26]

Now we go to a small little pool hall with 10 valley tables in Rhode Island. The tables are in good condition but they are buckets. We used to go to Big Shots in CT but it was quite a hike. I have had pretty good luck the past few years but not this year. My 9 ball team lost in the finals this year but I have been to Vegas in 2014 for 9 ball Team and last year for 8 ball Team.

My team placed 2nd in the Northeast Challenge last year out of over 100 teams in New England. The team that beat us was from the same pool hall in Providence, RI which is Snooker's. I think our picture made it into the APA magazine for placing 2nd lol :thumbup:

 

[Celophanewrap]

Now we go to a small little pool hall with 10 valley tables in Rhode Island. The tables are in good condition but they are buckets. We used to go to Big Shots in CT but it was quite a hike. I have had pretty good luck the past few years but not this year. My 9 ball team lost in the finals this year but I have been to Vegas in 2014 for 9 ball Team and last year for 8 ball Team.

My team placed 2nd in the Northeast Challenge last year out of over 100 team in New England. The team that beat us was from the same pool hall in Providence, RI which is Snooker's. I think our picture made it into the APA magazine for placing 2nd lol :thumbup:

Where do you all play the North East Challenge? Do you have to qualify for it or can you just sign up and play. That looks like fun. Is that in October or November?

 

[nicksaint26]

Where do you all play the North East Challenge? Do you have to qualify for it or can you just sign up and play. That looks like fun. Is that in October or November?

It was at Coco Key water resort in CT. Any active apa players could make your own team, dream team so to speak. I heard they are not having it this year which stinks. It was a lot of fun and a decent payout for a weekends work

 

[benjaminwah]

We play out of a pool hall, City Pool Hall in Chicago. All 9 foot tables. 8 ball takes all weekend, 40 plus teams, 3 will go. 9 ball is the following weekend, 3 rounds 1 team will go. My 8 ball team almost always gets 1st place every season yet we haven't made it past the first round in 8 ball in years. But my 9 ball team won last year, then won again this year, so Vegas here we come.

If anyone in Chicago wants to start a 9 ball team this summer we are only a few weeks in and there's only 5 teams. If you win the summer season you get a bye in the LTC 9 ball tournament, so you only need to win 2 matches to go to Vegas. We had a bi this year. Still had to play very tough teams. The final team we had to play made it to Vegas 4 years ago, came in 9-18th out of 486 teams. We barely beat them last year. This year we stomped them, we were up 36-4 after two matches. I won 12-8 against their 7 so our 4 only needed 12 balls to get us to Vegas.

 

[Skippy27]

Ours is done at a local place over 3 days on 7 tables. I believe we had 23 teams this time.

The place they choose to do these tournaments at (it is always the same place) has all diamond tables and is one of the few places around that does. Thus the home teams have a pretty big advantage over the visiting teams that play exclusively on the same valley tables they use at the national level. The place is small and the parking is horrible but the drinks are good.