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International Pool Tour
Deno J. Andrews
Tour Director,
International Pool Tour
www.internationalpooltour.com

23 July 2006

IPT North American Open Tournament Format Announced

The IPT North American Open 8-Ball Championship format has been updated and there are some changes since the last IPT Event. Please use this guide to navigate the brackets and understand how the tournament progresses from round to round.

Click on "Read More..." for the details.

Round Robin

The tournament is a round robin event which means that every player will play either four or five matches per day. Over the course of a tournament, or even a single day of competition, this grueling format is demanding of the players both physically and mentally. Each player will play a minimum of eight hours per day. On certain days, each player will play for ten hours or more. Click here to read about the daily tournament format. More than one player has already dropped out of this event due to the demanding physical needs, visit www.internationalpooltour.com for details about these players.

The round robin format is the most accurate and credible format for determining which players should progress and which players are best. This is true because each player plays each of the other players in his or her respective group. The best performers in each group are guaranteed not to play each other in the next round, with the exception of the final six players. Click here to see how players progress through the tournament. You can use this guide to try to speculate who is going to be in the final six!

Know the Score

In a round robin event, players are tested against their respective groups. To advance to the next round, the top players in each group need to be determined. To determine who advances, follow these criteria:

1. Match Wins in the Group - if there is one player who is undefeated, he or she obviously has the most match wins in that group. So if three players advance and three players have 5, 4, and 3 match wins respectively, with everyone else in the group having two or fewer match wins, they each advance. If there is a tie in match wins, it is broken by:

2. Total Winning Percentage - This statistic measures the percentage of games that a player wins out of all the games he played. For example, if a player beats someone 8-2, that player has won eight out of ten games and his winning percentage is 80%, whereas the other player won two out of ten for a W% of 20%. This statistic will be carried out to two decimal places. It is important to note that the winning percentage is carried over from previous rounds, so it is crucial to a player's statistics that he tries to win every single game in every match. If a player is beating someone 7-0, it has a seriously positive impact on his statistics to win the match without letting the other player get back into the match! In contrast, if a player is down 0-7, it is equally important for that player to win as many games as possible in order to positively impact his winning percentage. One poor match can result in a player losing out in a tie in the tournament or on the Money List. If someone loses on purpose, or dumps he is virtually killing himself in the end because of the negative impact those purposely lost games will have on his statistics. Remember, these statistics follow the player for the tournament and for the year. They are used to break ties on the Money List, so losing even one game on purpose is potentially detrimental to a player's future on the IPT. Using a stat like the winning percentage is designed to eliminate any dumping or match fixing. It makes every single game of every match crucial to a player's future.

In the King of the Hill, a different statistic was used. It was called the Games Lost Index (GLI). The GLI is truly the best way to test a player's dominance over an entire group. It measures the average number of games a player's opponents wins against the player. It is the perfect measure of how two players tied in wins matched up against their opponents. However, understanding how this statistic is calculated and used proved to be far too confusing and complicated for many players and fans to understand. As a result, the IPT decided to implement the second best test, which is the winning percentage method explained above, a much easier statistic to understand. To learn more about how these sorts of statistics make or break a tournament for players, look at the King of the Hill first round brackets to see how many players didn't advance due to only one or two lost games in a match. If there happens to be a tie in the W%, it is broken by:

3. Break & Run-Outs - This is the total number of Break & Run-Outs in the entire tournament. This cumulative total will come into play not only on a tournament basis, but also on the Money List. The more break & run-outs a player performs, the stronger that player's statistics will be. If there is a tie in this category, it will be broken by:

4. Eights on the Break - This is the total number of eight ball on the break wins for a player in the entire tournament. And if there is a tie after all of these criteria, it will be broken by:

If two players are tied, the player who beat the other player advances. If there is a three way tie, the Tournament Director and Head Referee will assess the time constraints of the tournament and other factors and determine an appropriate tie breaking mechanism.
For the complete rules, visit www.internationalpooltour.com.

And remember, there will be live, up-to-the-minute scoring, pictures, and unprecedented tournament coverage, including sportswriters' stories, available on www.internationalpooltour.com. The tournament will be going from 10am until 10pm (Pacific) or later, every day for six days starting Sunday July 23rd, 2006. The final match will take place on Sunday July 30th, 2006 at 1pm (Pacific). Tickets to the main tournament are available at the tournament, held at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Daily tickets are $5 and a main tournament pass can be purchased for $20.

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