UK 8 Ball
Topic: More comps on the map

Hi all,

after recent disscusions on the forums I feel that I should start up a thread to see what everybody thinks about getting more comps up and running, me personally I am trying to improve my game by going to different tournaments, but it just doesn't seem to be many out there unfortunatley!!!

so what are players thoughts on getting more comps out there, what would suit people the best like mid-week tournaments, more entry fee for a bigger prize fund, lay outs of tournaments, more 10 ball,straight pool and 1 pocket, the list goes on.

What do you guys think ??????

In the uk by the way just for the benefit of European players

Hi mate. I think the main question to be asked is to those who constantly let organisers down - why do they insist on doig this? I cannot afford to travel all over country every weekend just yet, but I've never failed to attend an event I've registered for. I wish others had the same level of courtesy.

I agree that more comps should be set up.
Unfortunately, many good guys arrange these comps and people then fail to show. The more comps organised, the more opportunity for people to be let down.

Let's assume the apathy stops and tournaments start getting more full, then this is what I'd like to see:-

More 'purist' games like Straight and One Pocket. As a devoted student to the game I want the opportunities to play these games. And of course more 10-ball is good. I like that most of these money matches seem to be 10-ball rather than 9-ball.

I see most tournaments are ran on Sundays. Understand this to an extent as it's quieter, but maybe they should be run on Saturdays. That way there's more chance for people to see the ad and have a go. Also there isn't the worry of spending a few hours on an afternoon/evening getting home late for work on Monday.

More entry fees? Not sure. game needs to be accessible to amateur players too but obviously can't be competing for tinpot prizes. I think Nottingham, Birmingham and Leicester are perfect places to get larger fields as they are central for everybody and maybe entry fees could cost less.

Layouts? Should be double elimination or group stages in my humble opinion. Value for your money...nothing worse than driving 3 hours to go home after one game. Yes, that is pool but losing is cruel whether you lose in round 1 or on the bubble.

Perhaps more negotiations with clubs to sponsor the events - for example if you guarantee x amount of players then they can add a certain percentage to the prize fund as they'll be making profit off food and drink from the players.

I'm tired it's late I'll get more ideas tomorrow I'm sure

I think with the way things are right now I would recommend all tournaments are set up as pay in advance with payment to be made by no later than one week before the event. Then if the advertised minimum number of runners (usually 32) is not achieved the organisor should text or email all participants advising that the event is cancelled and refund their money.

This way the organisor can guarantee the prize fund and all players know what they are getting.

As soon as more and more events start being cancelled maybe players will wake up and start supporting them more.

I agree with both but although we have gb9 would you think it would be wise to maybe get something in the side line for players maybe a county vs county tournaments, where you can have the best 5 players of each county play in a grand final.

Then there could be a league set up to get players from each county to play against each over to earn 1 of the 5 spots, as I know there is the gb9 league which this could run along side any gb9 events as that is the priority.

Just all ideas does any1 suggest better

On 2010-05-19 14:36 , Rikyboy1987 Wrote:

I like the idea of a county setup as an example. But please tell me how you define 'best 5 players of each county'?

Do you define by reputation, results (again, how can you define this?) Let's say that we use the GB9 league as a basis to set up a county team in Leicestershire, it would consist of Ben Moore, Aslam Abubaker, Ryuji Tose, myself (Barry French) and Paul Morgan. Ben and Aslam are genuine players who can give anybody a game, whereas Ryuji, Paul and I would probably not be deserving of county places when you count that the best cueists in Leicester don't even play GB9 - Mark Selby, Tom Ford, Tommy Donlon, Nigel Webb, Tony Weafer, Ash Memon, Dan Harvey etc (Sorry if I left any important names out )

I really like the idea, but to really enhance the standard of the competition I think we need more participants in the GB9 league, or a fair way of assessing who should be eligible for a place. I'm 6th in the GB9 league, but I'm sure if I played all of the top guys in Sunderland the closest i would come is a narrow defeat as they are all tour standard players from what I've been told.

I'm most likely the 2nd best player behind Aslam in the local Rileys, but it means jack all because outside of there I'm a complete muppet compared to the top guys. I'm not self-depricating either, it's the truth.

Sorry for the epic post but you can see my point in how difficult it would be to establish, I presume? It's a great idea, but let's think how we can get it to work...maybe teams of two/three in an invitational county tournament would be better? Or even dividing into 8 regions ie Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, South West, South East, Central, North West and North East.

On 2010-05-19 16:03 , BFrench501 Wrote:
That really made me chuckle. I'll not say why for fear of offending someone but I expect I'm not the only one chuckling at that sentence

On 2010-05-19 16:50 , Riggers Wrote:

I'm neglecting shed loads of names from the list and players better than some mentioned, but my basic point is I'm nowhere even near being called 'best'...

Plus I'm new to leicester, so forgive me for not knowing every name there is to know yet...

Leicestershire! La La La!!!!!......sorry, couldn't help myself.

Just to help with the discussion. I think the original poster missed an important option and that is a FAIR handicapping system that encourages all standards to be competitive. The only one dayer I can recall even trying this was at Mickey's a few years back with a +4 / scratch / -4 system. I've thought for a while now that the regular comps and organisers could club together to produce a league table and from that, some sort of progressive handicapping. After all, I'm sure Ozzie and Melling are getting bored of owning every Sunday comp.

Yes was thinking of producing a uk accu-stats style website that logs all top 16 finishing positions in all uk small and major comps and try to produce some sort of handicap system from that.

Would not be hard.

Ben...it's Lestashire get it right m8

If an accu-stats style site can work and isn't impossible to do then that sounds great! Only question about handicapping systems, because the yanks do abuse it in other sports and 'sandbag' their way to an easy game. How easy is that to prevent in pool?