Tobermory
Verified Member
The Bay Area branch of the newly formed Shortstop Society met today at California Billiards in Fremont to hold its first round robin one pocket tourney. The Society has been conceived to provide an opportunity for players who fall within the broadly defined category of “shortstop” to test their skills in an open format without any bothersome pro (or all but pro) players who invariably dominate and win all of the other open events. Who is and who is not a shortstop, you might ask, and while I’m not precisely sure about the classical or modern definition of the term, I’m pretty sure it is like what Justice Potter Stewart said about obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Alternatively: if you are not a pro, or if you don’t play at a pro level, or if you aren’t at the level just below the professional level, or if you have an established Fargo rating below 700 (maybe 675), then you are probably a shortstop. Welcome.
Christ Swart generously (as always) provided four of his new Diamond tables, and Bee Davison brought his whiz bang tournament score keeping program and scorecards, and managed the entire process with aplomb and finesse. Since the whole thing was my idea, I sent out the invitations to get it going, collected the money and set a few rules to establish order. The original idea was to sign up 8-16 players in a round robin where each “match” was 4 games, and could be played at any time and place two players agreed to meet and play over a one month period. Due to Derby City travel plans, and widespread confusion and uncertainty about the plan, we decided to reconfigure the plan for a one day event with shorter matches to see if we could get any traction at all.
The entry fee was $200. The format: round robin. The winner was to be decided by games won, and in the event of a tie, the winner was to be decided by fewest balls given up to opponents. If an opponent was below zero balls in a game, the negative number was subtracted from the tally of balls given up by their opponent. 1st place got $800; 2nd got $400; 3rd got $200. To get it done in one day without going late, each “match” was two games, alternate the break. Balls made on the break were counted, three foul rule in effect. The players kept track of the win loss and balls made records on Bee’s scorecards, and then he entered the data into his program for tabulations.
Our inaugural event drew seven contestants: Bee Davison, Kevin McLaughlin, Melvin Mackay, Rylan Hartnett, Robert Yolu, Premo Premo, and yours truly, Michael Singsen. We started at 12:15, and the last match up ended at about 7:15, seven hours. Each contestant played 12 games in six rounds. By my math, this means that the time for each match of two games averaged out at about an hour and ten minutes, or 35 minutes per game. No time clock, no refs, there was time to look the balls over as much as you wanted, and nobody played super slow to skew the averages. At the end of the day, Rylan and I were tied at 8-4 with the same number of balls given up to opponents (56), so we played one game to finish it off. I’m not sorry to say that he missed a shot and got a bit unlucky to leave me open, and I was able to jump into the lead and hold on to prevail. Bee Davison landed in 3rd place, and but for an unfortunate event that resulted in a loss of his final game, he would have been our winner.
While I know I had a fantastic day at the pool hall, I think all of the participants liked the format, the higher than usual entry fee, and the strong competition and would be willing to do it again, maybe on a regular basis. Whether we stick with a one day event and short matches or go to the month long free form do it when and where you can format remains to be decided. It may be too much of a hassle to try to organize anything that requires pool players to communicate and make plans. If I learned anything putting this event together it that pool players, as a group, are as hard to organize as a herd of cats. We shall see.
Christ Swart generously (as always) provided four of his new Diamond tables, and Bee Davison brought his whiz bang tournament score keeping program and scorecards, and managed the entire process with aplomb and finesse. Since the whole thing was my idea, I sent out the invitations to get it going, collected the money and set a few rules to establish order. The original idea was to sign up 8-16 players in a round robin where each “match” was 4 games, and could be played at any time and place two players agreed to meet and play over a one month period. Due to Derby City travel plans, and widespread confusion and uncertainty about the plan, we decided to reconfigure the plan for a one day event with shorter matches to see if we could get any traction at all.
The entry fee was $200. The format: round robin. The winner was to be decided by games won, and in the event of a tie, the winner was to be decided by fewest balls given up to opponents. If an opponent was below zero balls in a game, the negative number was subtracted from the tally of balls given up by their opponent. 1st place got $800; 2nd got $400; 3rd got $200. To get it done in one day without going late, each “match” was two games, alternate the break. Balls made on the break were counted, three foul rule in effect. The players kept track of the win loss and balls made records on Bee’s scorecards, and then he entered the data into his program for tabulations.
Our inaugural event drew seven contestants: Bee Davison, Kevin McLaughlin, Melvin Mackay, Rylan Hartnett, Robert Yolu, Premo Premo, and yours truly, Michael Singsen. We started at 12:15, and the last match up ended at about 7:15, seven hours. Each contestant played 12 games in six rounds. By my math, this means that the time for each match of two games averaged out at about an hour and ten minutes, or 35 minutes per game. No time clock, no refs, there was time to look the balls over as much as you wanted, and nobody played super slow to skew the averages. At the end of the day, Rylan and I were tied at 8-4 with the same number of balls given up to opponents (56), so we played one game to finish it off. I’m not sorry to say that he missed a shot and got a bit unlucky to leave me open, and I was able to jump into the lead and hold on to prevail. Bee Davison landed in 3rd place, and but for an unfortunate event that resulted in a loss of his final game, he would have been our winner.
While I know I had a fantastic day at the pool hall, I think all of the participants liked the format, the higher than usual entry fee, and the strong competition and would be willing to do it again, maybe on a regular basis. Whether we stick with a one day event and short matches or go to the month long free form do it when and where you can format remains to be decided. It may be too much of a hassle to try to organize anything that requires pool players to communicate and make plans. If I learned anything putting this event together it that pool players, as a group, are as hard to organize as a herd of cats. We shall see.
