News For All Ontario Snooker Players

[thelongbomber]

Do the opposite Terry. Call the lower players the Hackers and the quality players the Crackers. Might generate more business for your coaching Nobody wants to be a Hacker!

lol.. just kidding..

AA and A is confusing. A and B+ is used commonly in pool ranking so follow the same system. In fact, you could in theory follow the same ranking style as in pool where everyone has an applied rating and then can be spotted accordingly. Breaking up divisions creates more problems in my opinion. Simplify it and use spots.

Anyways, anything you do to create traction is great. Best of luck.

[lesedwards]

The

Do the opposite Terry. Call the lower players the Hackers and the quality players the Crackers. Might generate more business for your coaching Nobody wants to be a Hacker!

lol.. just kidding..

AA and A is confusing. A and B+ is used commonly in pool ranking so follow the same system. In fact, you could in theory follow the same ranking style as in pool where everyone has an applied rating and then can be spotted accordingly. Breaking up divisions creates more problems in my opinion. Simplify it and use spots.

Anyways, anything you do to create traction is great. Best of luck.

We have gone with Black and Red and will add another colour if need be. I am very excited about our first tournament in two weeks. We have had a lot of great feedback and the news of the Ontario Snooker Club is spreading like wildfire with 136 first time visitors and 280 page views to our website everything is looking good. Like us on Facebook or better yet write a comment.

[Terry Davidson]

Do the opposite Terry. Call the lower players the Hackers and the quality players the Crackers. Might generate more business for your coaching Nobody wants to be a Hacker!

lol.. just kidding..

AA and A is confusing. A and B+ is used commonly in pool ranking so follow the same system. In fact, you could in theory follow the same ranking style as in pool where everyone has an applied rating and then can be spotted accordingly. Breaking up divisions creates more problems in my opinion. Simplify it and use spots.

Anyways, anything you do to create traction is great. Best of luck.

The handicap system is very hard to regulate and keep accurate and there's always a lot of moaning. Besides which we have at least 4 weekly 6-red handicapped tournaments in the area so the players are well looked after in that regard

We wanted something that referred to snooker and the black and red does that.

[thelongbomber]

The handicap system is very hard to regulate and keep accurate and there's always a lot of moaning. Besides which we have at least 4 weekly 6-red handicapped tournaments in the area so the players are well looked after in that regard

We wanted something that referred to snooker and the black and red does that.

I know what you mean. It's hard to know what the spot needs to be on an on-going basis. One thing I have thought about doing before was developing a snooker ladder and then the top x from the ladder get a chance to enter a yearly tournament. The ladder allows 1:1 challenges between players and each match played needs to be recorded into the ladder. They do this with squash here.

[itsnoteasy]

I'm a bit confused , you seem to be making your tourney easier for the good players as it progresses instead of harder. They start off playing top players get to the quarter final, then revert back to playing lesser players, I don't understand that, it seems very counter intuitive . Not sure how a top player would feel losing at the start ,turning round and seeing four players he would probably not lose a frame to ,in the quarter finals. I can see what your trying to do by including the lower players more so they feel they are getting value for money but I think a plate comp would be fairer.
Also how do you regulate who gets promoted to the good ranks and who gets demoted down, it's a very tricky thing to regulate.

[Terry Davidson]

I'm a bit confused , you seem to be making your tourney easier for the good players as it progresses instead of harder. They start off playing top players get to the quarter final, then revert back to playing lesser players, I don't understand that, it seems very counter intuitive . Not sure how a top player would feel losing at the start ,turning round and seeing four players he would probably not lose a frame to ,in the quarter finals. I can see what your trying to do by including the lower players more so they feel they are getting value for money but I think a plate comp would be fairer.
Also how do you regulate who gets promoted to the good ranks and who gets demoted down, it's a very tricky thing to regulate.

You are basing your observations on the market you're familiar with which is completely different from what is happening here in Ontario.

The majority of our players are average players who fit into our 'Red' category and we have to motivate them to come out and participate. The top players who we designate as 'Black' don't need any motivation to come out and play, just a fair distribution of prize money. Besides which, the Blacks will be playing the BEST of the Red players in the 1/4-finals and believe me sometimes the Blacks will lose a match, especially best-of-5.

As I explained to you in my PM, we just cannot do a plate competition given the limited amount of tables and time we have. These are weekend tournaments and most of the players have families or other responsibilities and they don't want to be tied up all day long on both Saturday and Sunday. If they keep winning yes they will play all day Saturday but on the Sunday, depending on the number of entries they might not play at all as we may have finished the tournament Saturday night.

Also remember Canada does not have the (snooker) advantage you have in the UK. Here a 2hr drive is normal to get to a tournament for a lot of the players, some of them driving 3 or 4 hours. In the UK you can drive from London to Birmingham or Manchester in a lot less time. When I lived in Leicester I had a reasonable drive to get to London, Manchester/Leeds and every other city with the possible exception of Bristol or Scotland. Here Toronto to Montreal is 5hrs on very busy highways near the cities. When we hold a tournament in London our players who live in Oshawa face a 3hr drive and rarely attend and we also have a keen player in Kingston who drives 4hrs to get to a Toronto tourney and longer if the tournament is in London.

All that said though, we are going to talk to all the players and ask them how we can make this better for them and we will even offer some suggestions like a plate (although where the prize money would come from is a question, we would probably have to charge for it) and that would only be if we have the tables. So give us a break because improvement will only come from trial and error and at least we are trying to get something done which hopefully will appeal to a majority of Ontario players.

Think about it. If we are successful and get say 32 players showing up and we only have 6 tables it will take some time to burn down both groups to 4 players and we would probably have to complete on the Sunday. We wouldn't have any tables to run a plate comp during the Saturday at least until the evening and those first round losers would have to wait all day or even come back on the Sunday to play the plate comp. I don't think that's viable. Whereas in your case with 15 tables there should be spare tables for them to play the plate right away after the 1st round completes.

[itsnoteasy]

Cheers Terry good post, as I say I do understand how you are trying to get more players to have a go. It is very tricky pitching things to be fair to all, just an example if a red player beats a black player is he allowed to play as a red in the next comp, if so how many times can he win before he's moved up, even simple things like this can cause organisers headaches, we have tried all the things mentioned, handicaps etc, these are a nightmare to pitch right, ours is done by highest break but the most you can get is 14, what good is 14 to me playing a pro or county champion, I may aswell play them off scratch, The mini leagues seems to be working just now but we do have more tables so can rattle through more matches.
Sometimes over here we forget how big other countries are and the distances you have to travel.

[Terry Davidson]

Cheers Terry good post, as I say I do understand how you are trying to get more players to have a go. It is very tricky pitching things to be fair to all, just an example if a red player beats a black player is he allowed to play as a red in the next comp, if so how many times can he win before he's moved up, even simple things like this can cause organisers headaches, we have tried all the things mentioned, handicaps etc, these are a nightmare to pitch right, ours is done by highest break but the most you can get is 14, what good is 14 to me playing a pro or county champion, I may aswell play them off scratch, The mini leagues seems to be working just now but we do have more tables so can rattle through more matches.
Sometimes over here we forget how big other countries are and the distances you have to travel.

Both Les and I think the way to target this is to set small steps initially and get the thing going. And then as we achieve that (hopefully) then start searching for ways to make it even more appealing to Ontario players. Of course by that time I could be fully retired or dead even

[lesedwards]

Both Les and I think the way to target this is to set small steps initially and get the thing going. And then as we achieve that (hopefully) then start searching for ways to make it even more appealing to Ontario players. Of course by that time I could be fully retired or dead even

Can I have your Wouldridge cue? �� you will be playing this game as long as the man upstairs will allow you. Terry is potting them better now then he was two years ago. I can't wait to get our first tournament under way.

[itsnoteasy]

Don't know if this would work, but have you thought of any type of suggestion box at your tourneys , let the players have a say in how they would like it to improve, you never know some genius may just pop in the perfect answer.

[Terry Davidson]

hola terry yo también lo estoy se guindo aquí de ESPAÑA suerte

English please

[GeordieDS]

English please

Hello i am to Terry good luck Guindo here from Spain

[Terry Davidson]

Hello i am to Terry good luck Guindo here from Spain

Thanks for that but it still doesn't help much. That was the second Spanish one I received from him