Are snooker handicaps wrong ??

[paul180]

so a bit hit and miss then for whoever who is running the tourny to calculate your handicap then as they,ve never seen me play before?

[nrage]

Have a read of..
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board...35138-handicap

to save me typing some of it again

[cazmac1]

I haven't read through the previous posts but IMO no their not. When I was starting out I always wanted to play better players and never wanted a start. But to be honest if your entering a handicap and your paying good money to enter you should get some kind of start when playing against good players but not so much the you don't have to even try to score.

[tbones147]

I remember one frustrating tournament I played. I gave this bloke a 96 start, I broke off, he was down by the green, slapped in a long red, and proceeded to go blue,red,blue,red,blue. It's the first and last time I have shook a blokes hand before finishing a frame/match.
Was not very sporting of me I know, but hopefully you can understand, that if you give someone that kind of start, I am not expecting an 18 break 1st visit (not so much the score, it was the balls he potted).

[pottingpinks]

I think if I was giving a 96 start I would concede before the break off lol

[cazmac1]

I remember giving 75 start to someone years back I thought tooth and nail and still lost. Was very disappointed with the whole thing. I also have been given a 20 start in one handicap I got to the final and was buzzing I wiped the floor with the best player in the club making a 56 break with a hunt and O'Byrne which I only had for a week. The guy went nuts and all his toys came out of the pram.
This is both sides of the coin and why I don't do handicaps someone will always be unhappy.

[Souwester]

As I'm sure I've commented before (on this thread or elsewhere) the problem is that the top 20% play consistently well and the bottom 20% consistently badly. The majority are totally inconsitent in the way they play, so using handicaps can be almost worthless.

many many years ago i played in a not so local summer league 9as ours didn;t play during the summer). One of my mates was a half sensible player off scratch and got drawn against some quite elderly lady on +90. At the end of one frame she had 95 on the board... because my mate had fouled a blue. Sizeable handicaps aren't necessarily a problem, but they can create a totally different game to what you usually play.

[pottingpinks]

Not sure that handicaps should "award" players wins without them doing at least something of merit to win the frame. I think really a player ought to be scoring somewhere near 35-40pts themselves plus their handicap in order to be eligible for the victory, as it were.
So this is where starts of 70+ I think are a bit dubious, as potting perhaps the three balls at the end could constitute a victory which would surely be rather a hollow one anyway.
Our leagues handicap currently goes up to 45 between top and bottom, so with someone scoring 35 themselves on top to make 80, it would give them a decent chance of winning the frame.

[mikeadyla]

My view is that the reason why snooker has such a difficult time coming to a correct "handicap" system is down to psychology.

My boyfriend plays in handicap tournaments all the time and his stand is at -25. He consistently gives points to players at the start of matches and interestingly, has never lost a match. His frame win averages at 85-90%. I wrote a post about it before claiming that he's never this consistent in a normal non-handicap tournament.

Some people play better when they're given head start because they have an instant boost in their belief that they can win. On the other hand, some people seem to be unable to put a single ball at 80 points in front. Handicap tournaments calculate points on the basis of their technical skills, so while it is technically fair, it doesn't give any leeway in terms of human psychology and motivation.
If you see it from a human psychology point of view, the end results of handicap tournaments usually reflects player's mental approach to the game (especially the skilled ones).

[tornado taylor]

I think they are great. Its the only way to get everyone involved and bump the prize money up. When I played the average I was giving was around the 70 start, some of the younger lads was as much as 90 and I remember giving a woman 114 start.. Obviously had no clue how to play. They all used to rant on how guilty they felt about taking so much start but wasn't so happy when they could see the gap close. I think our comps worked fairly well as we had a mix of winners at different standards. Not so sure what the other good players think but I did find it very annoying when you caught them up with the colours left and they'd pull out a couple of ridiculous long pots that any pro would be proud of to win the match. Gutted. Lol.