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Post by Q on Feb 21, 2023 16:25:20 GMT
Sorry but From a personal point of view I disagree If I walked in to a pub and saw a bar billiards table and knew nothing about it and wanted to find out more I would search on the internet. The last place I would think of looking would be Facebook. Perhaps this is the problem both for change and publicity. Need younger people (bit more into Facebook etc) rather than those of us that are old (talking personally) to actually attend AGM’s get on the Committee and take over some of the workload if they have new ideas for publicity and changes Facebook is for all ages (I think I'm older than you Jean ) I'm just saying that if the organisers are complaining about poor attendance they should at least utilise the resources that are already in place. I may no longer play our beautiful sport (not through lack of trying) but I still try to push it to a wider audience, my only local table was in a pub that changed owners last year, I contacted the new owners to be told that they had sold the table "to a private individual" the sad thing is that I now have a premises (my local snooker club) who have the room, and would have given the table a good home. The only event I have been able to attend in the past 16 years is Jersey, then firstly they closed Plymouth airport, Newquay use SleazyJet who I wont touch so I went to Weymouth for the ferry, they've now stopped that as well so it would mean a drive to Portsmouth and I'm now of the age where I dont relish the long drives, yes it was my choice to move down here (and I dont regret it) but it sadly seems that my playing days are over, but I will still 'do my bit' promoting our sport. Just read this post back.... I'm beginning to sound like BBW with my rants, sorry Dave
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Post by tommo III on Feb 21, 2023 17:01:55 GMT
This topic seems to be kicking off in all directions, with organisers, the AEBBA, the WBBA, Counties, seasoned players, novice players, publicity, websites, the Forum, Facebook all coming under the microscope. But hey! - it's ages since we had a healthy debate here on the British Bar Billiards Forum - the "Home of Bar Billiards on the Web". Now, bar billiards as a pursuit has an ageing population and it is down to the efforts of the few that is still kept going at a competitive level. In the early 1970’s there was a North/South divide, with a Northern Counties champion playing a Southern Counties champ in a Final to decide the National Champion. The same for the National Team event. Now we have all the events taking place over one day or one weekend with the AEBBA-run ones fitted into the second half of the year and held in High Wycombe. The AEBBA personnel who dwell on the south coast still make the effort to attend and run these competitions and are to be congratulated for doing so - thus helping to keep it all together. Joefoxon has mentioned that he doesn’t really want to travel further south of the Thames and this is perfectly understandable. We are lucky in Sussex with, as Jean says, seven affiliated leagues as well as Redhill (Surrey) and Tunbridge Wells (Kent) associate members and have lots of competitions below County level which cater for all levels of play. The equivalent “level below county” for the remaining leagues would be the Inter-Area competition which is administered at present by Stephen Coleman of Northants. This has several sections for different standards (I know for example there is a ‘C’ teams shield.) This should be ideal for Notts and I would query “have you considered this ?”. Along with the WBBA; Oxon, Bucks and Northants Opens; AEBBA’s age restricted tourneys (including an Under30’s); Alternative Rules and of course the Challenger event you guys north of the Thames are also spoilt for choice !
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Post by Q on Feb 21, 2023 18:34:36 GMT
I've started a poll on the Facebook group asking: 1. Did you know that there are barbilliards open competitions held throughout the year in different counties? 2. If so have you attended any of these opens? 3. Are you aware of the British barbilliards forum on ProBoards? 4. Are you aware of the AEBBA? 5. Do you play barbilliards regular, meaning at least once a month?
It will be interesting to see how the results go.
In the meantime if any organisers of opens (or any competitions) want their entry forms published on the Facebook group and are unsure of how to do it just send me a copy (PDF preferred but any format can be used) to: bernie.lawrance(at)gmail.com (replacing (at) with @ ) and I'll willingly publicise the event for them.
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Post by Chris on Feb 21, 2023 20:29:50 GMT
I so understand where Jean is coming from. Not got a Facebook account myself but I do know it is part of now and the future.
I agree great results 're Bournemouth but that is for only those in the know and whom use the forum.
I sèe Facebook in terms of the malicious side, however if set up properly it could be a useful publicity agent without the malicious side.
Chris
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Post by milhouse on Feb 22, 2023 9:18:19 GMT
The equivalent “level below county” for the remaining leagues would be the Inter-Area competition which is administered at present by Stephen Coleman of Northants. This has several sections for different standards (I know for example there is a ‘C’ teams shield.) This should be ideal for Notts and I would query “have you considered this ?”. Along with the WBBA; Oxon, Bucks and Northants Opens; AEBBA’s age restricted tourneys (including an Under30’s); Alternative Rules and of course the Challenger event you guys north of the Thames are also spoilt for choice ! I have been keeping a keen eye on this thread and will add my comments in due course. but i just wanted to point out that Notts have been invited to the Inter-Area one day event in the past and have not been able to field a team (5 players). Also, with Portsmouth in the KOe format, it would be a bit of a trek if they were to play Notts!
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Post by joefoxon on Feb 22, 2023 10:15:31 GMT
The equivalent “level below county” for the remaining leagues would be the Inter-Area competition which is administered at present by Stephen Coleman of Northants. This has several sections for different standards (I know for example there is a ‘C’ teams shield.) This should be ideal for Notts and I would query “have you considered this ?”. Along with the WBBA; Oxon, Bucks and Northants Opens; AEBBA’s age restricted tourneys (including an Under30’s); Alternative Rules and of course the Challenger event you guys north of the Thames are also spoilt for choice ! I have been keeping a keen eye on this thread and will add my comments in due course. but i just wanted to point out that Notts have been invited to the Inter-Area one day event in the past and have not been able to field a team (5 players). Also, with Portsmouth in the KOe format, it would be a bit of a trek if they were to play Notts! This is correct, we were invited to the event a few years back, but sadly had to drop out due to the extreme weather on the day causing a tree to fall on one of our players' cars! It's a real shame, but we'd be keen to try again!
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Post by tommo III on Feb 22, 2023 10:25:01 GMT
I have been keeping a keen eye on this thread and will add my comments in due course. but i just wanted to point out that Notts have been invited to the Inter-Area one day event in the past and have not been able to field a team (5 players). Also, with Portsmouth in the KOe format, it would be a bit of a trek if they were to play Notts! Agree a 190 mile journey for either team would be beyond the pale ..... but there are ways and means: As a practical solution, allow the sides to meet half-way: Somewhere just north of Oxford - say, Bletchingdon - would be 95 miles for both.
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Post by milhouse on Feb 22, 2023 10:48:35 GMT
I have been keeping a keen eye on this thread and will add my comments in due course. but i just wanted to point out that Notts have been invited to the Inter-Area one day event in the past and have not been able to field a team (5 players). Also, with Portsmouth in the KOe format, it would be a bit of a trek if they were to play Notts! Agree a 190 mile journey for either team would be beyond the pale ..... but there are ways and means: As a practical solution, allow the sides to meet half-way: Somewhere just north of Oxford - say, Bletchingdon - would be 95 miles for both. The competition is played home and away with aggregate scores to determine the winner. I suppose an exception could be made if these two were to draw each other and it just played as a one-off game?
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Post by milhouse on Feb 22, 2023 21:53:35 GMT
OK, for what it's worth, here are my thoughts on some of the suggestions and comments. Be warned, this may turn into a long post Big Scores debate- I for one am not someone who will play against a "weaker" player and use the opportunity to run the table out basically twice. I know there are a few on here, both from opens and local league games, who can vouch for this. This will not happen in group games and i use an example from the Kent Open a few years ago. I played Dawn Jordan in my first game and ran the table out for about 21k. Then, when Dawn missed on about 2k, i then finished the rest of the clock for 17k. The reason for this, is that aggregate score may count to qualify. As it happened, this is exactly how i topped my group with three of us on equal wins. If ihad not done that to Dawn in my first game, i would not have qualified. I apologised to Dawn straight away and told her why it happened. So having group games is ok to have more games but because of how they are, it is not necessary that you will get more table time. It might work out you get less. What happends if Cliff Slade gets drawn into a group with KT, Curt, Nigel? How is he going to get anymore table time? Just my thoughts about that particular issue. Publicity- All the AEBBA & Open competitions are advertised on here. If people are interested in playing bar billiard competitions, then they know about this site and will know where to look. As Joe has mentioned about sending the information/entry forms to local league players via the league secretaries, why cant the league secretaries just point them to this site? It will achieve the exact same outcome? Open Formats- Having a "Multiple Plate" competition for first round losers would be a total nightmare to organise. You would need to wait until all the first round games have been played to allocate each player their respective competition. This could be as late as the last 16 if there are byes and no shows. Also need to take into consideration the additional cost of the trophies. I would prefer the option of running a "Minnows" tournament as i know Kent did a few years ago but as has been said before, how many people would enter? As Notts have quite a lot of new and enthusiastic players, they are quite a distance from any other county, so would they have 10+ players willing to travel down to say Oxford to compete? How about Sudbury players as they only enter 4 pin tournaments, would they play in a competition like this? If these would be a yes, then i would consider doing this tournament if it meant more numbers. WBBA- Now this has caused quite a stir among players with a lot of differing views! I presonally think that Lorin done a fantastic job as AE Secretary and to get sponsorship to give prize money at all the AE events was incredible. It was a shame that the minority didnt see the benefits and it showed from the event a couple of weeks ago that offering something completely different to the normal formats was well received. Would it have been just as successful if the prize money wasn't so good? we don't know but everyone i spoke to, certainly enjoyed the weekend. Finances- Now, this leads me onto finances. As we all know, finances are being stretched all over the country in the current climate. Now, altough the WBBA was a bit more to enter, there were no restrictions on staying in the very nice, but pricey venue. We have Bournemouth in a couple of weeks and everyone knows my views on this and i am not going to go into that debate again. I know the hotel do a lot for the competition and give sponsorship etc. but im sure that is no different to Jersey/Guernsey who have no restrictions in place. Having said that, you have to realise that you are forced to stay at the venue and also this year, the one night option was not available, so you now have to stay for two nights, even more cost. Has this put people off playing in this event because of this additional cost to be incurred? You also have players from leagues very close who have not entered the competition since the mandatory occupancy has been introduced. Why should you be forced to stay at the venue when you live 20/30 minutes away? Anyway i think that is enough from me by now. I look forward to the responses!
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Post by Chris_Sav on Feb 23, 2023 9:37:58 GMT
Cannot comment on Bournemouth now but I would remind you that I took over Bournemouth and proposed the residency only option from 2015.
That option that I negotiated gave every player over £20 off the cost of residency of the previous organiser and increased hotel sponsorship and cheaper beer, provided only that we filled sufficient rooms. That resolution was passed at the 2013 AGM by 13 votes to 1, that is why it is in force. The hotel was also happy because it ended instances of non residents trying to gatecrash meals.
The result: 55 pairs in 2014, 65 pairs in 2015, I don't see much evidence of abstaining from ten extra pairs. I think that is a success story for the benefit of the vast majority!
Removal of that restriction can always be proposed at an AGM now that the competition has moved homes.
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Post by joefoxon on Feb 23, 2023 11:08:50 GMT
Regarding the specific points listed above:
- Big scores At the moment, to use a snooker analogy, the Opens are like sending a player who's highest break is 7 from potting the last black to play against Ronnie O'Sullivan. That 7 break player isn't actually going to learn much from the experience, because they're so far behind on the actual fundamentals of the game, that they'd be trying to run before they can even stand up on their own.
- Publicity I agree, there's nothing stopping league secretaries from offering up the link to this site, but there's also nothing forcing players to come and look at it. At least with something like a Facebook page, you only have to click "follow" once, and then it's pretty passive from there on in, but you still hear about all the opportunities to play. It's much more likely for a player to do that, and the resistance to it seems to stem from this idea that everything on Facebook is malicious, which plainly isn't true, and the admins can curate an environment that's welcoming to all.
- Open formats I've always been of the impression that to be allowed to host anything at all, it HAD to be an Open, which wouldn't really do anything to solve the problem. Now that the idea of having a "minnows" (for want of a better name) has been floated, I think that if we were to host anything, that'd be the direction we'd go, but with the chance of playing some of the higher-ranked players later on in the competition (3rd in the Champions League dropping to Europa-style). Yes, it means that chances are, the player that was originally in the Open draw will probably win the "minnows", but that's not really much different to the current plates. It's certainly something that I'd be willing to test as a format, and tweak as we go along to make it as successful as possible.
- WBBA The prize money was generous, however, for the players at the lower end of the food chain, that wasn't really a factor. The chance at taking away a trophy was much more valuable to players who would previously turn up to an Open hoping for a decent run in the Plate, or with the hope of picking up 2 or 3 ranking points. This event did a lot of things that I don't think would ever see the light of day at other competitions, such as the live streams, the professional photography, payments for scorers etc. There's also been some comments that the elite players weren't advertised to, but 9 of the top 16 players in the rankings were there. What they did well was advertising to the leagues that *wouldn't* usually bother to send anyone, or would usually only send one or two players. That helps massively, because people are more likely to go if more of their friends are going.
- Finances This will always be the main sticking point for any hobby that requires travelling around the country. £10-15 entry fees for an Open might seem like good value for money if you're only an hour's drive away, but for our second closest Open, Oxon (230 mile round trip), that suddenly becomes £60-65. For our third closts, Bucks (250 miles), it's £65-70, which is just not feasible to do 10 times a year. The only way to make it work, would be to have full cars, and that'll only happen if people are either going to have a chance at winning a game or two, or don't care about losing because they're only going for the drinking.
I know it seems like I'm just complaining about everything the AEBBA holds dear, and I understand the resistance to changing anything because the people that already come to competitions like it the way it is, but it means that the game will only be preserved for as long as those people are still playing it, when what I'd love to see is for the game to thrive, with Opens having to turn people away because they've got 100+ people queuing up. Nothing can grow if nobody plants a seed first!
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Post by tommo III on Feb 23, 2023 12:07:47 GMT
Quite frankly I'm happy that there are still competitions to take part in. The Covid-19 epidemic could have proved terminal for our game, with many businesses suffering and pubs going to the wall: It was horrible not being able to play in any form of competition for 18 months. Quite a few former top players decided to call it a day.
As regards National competitions (including Opens) all the decisions made by organisers were absolutely the correct ones and I do not think they deserve one ounce of criticism.
In the last twelve years we have lost two Opens (Hampshire and Berkshire) from the calendar, but to compensate, two new events have been inaugurated this very year - and we're still in February! There is also the unfortunate demise of Sav's Dover and Deal League - but again an opportunity for a brand new league in Cambs to enable the tables to live again .......
So let's be grateful for what we've got.
For an example of how new players/youngsters can be encouraged/brought on, you need look no further than the Redhill League with its 'close season' fun competitions: Triples; Blind Doubles; Handicap Mixed Doubles; Team Invitation; Surrey Inter-League with handicaps and forfeits.
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Post by BB Warrior on Feb 23, 2023 20:18:50 GMT
Hi Mark, thank you for sharing your thoughts.... OK, for what it's worth, here are my thoughts on some of the suggestions and comments. Be warned, this may turn into a long post .... I am so glad that I am not the only one who likes to say a lot! With regards to your comments about formats.... Open Formats- Having a "Multiple Plate" competition for first round losers would be a total nightmare to organise. You would need to wait until all the first round games have been played to allocate each player their respective competition. This could be as late as the last 16 if there are byes and no shows. Also need to take into consideration the additional cost of the trophies. I would prefer the option of running a "Minnows" tournament as i know Kent did a few years ago but as has been said before, how many people would enter? As Notts have quite a lot of new and enthusiastic players, they are quite a distance from any other county, so would they have 10+ players willing to travel down to say Oxford to compete? How about Sudbury players as they only enter 4 pin tournaments, would they play in a competition like this? If these would be a yes, then i would consider doing this tournament if it meant more numbers. .... both yourself and Jean have highlighted that it would be difficult to run multiple plates, although I think it "could" be done I do understand that it would make running the competition even harder than it normally is, so I think we should forget the suggestion that I made about that. I think it would be a great idea if you would try running a "minnows" competition alongside the Open, although as the AEBBA have already given us the Challenger Competition (that was played in York last year), perhaps this could be run as another "Challenger" Event to offer a consistent style of event with similar entry requirements? I see that Joe Foxon also expressed an interest to run a similar event in Nottingham and maybe a couple of other counties would also be prepared to give it a trial? Subject to the number of entries (for both the Open and Minnows/Challenger events) it might be possible for players to compete in both, subject to ranking restrictions for the new competition? Even if you only got 10-20 entries for the Minnows/Challenger event, that is still 10-20 more players that you would not have had.... With regards to other counties running similar events, we are probably too close to the Kent Open next month for it to be given a try there, however the Surrey Open in April could be a good opportunity as they have a good number of "social" competitions there that are popular with their own players (as highlighted by Tommo in a previous post) and some of the Surrey players did take part in the York Challenger Event last year. If we then have a competition in Oxford, (maybe) another one in Nottingham and a repeat event in York then that almost is enough to start a complete new "Series" of Competitions.... so why not an end of year "Minnows/Challenger Grand Prix" at High Wycombe alongside the main Grand Prix and Ladies Grand Prix? I know, let's learn to walk before we try to run.... ut everything starts with small steps.
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Post by BB Warrior on Feb 23, 2023 20:28:41 GMT
Just read this post back.... I'm beginning to sound like BBW with my rants, sorry Dave Q, I think that I am (mainly) past "rants" these days.... it's more just "waffle" most of the time, but you may find a few good suggestions hidden among it and I do care about our game!
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Post by daveuk1 on Feb 23, 2023 21:03:31 GMT
Just read this post back.... I'm beginning to sound like BBW with my rants, sorry Dave Q, I think that I am (mainly) past "rants" these days.... it's more just "waffle" most of the time, but you may find a few good suggestions hidden among it and I do care about our game! There seems to be lots of waffle going on. As I see it. Finances play a major part in why people don't enter all the opens. Adding in extra competitions for the lesser players may help, but opens are held over one day, usually on 8 tables so there really wouldnt be time to fit in any more than the normal main and plate comps, plus for the very few people who actually organise these events it could turn into a nightmare. To find time to cater for extra formats may mean spreading the tournament over two days and this in turn adds extra expense for players with overnight accommodation required and obviously this may then deter extra players from entering. Re advertising the events, as Curt as already said, sending out personal invitations just doesnt happen, players who want to play in opens already know roughly what dates they take place from past events so just look on here for confirmation. I certainly look and then let players from my area know if there is anything I think would be interesting to them. Most leagues or at least counties have players who use this board, so we would hope they will let other players know the dates, it isn't hard to pop on to the AEBBA site and grab a copy of all the scheduled events and dates and then forward it on. While the AEBBA do their bit for bar billiards it should be promoted more at local level.
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dillon
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Post by dillon on Feb 24, 2023 7:43:52 GMT
Q, I think that I am (mainly) past "rants" these days.... it's more just "waffle" most of the time, but you may find a few good suggestions hidden among it and I do care about our game! There seems to be lots of waffle going on. As I see it. Finances play a major part in why people don't enter all the opens. Adding in extra competitions for the lesser players may help, but opens are held over one day, usually on 8 tables so there really wouldnt be time to fit in any more than the normal main and plate comps, plus for the very few people who actually organise these events it could turn into a nightmare. To find time to cater for extra formats may mean spreading the tournament over two days and this in turn adds extra expense for players with overnight accommodation required and obviously this may then deter extra players from entering. Re advertising the events, as Curt as already said, sending out personal invitations just doesnt happen, players who want to play in opens already know roughly what dates they take place from past events so just look on here for confirmation. I certainly look and then let players from my area know if there is anything I think would be interesting to them. Most leagues or at least counties have players who use this board, so we would hope they will let other players know the dates, it isn't hard to pop on to the AEBBA site and grab a copy of all the scheduled events and dates and then forward it on. While the AEBBA do their bit for bar billiards it should be promoted more at local level. Well said Dave... Have you been taking common sense pills?
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Post by BB Warrior on Oct 22, 2023 14:48:17 GMT
Well, it's been a little while since anything more was put on this thread, but I have been reading through the posts here and reflecting on the comments that people have made. To be honest, my decision to return here was made after reading posts in another discussion thread, which really did make me start to wonder how much (if any) of a future our game still has.... that made extremely sad reading for me. I never thought I would see the day where a very respected long-standing player and forum member would be suggesting that certain players should be excluded from taking part in a competition to which they are fully eligible to enter.... simply because they are good players! That sounds like saying that Manchester City should not be allowed to play in the Premier League or that Novak Djokovic should not be allowed to play tennis! It seems like the world is going crazy, although possibly it is simply a matter of similar thinking to people that decided that children at school should not play competitive sport to avoid anyone feeling like a loser.... I do appreciate and understand that some (maybe many) players are reluctant to enter National (and even their local) competitions by virtue of the fact that they do not play at the same high level as the "elite players". You only have to look at the drop in entries for most competitions to see how much numbers have reduced in many of those. But, is the answer really to exclude the best players from taking part in some competitions? Will that help to make our game "better" and encourage more participation in national competitions? What next...?? Do we then change the rules and make it so the LOSER of each game progresses in the Main Competition, with the winners consigned to the Plate? I suppose it would be an interesting twist to have a future World Champion crowned for being the biggest loser of the competition.... that black peg would certainly take a hammering over the weekend! There are answers that could make a difference.... The AEBBA Challenger Event opened up a new competition for players to participate who would probably not have the opportunity to win a national title. It is a shame that this event was not held this year and I hope it will return next year. (In a previous post, I did suggest that another form of Challenger Event could be introduced at our County Opens. I do understand that would be difficult (perhaps impossible) to run as a "Secondary Plate" competition, the logistics or sorting the players out to put them into the correct competition and include tables for an unknown quatity of players, are probably impossible for the organisers on the day. But, is it possible to run a stand-alone Challenger Event alongside (or on the same weekend) as a County Open? That may help towards the cost of table hire and trophies and maybe would also encourage a few of the Challenger competitors to play in the main open as well? I would like to see that given a try at some stage in the future?) The WBBA Events have also been mentioned on this thread a couple of times.... however there has never been any publicity of the Forum about these events taking place and certainly nothing included on the calendar to let players know the dates for upcoming WBBA Events. This Forum has always been the best source of information for players about our game and provides a brilliant service to let players know of upcoming competitions and results of those played. The Forum has always been very supportive of all forms of the game and was very quick to encourage and promote these. The forum management and staff will always have my appreciation of their hard work and effort to provide us with this amazing area to look at all aspects of our game. I do not know why the WBBA events have not been included here on the Forum, I have heard rumours that this is possibly something to do with historical personal issues between certain people. I know that AEBBA are also not happy about WBBA starting their competitions independently and that the Forum and AEBBA have always been strongly linked and supportive of each other. I have nothing but respect for those people that give their time to be organisers of the AEBBA, without them our game would probably have ended years ago and I will always be happy to support and play in AEBBA competitions. I do however think that the Forum should include an area for the WBBA events, after all the forum exists to support all areas of Bar Billiards and to encourage and help more people to participate in our game. So, please Forum Management, can you open a new area for the WBBA events to be discussed and made available to all of us? Apologies for another long "waffle".....
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Post by Chris_Sav on Oct 22, 2023 15:25:02 GMT
I'm sorry Dave but you are talking out of what you should be sitting on.
If you read back to my original post on the seniors you will see I suggested an extra over seventies first off as it does not require a rule change! not excluding players, your comments are of a personal nature.
As far as WBBA are concerned that is old hat on forum management and you conjecture more insinuations about my management of the forum and members I may have had to moderate. Well it might surprise you to know that Lorin and I have had long conversations over WBBA representation on the forum and the ball is in his court. In fact Lorin will tell you I have asked for discussions with him on handing the forum over to WBBA as I believe that is the future for the forum and for representation of domestic players.
I won't say any more on this as remarks are getting personal now and I will don my moderators cap from now on regarding personal remarks
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Post by BB Warrior on Oct 22, 2023 16:26:09 GMT
Hi Chris, I thought I had made it clear in my post on another thread that I had not been the originator of the suggestion to run an Over 70's competition although I did attribute that to Tommo rather than yourself so I apologise for that. As I have also stated, I would totally support the idea of introducing that new competition, as long as it was not initially going to replace the current Over 50's until it has proved that it is viable to run it instead of that. With regards to WBBA, if conversations have already taken place between Forum Management and Lorin, I am not sure that I understand why you have to wait until Lorin asks to be added? Why not include it and give forum members the best chance to find out about the WBBA competitions now if there is no issue about it? Having said that, I see that SirKT has been allowed to put a post about the next WBBA event on the Hampshire thread, so would it be fair to assume that similar posts about it would be okay if they were added to other threads on the Forum? I aplogise unreservedly if you do feel that my previous post was some kind of personal attack or criticism about the management of this forum, as I said in that post I have nothing but respect for you and the other forum staff for all the hard work you do to provide us with this excellent area to find out about and promote our game.
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Post by joefoxon on Oct 22, 2023 18:53:50 GMT
I never thought I would see the day where a very respected long-standing player and forum member would be suggesting that certain players should be excluded from taking part in a competition to which they are fully eligible to enter.... simply because they are good players! That sounds like saying that Manchester City should not be allowed to play in the Premier League or that Novak Djokovic should not be allowed to play tennis! It seems like the world is going crazy, although possibly it is simply a matter of similar thinking to people that decided that children at school should not play competitive sport to avoid anyone feeling like a loser.... But, is the answer really to exclude the best players from taking part in some competitions? Will that help to make our game "better" and encourage more participation in national competitions? What next...?? Do we then change the rules and make it so the LOSER of each game progresses in the Main Competition, with the winners consigned to the Plate? I suppose it would be an interesting twist to have a future World Champion crowned for being the biggest loser of the competition.... that black peg would certainly take a hammering over the weekend! A completely straw man argument. Nobody is saying that competitions should be designed for people to lose. They're saying that there should be a better selection of competitions tailored towards the different ability levels in the game.
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Post by BB Warrior on Oct 23, 2023 12:31:31 GMT
A completely straw man argument. Nobody is saying that competitions should be designed for people to lose. They're saying that there should be a better selection of competitions tailored towards the different ability levels in the game. Hello Joe, I sincerely hope that nobody took my comment about the winner being the person that loses the most games at all seriously, that was said entirely tongue-in-cheek and basically was to highlight the fact that it would be wrong to remove players from a competition simply because they are good enough to be selected for the England team. I do totally agree with you that a wider selection of competitions aimed at all players (rather than simply the best) would almost certainly attract more entries and I pointed out a couple of options to enable this to happen further down in my previous post - highlighted below. There are answers that could make a difference.... The AEBBA Challenger Event opened up a new competition for players to participate who would probably not have the opportunity to win a national title. It is a shame that this event was not held this year and I hope it will return next year. (In a previous post, I did suggest that another form of Challenger Event could be introduced at our County Opens. I do understand that would be difficult (perhaps impossible) to run as a "Secondary Plate" competition, the logistics or sorting the players out to put them into the correct competition and include tables for an unknown quatity of players, are probably impossible for the organisers on the day. But, is it possible to run a stand-alone Challenger Event alongside (or on the same weekend) as a County Open? That may help towards the cost of table hire and trophies and maybe would also encourage a few of the Challenger competitors to play in the main open as well? I would like to see that given a try at some stage in the future?) The WBBA Events have also been mentioned on this thread a couple of times.... however there has never been any publicity of the Forum about these events taking place and certainly nothing included on the calendar to let players know the dates for upcoming WBBA Events.
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Post by Chris on Oct 23, 2023 17:17:37 GMT
Dear Dave
Lorin runs WBBA. It is his choice whether he wants a thread on here, especially as he has a perfectly, very well put together website himself, so why would he ?
KT asked me about whether it would be okay to put something on the Hants site to see if Hants players were interested, of course it is.
I personally believe that the formats Lorin uses caters to all, recognises all and gives all the opportunity to feel proud of their achievements. It is the first truly inclusive format that means all can win something.
Schools teach the skills and rules, knowledge of a sport, they then encourage competitive games but also encourage the taking part. Lorin has something here that schools could learn from, where all feel valued, yet talent can shine at all levels.
I believe that there is little incentive to enter many competitions as they are full of the elite, whom will win most events.
No one is suggesting that it be about losers winning. It is though about thinking about all, the distance travelled for many and the incentive that all could win something whether Elite or not.
Thanks Chris
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Post by joefoxon on Oct 24, 2023 8:57:10 GMT
For me, it's not even about wanting to go and win the whole thing, it's just about having the opportunity to play a few competitive games, not just lose 40k-0 and 20k-0 and go home at 11:45. It just goes to show how elitist the mindset is when people assume the lower players are just crying because they don't get something shiny, and is exactly why the NBBA didn't see the value in continuing our membership (as well as the sheer distance to most competitions).
I'd perhaps like to see something resembling a group stage whereby the higher seeded players all play in the same group but are just playing for later round seeding, while the lower seeded players get to play against each other, but with elimination in play if they don't finish highly enough. The higher seeded players get more practice against each other, the lower seeded players get more chances to play close games and they still get the "reward" of playing a higher seeded player if they win their group. It would effectively exclude higher seeded players from Plates, as they'd be guaranteed to reach the later stages (but maybe as 10th seed and have to play against the 7th seed if 16 went through for example).
Such a format would look a bit like this:
Seeded Groups 1-4 All four players advance to last 32
Unseeded Groups 5-12 (assuming 48 players) Top two players advance to last 32, bottom two players to Plate (16 players)
Last 32 - Losers to Plate with 16 unseeded 3rd and 4th place
If more than 16 Elite players enter, then the format can be changed to allow maybe 36 players to advance.
If it was an Open and time didn't allow a group stage, how about something like the FA Cup, where the Premier League and Championship teams qualify for the third round directly? First three rounds of losers drop to the plate, and anyone that gets to the fourth round is Cup only?
What about a "Super League" or "Champions League"-style competition, where the Elite players still attend every event as usual, but compete amongst themselves over a full season instead of just playing for one off prizes (they'd still be available, but also further prizes for those outside the elite tier)? Elite players eliminated in the first round could then enter a later round in the normal Cup so it doesn't take away the chances of non-Elite players to meet them. Players that finish low-ranked in the season would "drop out" and the previous season's Open winners would qualify for the following year. It wouldn't force Elite players to attend every event, as it could just use something like the Grand Prix rankings to sort out the top 32. The non-Elite players would compete amongst themselves for a chance to make the top table the following year, or failing that, have a few good runs at competitions, maybe a last 16, a semi-final, then a quarter-final. A fantastic season for someone at my level.
Let's remember, if nobody ever changes anything, then nothing will ever change.
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Post by NigelS on Oct 24, 2023 11:54:41 GMT
If it was an Open and time didn't allow a group stage, how about something like the FA Cup, where the Premier League and Championship teams qualify for the third round directly? First three rounds of losers drop to the plate, and anyone that gets to the fourth round is Cup only? If I am still considered an elite player.....I would be quite happy to have a walkthrough past the first couple of rounds of every open.......
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Post by joefoxon on Oct 24, 2023 12:08:10 GMT
If it was an Open and time didn't allow a group stage, how about something like the FA Cup, where the Premier League and Championship teams qualify for the third round directly? First three rounds of losers drop to the plate, and anyone that gets to the fourth round is Cup only? If I am still considered an elite player.....I would be quite happy to have a walkthrough past the first couple of rounds of every open....... I think being 4th in the current rankings would certainly put you in the Elite category!
It might not always work out as being possible to go straight to Round 3, but it could mean at least skipping the first round. With 50 players, if the 14 highest ranked players got straight to round 2, then it'd leave 36 players competing for the remaining 18 places. The four lowest-scoring losers play in Round 1 of the plate, then 16 round 1 losers remain plus 16 round 2 losers.
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Post by JB on Oct 24, 2023 13:45:16 GMT
Joe have you considered running a Notts open? You could use your ideas and formats. If it was successful and got an increase in entry numbers (not just local) and shown the formats worked, it may give organisers of other opens food for thought.
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Post by joefoxon on Oct 24, 2023 13:58:12 GMT
Joe have you considered running a Notts open? You could use your ideas and formats. If it was successful and got an increase in entry numbers (not just local) and shown the formats worked, it may give organisers of other opens food for thought. I have, and I'd love to be able to do so, but sadly the committee not continuing to support our AEBBA membership means it's unlikely such an event would get off the ground.
If there'd still be a possibility to do so as an Associate member rather than a fully affiliated County, then it's certainly something I'd look at again. We're due a WBBA event in Nottingham some time next year, which I imagine will be confirmed around Christmas so people can prepare, so could either suggest such a format to Lorin, or look at holding an additional separate competition.
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Post by JB on Oct 24, 2023 14:01:15 GMT
You don’t have to be affiliated to run your own open
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Post by joefoxon on Oct 24, 2023 14:02:30 GMT
True, although my understanding is that you do need to be affiliated to have use of the competition tables, but I may be mistaken?
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Post by BB Warrior on Oct 24, 2023 20:20:54 GMT
Certainly some new ideas there from Joe, on first viewing it looked a bit complicated but having read it again, it would probably be fairly easy to actually put into effect.
My only real reservation about it would be about the ranking and Grand Prix points that the Open competitions get, the further you go the more points you gain which is obviously the right thing to do. However, if the top ranked players automatically get a free route through the early rounds before then meeting a "qualifier" in the last 32, would that not mean they immediately get extra points just by entering a competition?
My concern about that is that it could then make it even harder for players who are below the top 16 to break into those places, potentially leading to an almost "closed shop" for those currently at the top of the rankings, grand prix qualification and England team?
Obviously, having "seeded" players and teams in many sports is common, but personally I have always liked the random draws in Bar Billiards as it often leads to some big games in the first round and also sometimes offers "non-elite" players the opportunity to progress further if they are drawn in a weaker section of the draw.
But, we do need to consider different options if we do want to attract more people to participate and I would certainly enter a Nottingham Open if either of the formats suggested by Joe was to be used.
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