9-Ball
Topic: APN-Leagues 9-ball Leagues

They are back with a bang!

Full press release to follow with all details etc...

These are the 74 (to date) clubs thatwill be taking part as of January - this is with the FULL backing of Rileys Ltd head office. It has taken some time to get this together but we are sure it will be a massive success and a step in the right direction for UK 9-ball pool.

Club List

Scotland

Rileys Aberdeen (Chapel Street)
Rileys Glasgow (Ledard Road)
Rileys Greenock
Rileys Kirkintilloch
Rileys Stirling

North East

Rileys Hull (Alfred Gelder St)
Rileys Leeds
Rileys Doncaster
Rileys Rotherham
Rileys Scarborough
Rileys Sunderland
Rileys Stockton-on-Tees

North West

Rileys Blackpool
Rileys Bolton
Rileys Lancaster
Rileys Manchester (Deansgate)
Rileys Oldham
Rileys Preston
Rileys Wigan

South Manchester and Sheffield

Rileys Crewe
Rileys Rugeley
Rileys Sheffield (Mansfield Road)
Rileys Stafford
Rileys Stoke (Hanley)
Rileys Stretford
Rileys Chesterfield
Rileys Barnsley

West Midlands

Rileys Birmingham
Rileys Derby (Babington Lane)
Rileys Mansfield
Rileys Nottingham
Rileys Solihull
Rileys Wolverhampton

South Midlands

Rileys Coventry (Hertford Place)
Q Bar Leicester
Rileys Leicester
Rileys Northampton (Gold St)
Peterborough Q Club
Rileys Rugby

South West and Wales

Rileys Cardiff (City Road)
Rileys Exeter
Suzy Q Gloucester
Rileys Newport
Rileys Weston-Super-Mare
Rileys Yate

South Central

Rileys Bournemouth
Rileys Bracknell
Rileys Brighton
Rileys Guildford
Rileys Oxford
Rileys Reading

North London & East Anglia

Rileys Harlow
Rileys Luton (Park St)
Rileys St Albans
Rileys Watford 147
Rileys Stevenage
Rileys Victoria
Rileys Walthamstow
Rileys Wealdstone (Harrow)
Rileys Ipswich
Rileys Norwich

South London

Rileys Clapham
Rileys Croydon (Frith Road)
Rileys Lewisham
Rileys Shepherds Bush
Rileys Sutton
Rileys Twickenham
Play Bexleyheath

South East

Rileys Basildon
Rileys Colchester
Rileys Hastings
Suzy Q Maidstone
Route 66 Southend-on-Sea
Rileys Stanford-Le-Hope

Further details will hopefully appear on Pro9 soon but for now go here:

www.americanpool-network.co.uk

Wowee! Great job Pete and Andy! I look forward to publishing the press releases/results!

Cheers Big Dave! It has been a lot of hardwork over the last 2-3 months to get this on. There will be £5000.00 guaranteed at next years Nationals as well.

I will get that Press release over this week

I'm really interested in playing in this but for anyone with no previous experience of the competition the informaiton provided is very confusing and sparse.

There is absolutely no information on the format of the competition. Who plays who? When? How many matches do you play? Do you all play on one night? How do you know who you are supposed to be playing?

Even the information sent to clubs is rubbish! Just a load of marketing material telling you how much it costs to enter and what the benefits are but NOTHING explaining what happens next after you register. Come on APN! This is never going to take off unless you properly explain to people how it will work and when they will be expected to play.

If anyone is able to shed any light on this or direct me to a web page that properly explains this competition I'd really appreciate it.

Good call riggers.

I run a weekly tournament in my local club (Rileys Chapel Street Aberdeen), but would be willing to give it up if the APN is the way forward.

But we need more information so we can distribute to the players, to gauge interest in the camp.

Would Rileys staff be running the leagues?

I'm intrigued....

Yeh, the more I think about it the more questions I have and my fellow players will have too before they part with their £35.

Is that £35 up front? It doesn't sound a lot to regular competitive pool players but to recreational club players it sounds an awful lot. I canvassed amongst club regulars last year and only 1 or 2 were prepared to part with the £20 then!

Good point guys I will go someway to explain here, in my efforts to get the info out there I have forgotten the basics - apologies for that.

It would be run on one night of the week (up to the club in question) for up to a max of 12 weeks per "mini-season".

You will play each player in your league twice throughout the session in a race to 9 alternate break match.

All league fixtures, tables and handicaps are handled by APN. The only thing clubs are responsible for is collecting results and all entry fees. They also help us (as do the players) to ty and get handicaps correct as we can not be everywhere.

The winner of each league (and each league session - there are three in a year) will quaify direct to the nationals.

A proportion of the remaining players wll be invited for a second chance at each of the regional championships.

I am stopping here because I realise the post is already huge.

I will post something later with links to each of the points made.

Anymore questions please fire away

Yes it is £35.00 up front, however, tables are on free play and the £35.00 equates to around £1.45 per hour across the 12 weeks.

You are getting regular match play plus players have the chance to win more than their money back and qualify for a £5000 national finals.

Thanks for that Pete.

I'll have a word with the manager at my club & see what we can come up with.
I'm sure we would get at least 6 players, as your prize structure says, but is there a limit to the amount of players in each league?
Also, would you be basing the results over 12 weeks, or would you pick the best 10 scores out of 12?
I say this as we used to run a league before based on 10 weeks, with best 8 scores counting to allow for guys who work offshore and holidays etc...

All results do count but I may need to speak with you directly about that. The limit is based on the size of the club (we work to twice the number of tables). If there were more registered then we would work around it and that is for us to do.

What's the definition of a league? A club or group of clubs?

What's the min players that can play in a league?

Who do you pay your money to? And if it transpires there is not enough interest to form a league where you are, do you get your money back?

When does it start / finish?

Who decides which night of the week it's to be run on?

What's in it for Rileys? Sounds to me like this could just result in me & my few mates playing a race to 9 against each other, like we do most nights anyway, and getting free table on one of those nights! Can't see my club manager being too impressed with that!

A league is a group of players within a club.

The minimum number of players is 6.

Money is paid to Rileys with an entry form. I there is not enough runners then you will get a full refund.

Starts week beginning January 15th (But specific date is down to club) and runs or a max of 12 weeks.

The club decide what night of the week.

As for whats in it for Rileys that is a business decision and not for discussion in a forum. We have the full backing of the Operations and Commercial Director at Rileys.

That sounds fair enough Pete.

I'll have a word with our local manager tomorrow night & I'll see who will be interested from the band of players I currently have on a Monday night tournament.

Thanks Pete, now we're really getting somewhere.

It does sound like an amount of coordination effort is required at club level so who does this? You say fixtures handled by APN but how are these communicated to players? You can't assume everyone has internet access. So how do players know who they play each week, how many matches they play and what time it all starts? Do they use score sheets? How do they find out each other handicaps? Sorry, these sound like very basic questions but we need to know the fundamental stuff.


It sounds to me like you need a coordinator at each club.

Question is fair enough but players will receive a pack at the beginning of their league with all fixures and APN-Leagues rules. These will also have the initial handicaps on them.

Hope the handicaps aren't as stupid as last year

On 2006-12-13 17:39 , 412-414 Wrote:

Can you clarify the basis of this comment please as I didn't play last year?

Thanks.

On 2006-12-13 17:39 , 412-414 Wrote:

Can you clarify the basis of this comment please as I didn't play last year?

Thanks.

Handicaps worked in 2 ways. You would either give a 1,2 or 3 rack start and most players didn't have to pot all the balls. Some players would only need to pot 4 consecutive balls so a rack could be over with 5 balls left, this included fluked balls by the way.

Both of the handicap systems worked side by side. So last year an average game for me was giving a 3 rack start and the other guy had to pot 6/7 balls. NOT EASY.

When i told APN what a pathetic system it was, their reply was that if you're a good enough player you will win anyway. Its still too tough thou. Only one of the systems should be used its just so stupid to combine them.

Another point made by APN was that even if you do lose a couple of games you will still qualify for the knock out stage (top 4 qualified) which maybe is a fair point, BUT THEN THEY KEPT THE STUPID SYSTEM IN THE KNOCKOUT STAGES!!! I've got to say that it was a big big big shambles last time. Please make it fair to everyone this time please.

Oh one more thing. They judge your handicap level as the league progresses WHICH DOESN'T WORK. Last year i played the worst 2 players in my league first and beat them both heavily. At the next session my handicap had been put up to maximum. Then when i played any half decent player i couldn't afford a single mistake.

This really is my last point (for now). When you are playing someone who doesn't need to pot all the balls you are not playing 9ball. You are constantly making sure the next few balls are tough rather than playing the game how it should be played. It was like putting a colour safe in snooker when you've just knocked in a 50 break.

I really could go on and on about it i really could.