| Author |
idea for the new BPPPA tour |
|
glossopscratcher
Home away from home
Joined: 02-Sep-2006
Posts: 344
From: manchester
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 12:19
thought the EPT had the right idea before its unfortunate suspension. the pro/challenge tour, i think for the tour to progress there needs to be value for all players of all standards if the "pros" want to to play for bigger bucks, they should pay a bigger entry fee, with a smaller fee for the lesser standard of players who are trying to establish themselves in a game as most other players, i have a full time job and cant afford to spend £200 on a weekend just to be drawn against Peach, Gray, mark mills  and get beat 9-1 in first round. not bothered what anyone says but im not going to learn anything form that!! but id rather play against people of the same standard, with the chance of winning money etc. with this type of structure id feel you get a lot more people playing thats just my opinion any way : )
|
|
glossopscratcher
Home away from home
Joined: 02-Sep-2006
Posts: 344
From: manchester
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 12:23
what i meant to say aswell is that id rather play against people of the same standard because if there a progression route in the tour, after a season of playing against people of the same standard i will be match sharp and then will be more confident n a better player to take on the "pros" if u catch my drift!
|
|
Riggers
Home away from home
Joined: 30-Mar-2006
Posts: 4454
From: Barnsley (centre of the universe)
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:15
I agree. We need a tour where there is prestige and a sense of professionalism associated with being on it but at the same time give value to the top players as well as the mediocre / improving players. We need to recognise that players outside the top rankings want the opportunity to play the top players for experience and at the same time play people closer to their own ability where they have a more realistic chance of progressing. This is possible and a format that offers all of this is one of the ideas to be discussed.
We should also remember that there are lots of other events being staged independently outside the main tour that would be more appealing to beginners. This is all good news and I'm feeling very positive about the future.
|
|
glossopscratcher
Home away from home
Joined: 02-Sep-2006
Posts: 344
From: manchester
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:20
yeah defianetly but at the same the lesser players including myself, want to say " im player on the no 1 uk 9 ball tour"
but like u said there needs to be value for everyone, because at the moment it suits the top players,
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:25
If it's a professional tour then it shouldn't cater for every standard, only the professional level.
If people don't like spending a lot of money for a tournament only to lose in the first round then they shouldn't enter until they are good enough.
I've been playing 9 ball for 6 months now and have only played in 2 BPPPA events, both of which I didn't do very well in and lost in the first couple of rounds.
I'm happy to pay the costs as playing decent players will improve my game and experience. When I couldn't afford to play in these events, I didn't and stuck to local tournaments.
|
|
matej
Quite a regular
Joined: 22-Jun-2007
Posts: 42
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:33
If there are 2 leagues. All players can play in top league if they want and pay for it. But top players should be alowes to play in second league.
In this kind of leagues maybe even bpppa can make some money. And there would be bigger prices. Because second league would fill the budget for the top league. Because they need awards but not like the first league so that leaves something for top players. But first argue you will have who is top league and not. Who can play or not. Here sport director has to say and stanb by his decision.
|
|
SkyBlueJim
Home away from home
Joined: 16-Jan-2007
Posts: 328
From: Coventry
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:34
Good shout JonnyJP
|
|
matej
Quite a regular
Joined: 22-Jun-2007
Posts: 42
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:34
Believe me it works
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:43
How would you determine who plays in the top league? Top 16? Top 32? Top 64? This would put Tony Drago in the bottom league, which would be a joke!
The only shake up that is needed is to try and get the events spread around the country (as opposed to just Manchester) and maybe drop the entry fee to encourage more players.
Dropping the fee for non-members will bring more people to the events. Prize money for non-members should stay the same, they just wont get any recongition on the tour.
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:45
And by no recognition, I mean no ranking points, no invitation to the IPT or other qualifiers that may be on offer
|
|
Riggers
Home away from home
Joined: 30-Mar-2006
Posts: 4454
From: Barnsley (centre of the universe)
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 13:49
On 2007-06-29 13:20 , glossopscratcher Wrote:!!! QUOTE !!! yeah defianetly but at the same the lesser players including myself, want to say " im player on the no 1 uk 9 ball tour" ... Which is great but it's a professional tour where there should be prestige associated with being on it. There will be no prestige if any Tom, thingy or Harry can just turn up to the odd event and pay their entry fee. It's possible to strike a balance where everybody wins and this is one of the ideas being considered. For me the principle objectives for the tour are: - Prestige and recognition for tour members. - Value for different skill levels. - Meaningful rankings and rightful cudos / celebrity status for top players. - Even geographical distribution of events. - Fewer events but full weekend 'festival of pool' atmosphere at each. - Guaranteed prize money (not like an open, which is dependant on number of runners). - Start realistic but with long term goals for continual improvement.
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:02
I agree Riggers.
The snooker system works quite well by having a pro tour and the merit tour. The BPPPA might want to consider this approach instead of splitting the pro tour in two. That way, prize money, ranking points etc can easily be worked out without screwing up the main system.
The pro tour should be made up by anyone who's paid the full membership fee and will have higher prize money and entry fees. The merit tour will be anyone else with no membership fees, only entry fees. Then the top players on the merit tour earn a place on the pro tour and don't need to pay membership.
Any 'pro' who isn't happy with losing all the time can just move to the merit tour (but not play in both).
|
|
-boyzi-
Just can't stay away
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 86
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:07
friday night till sunday.
1=pro event for top 16 or 32
2=amature event for rest of players
3=main tour everyone plays on this..
every1 is a winner
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:11
Another thing, bottom losers in the pro tour will be forced to the merit tour. This will help keep the prestige by filtering out the lower quality.
The pro tour should have a limit of, say 128 players, that will be the best in the uk. Once the merit tour has started, only the current pro's can be members by renewing their memberships(i.e. no more people paying their way onto the pro tour).
For example, theres 213 pro players. If you relegate, say, the bottom 23, this will limit the tour to 192 (with 2 coming up from the merit tour). Shove the rest on the merit tour.
At the end of next season, relegate the lowest 34, limitting the tour to 160 (with another 2 coming up).
Keep doing this until there's a decent balance of good quality pro's and enough to support the merit league. I reckon 128 pro's will be sufficient.
|
|
thecure-figurehead
Just can't stay away
Joined: 10-Mar-2007
Posts: 79
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:13
How could one achieve celebrity status? Let it go on record that I have seen many great cueists in my time – Dando, Key, Peach, Bird, Jones, Hundial, Baker, Rollingson, Worthington, Oldbury …to name but a few. The closest any of those got to celebrity was when one of them appeared as an accidental extra walking his dog in the background on a hardcore porno film set. His wife saw it and thought he was part of the show and divorced him. It was front page news and he was elevated to celebrity status (locally). Course we can all look back on it now and laugh but at the time… I’m getting off topic anyway…point is to achieve celebrity status as "just a darn good cueist" is difficult. [ This message was edited by: thecure_figurehead on 2007-06-29 14:18 ]
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:14
Boyzi, good idea but this wouldn't work. This would take too long to complete in a weekend. If it started on a Friday, this is when most players would be travelling down. We can't have every Friday off work!
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:18
You'd get celebrity status if it was on mainstream TV. But then this will need a larger following for someone like the BBC to pick it up, something which will only happen once the tour is sorted out.
|
|
thecure-figurehead
Just can't stay away
Joined: 10-Mar-2007
Posts: 79
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:20
On 2007-06-29 14:18 , JonnyJP Wrote:!!! QUOTE !!! You'd get celebrity status if it was on mainstream TV. But then this will need a larger following for someone like the BBC to pick it up, something which will only happen once the tour is sorted out. It wasn't screened on mainstream tv. [ This message was edited by: thecure_figurehead on 2007-06-29 14:29 ]
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:21
'If you've got money and can travel then you can be a top 20 player'.
True, but I would only class myself as a top player if I could seriously compete with Gray, Peach, Drago, Hundal, Majid etc (sorry, new to BPPPA so haven't picked out any other quality players yet!).
|
|
JonnyJP
Quite a regular
Joined: 25-Jun-2007
Posts: 43
|
Posted: 2007-06-29 14:22
I didn't think it would be mainstream tv!
I meant if BBC or someone was showing the tournaments, then the top players would soon become celebrities. I'm sure the ratings would be pretty decent too.
Well, it worked for the losers on Big Brother
|
