WPSA SNOOKER NEWSLETTER

by **POTUS** Sun 29 Dec 2019, 9:40 pm

New years Newsletter

Last 2 events it was brought to our attention and it became clear, that we have a major skill level difference between members of the WPSA. For lower skilled players it is no fun to simply lose every frame while their opponent makes a clearance if they leave a half chance. Vica versa we would argue that in the long run it can’t be fun for the better players either to just always compete unchallenged.

Therefore we are thinking of moving on a bit faster than anticipated to a competition form for our league formats with multiple divisions where people play for the championship title, promotion and relegation from one league between another and an inclusion of a cup tournament.

We would do this for our league season formats only, tournaments will remain to have different setups. We are also thinking of building in some safeguard rules to protect lower skilled players, for when snooker situations occur between players with a very different skill level, and some other situations

We imagine there are quite a few questions on how all this will work. We put together a little improvised Q&A about some of the most important topics and features. We will try to have a full rule list ready by the time the event starts. We ask that people actually read it this time, we know it might be long and boring but we try to cover every aspect with a clear set of rules, so that everyone is on the same page and problems and disputes are kept to a minimum or non existent...

Basically read this whole setup with your general football competition format around the world in mind. It will be somewhat experimental here and there and we may have to adjust some things “on the fly” but in the end we think we can create a fun balanced competition for everyone. I hope we can count on everyone their cooperation in this experiment to get a standard league format going.

How would these divisions take shape?
-We are looking to have 3 divisions.
-We are basically dividing the current WPSA group in 3 so that each division will have 4 players. example: https://challonge.com/wspatest
-All participants play their matches in their division. At the end of the season, players who are first in their division gets a promotion to the next division, the first place in division 1 doesn’t promote he can call himself the WPSA Champion.
-The players who are last in their division are looking at a relegation to the lower division at the end of the season, the last place in division 3 doesn’t relegate any further.

What if the player base expands after a season?
-We are looking to keep this aforementioned for our league formats combined in one Challonge event until the player base expands.
-The idea is to let every new member of the WPSA community start in Division 3.
-The number of people in each division will be reviewed every season to ensure a balance and expansion in division 1 and 2 based upon the number of people in the WPSA Community
-In effect it can be that in a season maybe 2 or more people promote and relegate.
-Division 3 can be bigger in terms of players, this depends on how many new people sign up. If division 3 is bigger than division 1 & 2, then it will break off from the combined challonge events.
-The cup tournament as a result will also break off, and both have to be seperate challonge events, everything is still to be considered as one whole.

What if the player base expands during the upcoming registration?
-If this is the case then we are simply speeding up last mentioned course of action explained in previous point. As a result all the division 3 players will have to register to a new setup for them.

How would the cup tournament work?
-After the regular season we intend to have a cup tournament in the form of a double elimination.
-The first two places in every division get to advance to the cup tournament following the regular season.
-The bracket where a player will end up in is determined by the place in the league they have achieved.

How do you determine who starts in which division for this first setup?
-Players will be placed in a division based upon past experience from the last 2 events, and the WPSA community leaderboard.

What are some of the safeguards mentioned to protect lower skilled players? And wouldn’t it affect the higher skilled players too much?
-We are planning to classify people in a certain category.
-When a lower skilled player meets a higher skilled players there will be some rules in effect regarding the snooker scenarios.
-An example: In a snooker situation between a lower and higher skilled player the lower skilled player has a max of 3 tries to get out of the snooker the higher skilled player put the lower skilled one in.
After that the higher skilled player is forced to play on, or force a play from current position on their lower skilled opponent.
Whereas the higher skilled player has a max of 6 tries to get out of the snooker a lower skilled player has put the higher skilled player in.
(note: numbers in this example are not finalized yet)
-This whole classification system gets reviewed and adjusted as players promote and relegate throughout the seasons.

Would the leagues become a monthly event? And what are some of the other events planned?
-We plan to have at least 4 league events in 2020
-We plan to have other extended events to the league such as the cup tournament and a supercup
-We also will have a World cup styled tournament with qualification matches to play to determine in what pot you end up in before the official draw etc…
-We plan to have a couple exclusive events as well, and our own little spin on the triple crown.
-We plan to have small events such as mini tournaments for players who just want to have a couple small games going for the day or evening but want to make it count on the WPSA Challonge community leaderboard
-Basically there will be no lack of snooker!

How would aiming guides work out in every division?
-On this issue no real clear course of action is taken yet. There are a couple ideas floating around though.
-From feedback we heard a lot that amateur is too easy and pro+ is too hard. Therefore we would argue to go in between and stay with Pro. Or let people just decide themselves although it would be nice to have a standard set or at least a fair and agreeable course of action
-Another idea is before every season starts to have a vote in the division on what guides are to be used.
-Another idea is to include it with the classification system where should a lower skilled player gets through to division 1 with all elite players, to still have a safeguard built in to at least ensure he can be competitive...[/size

[size=15]Will prizes remain a thing?
-Yes, although not every event will have prizes attached to it a majority still will.
-This upcoming January league event will have no prize attached to it, we do plan to give a small prize to the winner of the cup tournament though.
-We do hope that even when there is no prize money to be won players still continue to participate in these events.

When will the next event start?
-We plan to open up registration tomorrow 30th of December 2019 and registration will close on 5th of January 2020.

Are you guys getting a discord server soon?
-Although we are not a big fan of discord, and some of the members have no clue on how to use it, we might set one up, even if it's just for administration to have an extra platform to reach players who use this platform most of their time.
-We would encourage people to do the effort to get on our teamspeak 3 though.
Which has new address: 178.238.231.226

We hope what is explained here somewhat sounds logical and gives everyone an idea on how we plan to introduce these league formats. As said before, it will most likely need some adjustments here and there

especially when more players will join, but as we see it now it would only mean a little bit more administration.

We also plan to release a full calendar of all the planned 2020 events. We would encourage everyone that has ideas, remarks, or questions then do not hesitate to ask them and get the discussion going in this thread!

We hope everyone will have a good new year and we wish you all the best!