State Trials

[UPDATED]: Please note that the Round 2 groupings were re-adjusted about two hours after they were first emailed, please check that you have the latest version.

Hi all

Well, my final tournament has kicked off in style with a tight round of the Open Singles this weekend gone.

Of the 11 groups that competed, 4th was decided by a playoff in two of them, with a further 7 decided by 1 frame! Only group 11 was clear cut, with a massive 4 frame gap between 4th and 5th. As for the other group...

We had the unfortunate situation this week of being left with a group of 4. Well, not unfortunate for the 4 who then got a free pass to round 2, but I guess unfortunate for the rest of us battling through a group of 8 or 9 only to miss out by one frame after 7 hours of eight ball. (Curse that missed black in round 1!!!!)

I know circumstances change and people can't always make their group, but I only ask that if you know you will be unavailable, please call either myself or Matt Power before the weekend to inform us. While we won't be able to help with switching your day of play, we can at least look at moving players around to keep it a level playing field. Think about how you felt at 6 o'clock on the weekend knowing a group of 4 had played. I know I was pretty p***ed off on the day.

All that being said, there were a few players who did the right thing and let us know in advance, so thank you to them.

Moving on, well done to all players who played this weekend. And congratulations to the players who qualified for Round 2. This weekend sees the seeds 33-65 join the fray with our 44 qualifiers. A bumper round 2 of 77 players has been split into 9 groups this weekend, again with the top 4 qualifying.

Please find attached results from round 1 and the groups for round 2.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Singles_Round1_Results.xls

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Singles_Round2_Groups.xls

[UPDATED Jun 16, 14:48]

Hi all

Again - apologies for the delay in finalising these groups. The extra players I missed actually would have created a group of 10, so to alleviate this we now have a 65th seed (Phil Bryan) who will join in Round 2 with seeds 33-64.

You will notice that a few players have changed groups - however only two have actually changed their day of play. This was unavoidable in the process of adding the additional players.

Please see attached for final groups and venues.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Singles_Round1_Groups.xls

Regards

Chris Jones


Please find attached the groups for round 1 of the Open Singles. Venues will be confirmed in the next few days, but thought you might like to at least see when and who you were playing.

Don't forget that the top 64 seeds have the first week off.

Play will start at 11am for all groups, with tables open from 10.30am for practice. If you are not present WHEN THE FIRST FRAME OF THE DAY IS CALLED you will be disqualified, unless you have notified either your adjudicator, myself or Matt Power PRIOR to play commencing - with a GOOD excuse. "I slept in" does not count as a good excuse.

Play will be four round robins, so for the groups of 9, this does mean 32 frames. Please be mindful of the need to shorten breaks between play by checking with your adjudicator FIRST before you go for a smoke, take a toilet break or try and squeeze in a bite to eat. You will find they are usually accomodating.

On that note, while we encourage you to purchase food from the venues that are supporting us, please be aware that a full sit down meal that takes you half an hour to eat is not fair on the other players. If you
are happy to come and go from your food then by all means order whatever you like.

Remember that at all times the adjudicator is in control of the group, so be ready to play at all times if they need you to. Adjudicators also have the final say in any close decisions or rulings that may come up through the day, so please call them over if you have any queries.

Other than that, good luck to all players this weekend in what is our largest tournament of the year. Again - venues to be confirmed in the next few days.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Singles_Round1_groups.xls

The 2011 ACT Masters Singles is being held this weekend at The Maram.

With 17 entries this year, we are continuing with the format of splitting the field into two groups of 8 and 9, with seedings based on last year's results. Each group will play 4 round robins instead of the 3 trialled last year.

The Top 4 from each group qualify for the Top 8 to be played on the Sunday. At the end of the Top 8, the Top 4 qualifiers will receive invitations to the 2011 ACT Masters Team, while the Top 2 will play a race to 5 Final for the 2011 ACT Masters Singles Title.

Play commences at 11am on both days, with tables open from 10.30 for practice.

Good luck to all players this weekend.
http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Masters_Singles_Round1_Groups.xls

Regards
Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director

The final round for selection in the 2011 ACT Ladies Team was held this weekend at The Maram. The field included defending Champion Nicole Welsh, as well as former Ladies Singles Champions Cindy Blackmore, Theresa Whitten and Lesieli O’Connor. Backing up from last year’s Top 12 were Michelle Massey, Penny Foudoulis, Heather Robertson and Jennifer Everett. Ann Peffer, Kathy Harmon and Theresa Skipper made welcome returns to the Top 12, while Tammie Ashlin was the sole newcomer.

With 6 of last year’s brilliant Ladies Team in the field, as well as the player who withdrew due to injury, the quality of the Top 12 was as high as ever. With the Top 4 to qualify for next week’s State Title Top 4 Shootout, and the Top 7 to be offered places in the 2011 ACT Ladies State Team, the format for the weekend was four round robins of 11 frames apiece, for a total of 44 frames. That’s a lot of pool…
Continue reading "State Trials: 2011 Ladies ... »

[UPDATE]:

I missed a player in the draw for round1, so the groups have changed slightly to accommodate her.

My apologies, but everyone is still at the same venue at the same time, so hopefully this doesn't cause any inconvenience.

Attached are the revised groups.

-----

Groups for Round 1 of the 2011 Ladies Singles are now available:

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Ladies_Singles_Round1_Groups.xls

Play commences at 11am, tables will be open from 10.30.

Good luck to all competitors!

This past weekend The Maram hosted the first round of the 22nd ACTEBA Ladies Doubles Tournament, with 10 pairs competing. These included 8 time champions Cindy Blackmore & Nicole Welsh, who have won the past 4 editions, 5 time finalist and 2006 champion Kylie Power, paired this year with 3 time finalist and 2003 champion Kathy Harmon, and 6 time finalist and 2006 Champion Les O’Connor, who paired with 2 time runner up Ann Peffer.

Leading the challengers were the returning Jo Lowry (2007 Ladies Champion) with last year’s Ladies Singles Runner Up (and 2000 Champion) Theresa Whitten, State Team Members Heather Robertson & Penny Foudoulis and long time partners Alison Murphy & Theresa Skipper. Rounding out the strong field were mother and daughter team Alisha & Margaret Auva’a, Jennifer Everett & Tammie Ashlin and the 4 Maram Harlequins girls, Anita Robertson & Rebecca Billington and Melissa Kelly & Michelle McMahon.
Continue reading "2011 ACTEBA Ladies Doubles ... »

Hi all

My apologies for the late notice - I have been without a computer for most of the week.

The Ladies Doubles IS on this weekend at The Maram. Start time is 11am both days, with tables open at 10.30am.

It will be a four round robin, with two rounds to be played each day. The Top 4 will be scheduled on another day.

The pairs are:

Alison Murphy & Theresa Skipper
Alisha Auva'a & Margaret Auva'a
Anita Robertson & Rebecca Billington
Ann Peffer & Lesieli O'Connor
Cindy Blackmore & Nicole Welsh
Jo Lowry & Theresa Whitten
Kathy Harmon & Kylie Power
Michelle McMahon & Melissa Kelly
Penny Foudoulis & Heather Robertson
Tammie Ashlin & Jennifer Everett

Good luck to all players this weekend.

Regards

Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director
0403 545 619

Hi all

We are nearly at the end of the 2011 Open Doubles, with only next weekend’s Top 12 still to play. Whilst Round 3 saw three fairly clear cut top 3’s, Group 3 proved incredibly tight.

Although two pairs of the six dropped back after 2 rounds, and Brent Hampton & Jason Tanaskovic had jumped clear, the remaining three pairs looked tight at 6, 6, and 5 wins at halfway. The pair on 5 managed one extra win in round 3 and they all sat on 8 frames at the end of round 3, with only 2 spots available. Incredibly, they all then shot 3 in the last round, taking one frame each off the opposing two pairs.

A three way playoff followed, but with Paul Andonaros & Soorage Ahadizad falling in the first two matches, it gave Semisi Naupoto & Nicole Welsh and Phil & Andy Bailey the final spots in next week’s top 12.

Full results and list of qualifiers for next week’s final round are attached. With 7 of the top 12 seeds remaining, it will be a tough weekend. Only 3 of last year’s Top 12 line up again this year, with Mongrel & Mick Norton, Nicole & Misi, and Peter Penfold & Peter Madden, the first two backing up from making the Top 4 in 2010, Pete and Pete being runners up in 2008. But five of the other pairs contain players from the last top 12, including defending champion Dean Welsh.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round3_Results.xls

All up, it will be a great weekend of doubles, with two full round robins to be played on the Saturday, followed by a third round robin and the finals on the Sunday.

The finals format is as follows:

Round 1 race to 4
1 v 2 (winner straight to final)
3 v 4 (loser disqualified)

Preliminary Final race to 5
Loser of 1v2 v Winner of 3v4 (winner to final)

State Final race to 6

Well done to all the players who participated in this year’s Open Doubles, and good luck to our final 12 pairs this weekend.

Regards
Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director
0403 545 619

Hi all

Due to exceptional circumstances, it has become necessary to amend the groups and format for Round 3 of the Open Doubles.

Whilst all care is usually taken to accommodate player's preference for days of play, it is routinely observed that after Round 1 no promises can be made. After much deliberation, we finalised the groups yesterday with the knowledge that one or two pairs may be inconvenienced by their awarded day of play. Unfortunately there have been a large number of pairs who have since found they are unable to attend on the day they were scheduled.

This has left us with an unprecedented number of players withdrawing due to unavailability and creating a severe imbalance in the groups and potentially creating a Top 12 which is far removed from quality it should be. This makes it unfair on the players who are left with a full complement of players in their group and gives an unfair advantage to those with a vastly reduced group.

I accept that we have had numerous withdrawals in a group in recent years, but given the advance notice and, again, the large number of withdrawals we have this week it was decided to try and avoid this.

Matt Power and myself have spent much of the last two days attempting to accommodate the players who are unavailable, but have been unable to come to a satisfactory solution that will allow all players to participate while maintaining parity within the groups.

In the Tournament's best interests, therefore, we have decided to amend the format of Round 3. This will now be contested in 4 groups of 6 players, with the top 3 in each group qualifying for the Top 12. It will be contested over 4 round robins, not three, so it is now 20 frames, not 21, a change of 1 frame. All groups will now be held at The Maram, two groups each day.

Please be aware that this is not a decision that we have come to lightly, nor is it our preferred format, and advice and approval was sought and received from the Core Executive before moving ahead with this action. We have also not made this amendment to appease any player or players, but felt that it was in everyone's best interests to allow all qualifying players to participate only due to the large number it will affect.

Note that these are exceptional circumstances and it is highly unlikely that these conditions will apply again in an ACTEBA Tournament. The normal rules of no guarantees of preferred days of play after round 1 will still be enforced in future tournaments.

Please find attached the revised groups and note that no further changes will be possible under any circumstances.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round3_Groups_UPDATE.xls

Regards

Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director
0403 545 619

Hi all

Please find below the groups for Round 3 of the Open Doubles.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round3_Groups.xls

While I am aware I am normally quite accommodating, please aware that it will be impossible to adjust these groups if you can't play on the day you have been allocated.

Good luck to all players this weekend, and to those not still in there, pop on down to one of the venues to see some great doubles.

Regards

Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director
0403 545 619

[UPDATE: Full results are now available, click the link below to download.]

Hi all

I have in the results from 4 of the 6 groups that played this weekend. Sorry – but working to 11.30pm on a Sunday doesn’t give me much time to chase up the others! I will send them out as soon as I get them, and obviously this will delay the groups for next weekend but hopefully only by half a day!

Last week I mentioned that a team was close to remaining undefeated for the entire day, so I have done a bit of research into the results I have – which are 2007 onwards – to see what the best performances have been to date. There have been no dominating doubles pairs but a few singles rounds stood out as pretty bloody damn good. (By the way, I am sure Matt Power will have input for this as his records go back a long way…)

In the 2009 Singles, David Kilpatrick shot 24/4 in round 1, while then ACTEBA President Doug Percy almost matched him by shooting 23/5, but this was in round 2, so had a bit more weight to it. 2010 saw a string of high scores in round 1, with Pete Smith hitting 20/4, Simon Wade 21/3, and Neil Whitbread 23/5. Sterling Cross smashed 27/5 in round 2 while Matt Harmon entered the fray as a seed in round 3 by hitting 21/3.

But the two best performances I have on record dwarf all of these.

First of all, take a crack at Adam Marlow shooting 25/3 in round 4 – that’s right, round 4, the top 32 – on his way to a state final that year. Not even Steven Woods or Matt Harmon have nailed scores like those that late in the trials.

Then let’s look at Kenny Nicol’s 2010 Singles efforts. Kenny’s scores for the first three rounds were 20/4, 23/5 and 21/7. This gave him a win/loss record of 64/16, or an incredible 80%! Mind you, it’s probably been a while since Kenny had to play the rest of us mere mortals. I shudder to think what the seeds would do to us if they all had to play round one…

Special mention does have to go to Mike Stanker, who shot 18/14 in a group of 9 one year but still finished 5th and missed out on getting through! This is the highest amount of wins a player has achieved without qualifying for the next round. I won’t mention lowest scores because I’m pretty sure one of my efforts is in there somewhere…

WELL, this has all been leading up to something. At 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, Group 1 of the 2011 Open Doubles Round 2 commenced at the Labor Club. By 5 o’clock that afternoon, the players had dispersed having seen Matt Power and Dean Welsh annihilate their group to tune of 20 wins and only ONE loss. That’s 95.24%. That’s going through a full season, playing 4 frames every week, and only losing 3 frames. That’s hitting 5 sixes in a row and having the last ball bounce a metre inside the boundary. That’s scoring a try every 5 minutes but getting one disallowed because of a forward pass. That’s having a tee shot on a par 4 finish an inch from the cup. That’s having… ok I’m done.

Well done to Matt and Dean on a great day’s play. We are still searching for that elusive perfect day but I am sure it will be a long time before their effort is matched. Seriously – ONE LOSS in a whole day of eight ball? How is anyone that good? And I haven’t even mentioned that Matt and Dean had by far the toughest group of the six...

In other news, Group 3 proved the closest of the day, with only 5 frames separating 1st from 8th.

Hopefully I will get the missing results early and can send them out, but until then, enjoy the attachment.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round2_Results.xls

Hi all

Please find below the groups for round 2. Good luck to all players this weekend.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round2_Groups.xls

Regards

Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director
0403 545 619

Hi all

With the 2010 Divisional Championships and 9 Ball been and gone, this weekend marked the first round of the 2011 ACTEBA Eight Ball Trials Season. While this may be my last as Tournament Director, it doesn’t make it any less exciting. Yes I know I might seem like a nerd, but having you guys and gals smashing it out to fill my spreadsheets kind of gives me… ok I am a stats nerd.

A bloody tight first round was contested this weekend, with most groups going down to the wire. One actually spilled over to a three way play off (which me as an adjudicator loves cos I get to have another beer, but unfortunately it wasn’t my group).

Unfortunately we did have a few no-shows, which is pretty confusing given players only nominated 3 weeks ago, but it made it a quicker day for those groups affected, at least.

Before you jump to the attachment to see who was awesome and who was not, I saw a Sunday pair win 12 in a row, and just as I was asking if any player (singles or doubles) had gone through a round undefeated, this pair managed to lose their last three frames. So thanks for ruining my dream, unnamed pair!!!

Next week sees the seeds join the fray, so ladies and gentlemen – you thought this week was hard, wait till these buggers hit you.

Please find below results from round one, groups for round two will be out by Tuesday morning.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round1_results.xls

[UPDATE: 24/3: The two remaining groups will now be held at The Maram. And yes they have 12 tables so there will be 4 tables per group.]

Hi all

The Open Doubles Championship begins this weekend with Round One. With yet another bumper entry list of 78 pairs, we have decided to award seedings and first round byes to the Top 16 pairs.

This leaves 62 pairs for round one, which will be contested over 8 groups (6 x 8 and 2 x 7) with the top four qualifying for the second round. Each group will play three round robins against all other pairs
in the group.

Round Two sees the 16 seeds join the 32 qualifiers in 6 groups of 8, again 3 round robins with top 4 qualifying.

Round Three will be 3 groups of 8 play 3 round robins and the top 4 qualifying for the Top 12 Shootout.

The Top 12 Shootout will be held over two days, with all pairs playing two round robins on the Saturday, followed by a third round on Sunday. The Top 4 will then play a finals series of 1 v 2 and 3 v 4, with the winner of 1 v 2 making the final and the loser playing the winner of 3 v 4 to join them.

A few points, as always:

• PLAY COMMENCES AT 11AM FOR ALL GROUPS. If you are not present when the first frame of the day is called, then you will be automatically disqualified. If you have a legitimate reason for running
  late, call either myself or your adjudicator prior to 11am. Failure to do this will also result in disqualification.


• Be ready when your frame is called. The day goes long enough as it is, so if you are going for a smoke or to grab a feed, ask your adjudicator before you go, as they may need you to play again.


• There are no scheduled breaks for lunch, so arrange in advance with your adjudicator when is a good time to have a quick feed.


• As there are no referees on the day, be honest with your opponents as far as fouls go, sportsmanship etc.


• And finally, buy your adjudicator a drink.

The 16 seeds for the tournament are:

Ranking Names
1 Rony Sood & Michael Hazilias
2 Mick Norton & Ian Will
3 Semisi Naupoto & Nicole Welsh
4 Alessandro Nasca & Dragan Markovic
5 Matt Power & Dean Welsh
6 Anthony Chia & Colin Gamble
7 Peter Penfold & Peter Madden
8 Ian Stanley & Ted Mallowes
9 Ben Boyd & Troy Miller
10 Brendon Smith & Richard Bondietti
11 Dylan McFawn & Kris Bandte
12 Phil Bailey & Andrew Bailey
13 Edmund Chen & Bob Sifri
14 Andrew Pearce & Phil Morton
15 Stephen Thomas & Michael Masal
16 Kenny Nicol & Phil Bryan

Please finda link below to the groups and venues for Round One. (Note that two groups still need a venue confirmed - will let you know tomorrow). As this is quite a lengthy process to coordinate, I will be unable to make any changes to days of play. As you only nominated 3 weeks ago, your availibility should not have changed, anyway, so hopefully no one's forced to miss work or their wedding anniversary.

Good luck to all players this weekend.

http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Open_Doubles_Round1_Groups.xls