How To Enter A Nine-Ball Tournament
How to Play Tournament Nine-ball
People may think that spending eight dollars on a tournament is a waste of money. Every Sunday I go to Millertime Billiards and enter a nine-ball tournament. I never go in thinking that I'm going to win at least my entry fee back, although it would be nice. On the other hand, I always go in knowing that I will walk out understanding more about the game then the night before.
The tournament starts at 7:30 p.m., but the entry fee must be paid before that. After paying, all there is to do is wait. When they call your name and table it's time to play. It's a race to four wins. To keep track of the games place a coin under the middle diamond. Every game won constitutes a move of the coin one diamond. The winner goes to the front counter and gives them the results.
The loser of the first game doesn't have to go home. The tournament is double elimination. After the first game is lost, the player goes down to the loser's bracket. One loss in there means it's time to go home, or at least sit down and wait for the nine-ball break. The winner of the loser's bracket is guaranteed second place. To get first place the winner of the loser bracket will have to beat the winner of the winner's bracket twice.
After they establish and record all the winners and losers for the forth round they call all the people who entered the tournament down to table 5 for the nine-ball break. The racks are usually set up by an A player or better. Three names are drawn out of a box. Everybody that got there name picked gets two chances to drop the nine-ball on the break unless the person before them already hit it in. Two dollars of the entry fee go toward the pot for the winner. If there isn't a winner the pot just gets bigger for the next week.
Tournaments are hard and expensive if you only get to play two games. Once good enough, which takes time and practice, there...
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