[POOL] Fwd: Tues pool league

[John Valdes]

Craig Stacey wrote:
> My opinion doesn't count since I'm not playing, but I think it's funny that the big problem was that play was going past 10PM.  So, we agree to stop play at 10PM, and thus play less pool.  And somehow we end up having to pay more than twice what we were paying for the playing less.

I agree, paying more for less play doesn't make sense.  Stopping by
10PM was a proposal from the league so that Q's "regulars" could get
some play time in on Tue.  I don't think Q cared about us playing late
(other than it meant we "monopolized" the 9fts), but I know Kevin
would be happier if we finished earlier.  Q's claim that their
regulars were complaining about not being able to play on Tue is just
a thinly vailed excuse to charge more, IMO.  Here's the rant I sent
Kevin about Q's desire to keep their regulars happy:

<rant>
Are you (Bob from Q) f*cking kidding me??  These guys are there 4-5 times
a week, and they can't give up one night to 40 other players?  Is Q
their personal playground?  Last time I checked, there were 7 days in
a week; sounds like ample time for them to get their pool fix.  Q
opens at 4 PM, and the ANL league doesn't start 'til 6 PM; if they
need to play on Tue on the 9', they should plan accordingly.  Q
advertises $6 dollar pool all night long (no limit) on Wed
(http://qbilliards.biz/q-billiards-pool-specials); what's to stop 5 of
us from showing up at 4 PM and renting the 9's for the whole night?
Are they going to kick us out when the "regulars" show up?  I can
understand wanting to keep regulars happy, but not at the expense of
pissing off a larger crowd of customers; that makes no business sense
at all.  They can easily keep everyone happy if they simply install
more 9' tables.  When they were 63rd St Billiards, they had 2/3 the
physical space and 2-2.4x the number of 9' tables (they had at least
10 tables, maybe as many as 12, plus one or two 9' billiard
(pocketless) tables).  Sounds like bad business planning to me.  They
should be a pool hall first, a sports bar second.  There are plenty
more of the latter around with better service, food & drinks.  Such
bad planning shouldn't be rewarded with our business.

Sorry for ranting to the messenger... :(
</rant>

Finally, in the interest of compromising, I offered the following
suggestions, but nothing's been decided yet:

1) Given that Q is saying that other, regular customers want to use
   the 9' tables on Tue and that our League is short on players, why
   not have their regulars join our League?  We get more players,
   their regulars get to play pool for less $$, happy customers all
   around.  Problem solved.  Don't know if I'd want guys who play 4-5
   nights a week and yet whine about not being able to play a 5-6th
   night (Tue) to be on our team, but that's another issue... ;)

2) What if we give up the practice table?  Then that table is free for
   other customers.  We don't really "practice" on there much anyway;
   we mostly just shoot around for fun, or we're playing makeup
   matches.  To handle makeups, those would have to be played on the
   match tables once they're free or else forfeited.

3) Given our dwindling numbers, what if we go down from 8 teams to 6?
   Then we'd only need 3 tables per night for matches, leaving 2 for
   Q's regulars.

4) Our team really, really, really prefers playing on 9' tables,
   but what if we give in and switch to 7' tables?  We'd then have
   more venue options, including going back to the Cass location
   (assuing that's owned by a different owner than the 63rd St
   location).

John