Q School 2014

Why not giving a tourcard to those players who win their final + 4 tickets for the best 4 players on the frames-won-list never been on tour before. So there would be 4 guaranteed places for new, (young ?), talented players!

Andy Spark wrote:It's silly to call it a Q "school" when it didn't produce any debutantes.

that post is silly

Q School is Qualifying School sod all to do with giving players debut every player had the same opportunity to qualify yes id like it tweaked a bit but all 8 qualified hence Q School.

bluelagoon wrote:Why not giving a tourcard to those players who win their final + 4 tickets for the best 4 players on the frames-won-list never been on tour before. So there would be 4 guaranteed places for new, (young ?), talented players!

There should be something for new players. The fact no debutantes qualified won't encourage new young players to want to spend the £600 entering this next year.

Wildey wrote:

Andy Spark wrote:It's silly to call it a Q "school" when it didn't produce any debutantes.

that post is silly

Q School is Qualifying School sod all to do with giving players debut every player had the same opportunity to qualify yes id like it tweaked a bit but all 8 qualified hence Q School.

It's not a silly post. If I were a young player I'd not stump up the £600 knowing no new players qualified last season. A "school" should provide inspiration and opportunities for fresh blood in the game not just take their money and say "sorry, every one of you failed the exam this year".

Andy Spark wrote:

Wildey wrote:

Andy Spark wrote:It's silly to call it a Q "school" when it didn't produce any debutantes.

that post is silly

Q School is Qualifying School sod all to do with giving players debut every player had the same opportunity to qualify yes id like it tweaked a bit but all 8 qualified hence Q School.

It's not a silly post. If I were a young player I'd not stump up the £600 knowing no new players qualified last season. A "school" should provide inspiration and opportunities for fresh blood in the game not just take their money and say "sorry, every one of you failed the exam this year".

god sakes you have no ambition and no belief in your ability to be better than the players dropping down

The young amateurs are having to play against players who although not defined as "pro" have had all the benefits and experience of being a pro, IMO unfair.

There'll always be some kind of disadvantage. If they got on tour, they'd have to deal with better players with just as much experience as the dropped off pros or more.

Andy Spark wrote:The young amateurs are having to play against players who although not defined as "pro" have had all the benefits and experience of being a pro, IMO unfair.

As Skullman said they not going to get it any easier on Tour for example Michael Georgiou has qualified this time and did not win a match in 9 tournaments last time so he was hardly all that experience of Winning pro matches

Skullman wrote:There'll always be some kind of disadvantage. If they got on tour, they'd have to deal with better players with just as much experience as the dropped off pros or more.

Yes, but if they get on tour then they start getting the benefits of being a pro themselves and they are also granted the extra time to adjust so it's not so unfair. Why can't those that have dropped off tour play others that have dropped off tour and give a separate "school" for the amateurs so it becomes proper amateur V amateur for guaranteed tour places.

There are plenty of amateur v amateur opportunities though. The EBSA competition at the PTCs led to 3 places, and there's all the International competitions. So you rank well in your national competition or win a national qualifying competition (e.g. the Welsh Europeans), get an invite to (say) the Asian Under 21s, or the EBSA European Championship - win it and you're on Tour having played all amateurs. For UK players there's up to 7 places they can access in this way:

3 x EBSA Amateur Cup
EBSA European Championship
EBSA Under 21 Championship
IBSF World Championship
IBSF Under 21 Championship

So for instance Oliver Lines got on Tour by getting to the European Championship because of his performance in the English Ranking Series, and then winning the European Championship.

There are some, wouldn't say there were plenty and these other opportunities were always there. The q school was marketed as being a "school" for budding pros. If they continue like this then no player who hasn't been on the tour at some stage will want to play in it. The whole thing is just a money making exercise by Barry Earn, taking the money off the young amateur players and their families by giving them false hope.

Barry goes on about "fairness". He's not interested in fairness, he just wants a game that looks fair so people will enter it and in the end he can grab the money. Snooker isn't fair, never has been. The British have the deck stacked against the Chinese, Barry will keep it like that while making it appear to be fair.

Bit of a rant, I know.

it is fair giving players that drop off another chance straight away rather than wait a year when in many cases the players dropping off are better than the amateurs coming on.

I can't think of a fairer qualifying system.

Nothing is going to be completely fair in the sense that players have varying levels of experience and success to draw upon.

Some people are acting as if Q School is the only means of qualifying, whereas as Roy says there are almost the same number of spots for an English amateur to qualify elsewhere than through QSchool. Granted not all amateurs are English.

I also don't see Q School being mis-marketed or a sinister cash cow devised by Hearn. But then some people will find a way to be negative about whatever he has done.

It sits very much alongside Hearn's statements that it is the survival of the fittest.

What the negativity comes down to is largely 'the players I wanted to qualify didn't' so instead of accepting that they weren't quite good enough to do so, ex pros or Barry Hearn or anyone to hand are made the scapegoats to knock the format.

Tweaks may need to be made but the general idea is sound.

I agree with the majority here. I think the idea of qschool is fantastic (you just need to look through this thread to see its well supportedand followed, it even has more posts then the majority of the ET treads from last year) and meets its aim: to get the best players on tour, whether it be pros dropping off, former pros or amateurs.

Ok, a few tweaks are required to the format, like as suggested before, playing each tournament (maybe a total of 3/4 to eliminate the "luck of the draw") to completion and having the winners and best (insert number here) performers given tour cards. Or run the entire event under a double/triple/etc elimination format.

Also lets not forget that this years event clashed with the IBSF U21 Championships. I believe the likes of Sam Harvey and Josh Boileau would have made the tour via qschool. Also Mitchell Travis would have been a contender had he entered. Hopefully in future years, the amateur calender will be carefully thought out, where regional/global events are played before qschool so we have a quality field and all entrants for the next season are known.

I think the entry cost of £600 to enter to have two shots of getting a pro card is reasonable. If the cost was lower, any Tom, sausage or Harry would play and we could be here until August to get 8 "winners". Remember, that winning 1 ET match (£583) virtually gets your money back, and 1 win in a ranker under the flat format gets a minimum of £1250.

I think all of this years "newbies" will have a good season/s. They have done well recently in international amateur competitions and thats what we want - players who will challenge the top 64. Sadly the reality of this might only happen in 18 months time, but time will tell...