Four ways of getting promoted on the Under-21 Tours?
It’s an old joke. A tourist in New York asks a musician carrying a violin: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” And the musician replies: “Practice.”
I think we can take it as a given that hard work and effort are the first things required if you want to earn promotion from the Cuestars Under-21 Bronze Tour to the Silver Tour and then to the Gold Tour.
BUT THESE ARE THE ACTUAL WAYS OF MOVING UP A TIER:
1. Win the rankings title (see details below)
2. Make a break in competition of 40 to move to Silver or 80 to move to Gold (see details below)
3. Request to move up (see details below)
4. If the organisers need to balance numbers (see details below)
DETAILS
1. Points are awarded for how far you progress in each of the ten ranking tournaments across central southern England. The player with the most points at the end of the season is automatically promoted.
2. We only count breaks made in some kind of organised competition – not in practice matches or practice routines.
A competition usually has a title. It could be a Saturday morning junior league or an in-house handicapped tournament or a local league or a Cuestars event or an EPSB event or any one of numerous other competitions.
A break in a warm-up match before your league matches on a Saturday would not count. But a break in the league matches would count. A break against your coach in a coaching session would not count. But a break against your coach in the club handicap would count. For example, Oliver Sykes made a 147 (pictured) against Cuestars director John Hunter in a hard-fought practice match. It doesn’t count as a competition break.
Once Bronze players make a 40, they move up to Silver for the following season. Once Silver players make an 80, they move up to Silver for the following season. The season is deemed to start on September 1.
3. You can request to move up at any time. Some players like to move up towards the end of a season to get used to the next level. If organisers believe you won’t be out of your depth, they will agree. For example, a Bronze player with an 18 high break requests promotion to Silver. This would be denied. It may be what the Bronze player wants but it would be detrimental to his opponents. But a Bronze player with a high break of 35 who frequently reaches the latter stage of tournaments would be allowed to go up.
4. Sometimes numbers on one tour become too much and we need to balance things. On a couple of occasions over the past few years, Bronze has been over-subscribed and we have moved up to Silver those players whose high breaks are close to 40.