Arizona Rating Committee Meets at Kolby's

The Arizona Rating Committee met for the last time of 2009 on October 4th, 2009, at Kolby's Corner Pocket Billiards at 1301 E. University Dr. #112 in Tempe, AZ. 12 of the top pool rooms across the state came out to support the Rating Committee, along with a few spectators.

The first order of business was an address from Mike O’Hara, the Chairman of the Committee. Mike apologized for missing the last meeting and assured us all that it was not intentional. Then he made a statement along the lines of, "We as a committee made the decision to lower all players at the last meeting by one rating and we are moving on from there, no further discussion needed." The question was then asked if anyone has seen a positive or negative result from the rating change. A few different persons from various rooms chimed in and exclaimed that they saw an immediate increase in several tournaments. No one provided any negative impacts to numbers.

Lee White, who runs the Shark's League, started off with many clarifying questions about ratings in general and what happens when a persons’ health decreases. Mike addressed all her questions and then continued to explain the differences between each rating. The general statement was, "The big picture is this, 9's beat 8's, 8's beat 7's, 7's beat 6's, 6's beat 5's and 5's beat 4's. That is how it is and how it always has been. If you have a player that is consistently beating all the 7's over a long period of time, then they should start to be looked at to be raised." This message carried over into all the proposed raises of the day.

Mike also addressed that at the last meeting where we had the largest number of rooms present in many years that we had 30 persons raised across the state and he felt that this was too many for one meeting. Many of the 30 persons were from rooms that had missed previous meetings and were trying to catch their players up. At the end of this meeting, 10 players were promoted to the next level, along with 2 players updated to the correct rating after being M.I.A. from Arizona Tournaments for sometime.

The 10 players raised were brought up by 5 different rooms. Metro Sportz’ representive, Dick Breese, represented Al Ruiz’s recommendations to move Mark Nielsen, Mike McGovern and Emmit Webb from a 6 to a 7. Mark and Mike moved unanimously where Emmit received little resistance and passed with a 3 – 1 vote. Kolby’s, who had been absent in many years from the committee, had 4 players promoted. Harold Lyons was moved back to an 8 after recently been lowered for medical reasons. Jim Galati was promoted to an 8, Ronn Rutan was promoted to a 9 and Scott Frost was promoted to the only 10(-2) in the State. Three other rooms each had one raise; Main Street Representive Jesse Renteria brought up Scott Chadwick to be moved from a 7 to an 8, Tom Ryan’s Representive Todd Dilley promoted Jim Markowicz from a 7 to an 8, and Kitty Carroll of Kitty’s promoted Laura Boothroyd from a 4 to a 5. The two updates were updating Darren Stanley to a 6 and Laurance Lindahl to a 7. Congratulations to all players for noticeable improved play by your peers.

At the conclusion of the meeting, as always, the committee decided on the location and date of the next meeting. The decision was that Kitty’s would host the next meeting on January 10th, 2010 at Noon.

Thank You to Kolby’s for being the gracious host of this 4th meeting of the year for the committee. Kolby’s remains one of the premier pool rooms in the valley, boasting great tables, excellent wait staff and delicious food and beverages. Following the meeting a few committee members even joined in the weekly Sunday afternoon tournament at Kolby’s where the chip was drawn that matched the day, thus putting $500 added into the tournament.