Official Handicaps Established for Tournament Play
The USBA has established official handicaps for player levels to be used in handicap tournaments.
The handicaps have been established based on the five official USBA player levels recently established and announced by the board:
A = .900 +
B+ = .700-.899
B= .550-.699
C+ = .400-.549
C = below .400
In handicap tournaments, the following levels and points will apply:
"A" players go to 30 points (100%)
"B
+" players go to 25 points (83.3%)
"B" players go to 21 points (70%)
"C+" players go to 17 points (56.6%)
"C" players go to 15 points (50%)
Handicap tournaments will NOT be replacing our TOUR Events such as Open and B TOUR Events and a USBA TOUR EVENT may NOT be a handicap tournament. The handicap events will mainly be used locally if a room wishes to hold an official USBA Handicap Tournament. If a room wishes to hold a handicap event, then only the official USBA handicaps may be used and not altered in any way. Averages must be kept and recorded throughout the entire tournament. Also, all participants MUST have an official USBA Player Level as established by the USBA Rankings Committee. If a player does NOT have an official level, then the player must go to 30 points until that player has participated in a minimum of 2 USBA Tournaments with averages accurately kept and has been given an official Player Level by the USBA Rankings Committee.
Handicap tournaments provide the opportunity for players at all levels compete on an equal playing field. Handicapping puts pressure on the higher ranked players to play their best while at the same time it affords the lower ranked players a fair opportiuity for victory.
Handicap tournaments can be found on the Tournament Calendar. Use the search feature and search for the word "Handicap" which will always appear in the title describing the event. Details of the event format, entry fees and prize fund will be found on the tournament listing page.
In addition to USBA Handicap Tournaments, the USBA strongly encourages that ALL tournaments require innings and averages to be kept by the players and the results be reported by the tournament director to the USBA Secretary, in order to maintain accurate player levels at all times.
TOURNAMENT PLAYERS PLEASE TAKE NOTE! The two USBA Handicap Tournaments already on the current schedule at the time of this writing (USBA ENDORSED HANDICAP TOURNAMENT - Las Delicias - Revere MA and USBA HANDICAP TOURNAMENT - Doral Billiards - Miami, FL) will be excluded from these rules. Only newly scheduled events will be required to meet the new requirements.