Professionals seedings in Jersey - 2004-10-20 12:15:41
It must be the best side of a decade since I last spoke TO George Harwood, and to be fair it was only on the insistence of IPA players rep Michael Steele that this morning ( TUES ) that I did so. A lot of our conversation centred around the involvement of IPA professionals in next years Jersey Festival of Pool..

So many of the IPA pro's had enquired about going to Jersey that Michael felt that in order to facilitate their involvement I had first to speak to George directly to ensure that there was no conflict of interests. More relevantly was that by agreeing to their participation ( should this happen ) it would not reflect either badly on their membership or indeed contravene any of their rules about using, directly, or otherwise their membership to promote either the event or worse as I understand things other bodies in particular the PPPO. Though most of our long conversation will remain private, what I did agree with George,following one of his concerns,was how any attending professionals of whatever allegiance would be seeded. My original intention was to seed them according to the positions they held in their respective associations. Simple enough I thought, but after speaking to George, and indeed following his preferred suggestion, what I will now be doing, so as to avoid any fingers of accusations that involvement by members of one body could remotely be construed as promoting the interests of another, is draw at random all 32 professionals that will be seeded. In other words those players coming through the main draw to qualify for the last 64 will be paired purely by luck of the draw against any of the seeded professionals, be they IPA, PPPO or indeed professionals from the american style game who may or may not decide to enter. Further more at this stage I will also take a vote from all 64 players as to what rules they wish to play for the remainder of the event, and whatever the majority decides is what we will play. Though this latter point is my idea and ultimately my decision, the penultimate point about how to go about seeding all the professionals came about following my conversation with George. The only thing that pisses me off about it, is that it wasn't me that thought of it. It is such an obvious thing to do, and I agree with George ( which is slightly scary ) that by doing it his way, it is a) the fairest and most simple way of doing it, and b) it also avoids any whispers or even slight accusations that one body of professionals is better that another. Professionals that enter ( well the first 32 anyway ) will simply be seeded into the last 64 purely by way of a bonus for their achievements in obtaining professional status. As I mentioned earlier the baulk of our conversation was and will remain private, and though George didn't, perhaps at this stage couldn't confirm what the IPA's decision will be, an answer will follow one way or another the tour event at Brighton this weekend. Though George and I have had many many differences over the years, I have to say that our telephone conversation of some 45 minutes was not only cordial but informative, and to compound the scariness issue further we actually agreed on several things, not least our opinions on certain individuals. This is really worrying, and I sit here wondering if I am mellowing in my old age or worse sinility has prematurely arrived! Either way I am glad I phoned, and my thanks to Michael Steele for suggesting I make such a call.