With the successful launch of the SPL last Thursday evening, we had the task of hosting playoffs for the Gauteng players who would like to secure spots in the divisions underneath the Premier.
We expected around 30 players to enter and ended with a staggering 54 by Thursday, which meant the event needed to be redesigned considering table and time limits.
Ultimately, we had to create 6 groups of 9 players with 2 seeded players in each. First, the seeds were randomly drawn into each group, and then the remaining players were randomly drawn into the spots left.
The format was pretty brutal, but it had to be. It had to be similar to what Thursday nights are: fast-paced, exciting and no time to muck about.
Each group had players play 3 frames against every other player in a limited 30-minute time frame. Alternate breaks applied after each lag per match. The top 3 players from each group after Saturday’s round-robin progressed to Group A on Sunday, with positions 4 to 6 from each group going into Group B. The remaining players were unfortunately eliminated.
Saturdays’s Results
https://challonge.com/y9ge8fvz/groups
Those who qualified came back on Sunday with just the 2 groups left. Group A’s 18 players had already guaranteed their spots in the top divisions; they only had to play themselves into the divisions available. There were only 3 spots left in 1st Division, while the remaining 3 divisions had 8 each. This meant that out of the 27 spots up for grabs, if 18 were already taken by Group A’s results, there were only 9 left for the 18 players in Group B.
With more players to contend against on Sunday, the matches were cut to 2 frames with a 20-minute time limit, which later changed to 25 minutes as players needed the extra 5 minutes to compose themselves, get new scorecards, and start their new matches.
Group A was dominated and won by Dance Café’s Ketan Nydoo, while Group B had one of 2 ladies who played in the playoffs come out number 1. Michelle Rabe (pictured above) was pretty much unstoppable on Sunday.
Sunday’s Results
Group A: https://challonge.com/xl58i5r4/standings
Group B: https://challonge.com/dgw3ey7w/standings
A massive thanks to all the players, supporters, and the admin team who helped conclude a successful event.
Here are your divisions:
SPL Gauteng 1st Division:
Prevern, Ketan, Randall (Already qualified players: Llewellyn, Sombs, Yuvan, Quinton & Maq)
SPL Gauteng 2nd Division
Reagan, Erick, Devon, Daven, Wayne, Jason, Alan, Inder
SPL Gauteng 3rd Division
Iqram, Nathan, Brandon, Michelle, Daniel, Deslin, Eme, Paul
SPL Gauteng 4th Division
Prem, Roger, Ndumiso, Sandra, Julius, Julian, Joe, Denver
