The big news from the headquarters of the (Inter)National pool tournament scene is that in 2011 all three major tournaments will be in different hotel/casino/convention centers.
BCAPL/CSI events will stay at the Riviera for the next couple of years. Tournament Director Ric Jones made an announcement over the tournament PA in the middle of the 34th annual tournament earlier this month. This announcement may have been prompted by rumors of the event relocating in 2011. I personally heard rumors of the Luxor, but believe that there are only a handful of sites that could accommodate nearly 300 pool tables. No doubt Mark Griffin’s savvy negotiating skills guarantee that the Riv is also the most affordable site in sin city.
Sometime soon before pool players descended on the Riv, competing and struggling VNEA event producers announced a southward move on the strip to Bally’s Casino and Hotel for their 2011 international tournament.
Just today, the ACS press release announced that their 2011 would be even further south at The Tropicana. They also changed their date to be the first of the three events even overlapping with the start of the BCAPL tournament up the road. I would guess that being in the third slot and catching the leftovers from the VNEA event wasn’t cutting it for the ACS. Nice move to jump to first and grab early arrivals for the biggest and best of the three.
note– I threw this post up quickly and will be doing some editing soon. More precise data and even a map will be included shortly.
Follow-Up March 2011. I’m going to be at all three events this year. Playing the singles at the Trop only adds 4 days at the beginning of the trip. BCAPL is still my favorite (and our team won it last year!) and Bally’s is expensive but I’ll check it out.
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