England Team Trials

Format of the England Team Trials

Proposed format passed by the EPA National Committee.

Swiss system with 64 players.

No player will play a player from their own region in the first round.

In the trials format, where there are spaces due to players not turning up, these will be offered to reserve players who are present from any Region. If there are more reserves than places, the player(s) with best average(s) will be entered first. Any spaces still not filled will be classed as byes during the first three rounds and will be randomly drawn to ensure that 3 different players are given a bye during the first 3 rounds for each place not filled.

All matches will be best of 5 frames.

All players will play against opponents who have the same record for the first six rounds.

After completing six rounds, the situation will be as follows;
  1 player will have qualified on six wins, no losses.
  6 players will have 5 wins and 1 loss.
  15 players will have 4 wins and 2 losses.

As there are now an uneven number of players, it is proposed to play the remaining rounds as follows;

The 6 players with a 5-1 record will play against each other, with the three winning players qualifying for the England team.

The 15 players with a 4-2 record will be split into 5 groups of three and will play a round robin format to obtain a winner from each group. A player winning both matches will go through. In the event of a three-way tie frames against will be used to decide the winner. If there is still a tie, matches will be reduced to best of three and replayed.

The 3 players with a 5-2 record, plus the 5 winners from the round robin play-off will then be drawn to play one final match to decide the final four places (where possible against a player they have not previously played).

This system will provide 8 qualifiers for each of the England teams.