FIRST SEASON PRO DIVISION SELECTION PROCESS EXPLAINED

In selecting the 32 players who will form the first ever GB9 Pro Division the GB9 Tour Committee have attempted to select the 32 who will form the highest quality field for the pro competitions. In doing so the committee has used demonstrable achievement in recognised competition as the basis for selection, rather than resorting to subjective judgements of player quality. In order to achieve this the committee devised a system for categorising players according to their achievements.

Category Matrix Every applicant for the Pro Division has been allocated to a category (1-8) according to their achievements to date in recognised international and domestic competition. Category 1 represents the highest level of achievement, category 2 the next level, and so on. The ‘Category Matrix’, which has been used by the committee to compare achievements in the various competitions, is shown below. Naturally, the task of comparing achievements across the multitude of tournaments that pro applicants have played in is not an easy one but we believe the Category Matrix gives as fair a comparison across competitions as possible.

EVENT PLACINGS Category 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 WPC L4 L8 L16 L32 L64 Played US Open L4 L8 L16 L32 L64 BCA Open L2 L4 L8 L16 L32 Played WPM, WPL 1st 2nd L4 L8 Played Mosconi Team √ , EPC, Open 1st 2nd L4 L8 L16 L32 BPPPA 1st 2nd SAPPA 1st Other notable achievement √ Remaining Applicants √ EVENT RANKINGS Top Euro Tour Top 2 Top 4 Top 8 Top 16 Top 32 48

Categories 1-7 Categories 1-7 cover achievements in major international tournaments; recognition of Euro Tour rankings, significant achievements in domestic competition and other notable achievements. 24 Pro Division applicants fall into categories 1-7 and have been allocated a place in the Pro Division.

Category 8 All other Pro Division applicants who do not have achievements that would warrant a place in categories 1-7 have been allocated to Category 8.

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FIRST SEASON PRO DIVISION SELECTION PROCESS EXPLAINED

As all of these players have only domestic achievements to report in terms of tournament finishes, many of which are equivalent across a number of players, the GB9 committee decided that an alternative means of selecting the remaining 8 players for the Pro Division was required.

As the majority of players in this category had played a number of BPPPA 9 ball events over the last 2 years it was decided that a measure of average performance across these events would be the fairest way to distinguish between players. We have therefore used the average ranking points per BPPPA event played in the last 24 BPPPA 9 ball events in order to select the final 8 players for the Pro Division.

A small number of players in category 8 either have not played enough BPPPA events in the last 2 years in order to calculate this measure, or have not played in any of these events. At this time therefore we do not have an adequate means of fairly comparing their performance with that of other players in this category. In view of this and the fact that these players do not warrant a place in categories 1-7 via other achievements, unfortunately at this time we are unable to justify their selection for the Pro Division. We hope that all Pro Division applicants will appreciate that we have attempted to devise the fairest and most transparent means of selecting players based on tournament achievements, and that as a result of over-subscription we cannot accommodate every applicant.

Selections from Categories 1 to 7 Note: Position numbers shown are for information only and do not have any other relevance (i.e. they will not be used to seed the first GB9 event, which will be open draw).

Pos Name Cat Comments 1 1 WPC winner 2 1 Last 4 WPC 3 Raj Hundal 1 WPM winner 4 2 Mosconi 5 2 Last 8 US Open 6 Andrew Richardson 2 Mosconi 7 Mark Gray 2 Euro Tour Winner 8 Pat Holtz 3 Last 16 WPC 9 Chris Melling 3 Last 16 WPC 10 Kevin Uzzell 4 Last 32 WPC 11 Michael Valentine 5 Last 64 WPC 12 James Kay 6 WPC played, BPPPA winner 13 Andy Worthington 6 WPC played, top 32 euro tour 14 Stephen Capaldi 6 WPC played, SAPPA winner 15 Paddy Mcloughlin 6 BPPPA winner 16 Craig Osborne 6 WPC played, top 32 Euro Tour 17 Neil Raybone 7 EPT winner (other notable achievement) 18 Gareth Esprit 7 Last 32 Euro tour 19 Damien Overton 7 BPPPA runner up 20 Stewart Colclough 7 BPPPA runner up 21 Mike Rogers 7 BPPPA runner up 22 David Jack 7 Multiple SAPPA winner 23 Adam Clarke 7 BPPPA runner up Multiple Irish Tour winner (other notable 24 Sam Gibson 7 achievement)

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Selections from Category 8

Pos Name BPPPA Av Points* 25 Paul Williams 376.7 26 Steve Brown 353.8 27 Jonathan Mathers 327.0 28 Philip Burford 324.1 29 Alan Millership 312.5 30 Adam B. Smith 310.0 31 Lee Rigby 306.4 32 James Taylor 299.5 33 Simon Widlo 296.1 34 Tony Burton 287.0 35 Nigel Webb 283.1 36 Chris Cowie 274.1 37 Tony David 257.5 38 David McCarthy 256.2 39 Caroline Walch 253.2 40 Stephen Folan 245.0 41 Matthew Hyden 244.0 42 Tony Weafer 221.3 43 Dean Goddard 200.0 44 Christopher Robson - 44 Mark McDonald - 44 Gary Houston - 44 Mario Koroschitz - -

Players in position numbers 33 and above have been offered a place on the Challenge Division.

*Source: British Professional Players Association ranking data from September 2005 to August 2007 (24 9 ball events).

Note: For one tournament the BPPPA allocated double ranking points to encourage higher entries at that event. We have changed these back to normal points for the purposes of the above calculation.

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the correctness of the above data GB9 accept no responsibility if there are any errors in the ranking data provided by the BPPPA or in the calculations performed thereon by GB9. The Tour Committee believe the above method represents a fair and open system for selecting the Top 32 players and fully stand behind the 32 selections made and the Tour Committee’s decision is final in this respect.

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