My biggest concern is multiple players experiencing some measure of injury in pool, then not being available or at their best when it counts the most.

Our fist tourney in the South is usually Montgomery. My thought is to play either 2 or pool games for this first tourney, then 1 pool game and total 4 game guarantee in following months. Everyone would have an idea of strengths and weaknesses, ranking, etc. after first month.

Anyone have ideas?

I have played 60's the last 5 years and now have started 65's.

Southpaw:
My feelings on having 3 (as opposed to 2) seeding games is essentially a function of how many players we have. If we have more than 15 I prefer 3 warm up games... if less than 15, 2 games are better for us... I use the 15 players as an example only... it boils to which 15 we have.
Since we seldom have more than 6 teams in our bracket, an additional warm up game provides more game time...
By allowing the primary starters to rest a game in the prelim round they tend to be fresher in DE... and... it sharpens the non-starters should you need them later.
My thoughts on this matter might change were we to have larger brackets.
Bob Woodroof

We travel a long way to play ball and to play less games as opposed to more is not part of the plan. I agree with you Wood, if you have a small roster you can better dole out playing time to all.

I think pool games are terrible, they make you take an additional day off of work, they add to the possibility of injury and they make Sundays more difficult after playing those additional games on Friday. I would prefer double elimination with a guarantee of 3 or even maybe 4 games. Much closer to what young men's ball does.

Personally, I like the 5 game guarantee, regardless on how you divide it up between seeding and DE. I have played every level of senior ball in terms of AA, AAA, Major, and Major Plus: with great teams or lesser teams. When it came to the lesser teams, I was glad that there 5 games regardless, so I did not have to spend a lot of money to play 2 games and go home, which was the case for many teams when we were younger.

JMHO,

Andy Smith,
65 Major

I would like to have a 5 game guarantee (like we used to have) in the 55s. We pay $25 less than the other divisions and only get a 4 game guarantee.( in Mobile) (Fees are high enough to get the extra game) As for most of my team, we travel an average of 6 hours to play. I would like to get the most softball for my time and money.
Make it a 2 game in the RR and a 3 game wrap around in the brackets.
I am not sure why the 50 and 55 play 4 and the older divisions play 5.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Coop3636

2 prelims and 5 guarantee is good. I have not thought about a 1 game prelim and then 4 game guarantee in the championship bracket play. Seems like the TD would have to consider how you did in the 1 game along with your season results. Like tournaments won for a fair seeding. Would be an interesting bracket on the results chart.

My whole team is on social security and would not be real happy with traveling x-country to play in 4 game major tournaments.
Just make sure we get at least 5.