Break Stats -- 2015 U.S. Open 9-Ball, Oct. 2015

Here are some aggregate break statistics from the 33 9-Ball matches streamed this week by Accu-Stats from the 2015 U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship in Norfolk, VA.

The conditions for this event included: Diamond 9-foot table with pro-cut pockets, blue Simonis 860 cloth, Accu-Rack racking template, Aramith Tournament balls, measles cue ball, winner breaks, breaker racks for himself with the 9-ball on the foot string and the 2-ball at the back of the rack, break from the box (approx. 9" to each side of the long string), the break is illegal unless at least 3 balls pass the side pockets or are pocketed, foul on all balls, jump cues are allowed, and all slop counts (except I'm not sure whether a 9-ball pocketed in a foot-rail pocket counted, as that did not happen on stream). A 40-sec. shot clock (with one extension per rack) was used on the full-production matches.

The 33 matches (572 games tracked) were as follows. The figures in parentheses for some of the matches are the Accu-Stats Total Performance Averages (TPA), as calculated by Accu-Stats and shown on the stream.


Overall results -- The breaker made at least one ball (and did not break illegally or foul) 62% of the time (353 of 572), won 53% of the games (302 of 572), and broke and ran 23% of the games (131 of 572).

Here's a more detailed breakdown of the 572 games.


Break-and-run games: The 131 break-and-run games represented 23% of all 572 games, 43% of the 302 games won by the breaker, and 37% of the 353 games in which the break was successful (made a ball, legal, no foul).

The 131 break-and-run games consisted of 2 4-packs (Y-H Cheng and K-L Hsu), 4 3-packs, 16 2-packs, and 79 singles.

9-balls on the break: The 131 break-and-run games included just two 9-balls on the break (0.3% of the 572 breaks). With the Accu-Rack, the 9-ball tends to remain close to its original position.

Here's a day-by-day listing of some key break results after all 6 days (33 streamed matches) of the 2015 U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship.

Breaker broke legally, made at least one ball, and did not foul:

Breaker won the game:

Break-and-run games:

[Note -- The stats exclude some games when my stream was down -- 5 games in the Ignacio/Strickland match and 6 games in the Liu/Bergman match.]

The comparable figures last year for all 6 days were 53% (stay at table), 50% (breaker won game), and 20% (B&R games).

Post #2 has been updated with results from Day 4.

pt109 said:

I'm curious about the stats on fouls on breaks....the cue ball was headed for the side pocket
a lot, and found it more than I expected.
Orcollo scratched two or three times by midway through his last match alone.

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So far, 33 breaking fouls in 412 games = 8%.

Last year, for all 6 days of streamed matches, the figure was 9%.

[Orcollo ended up with 4 scratches on the break in that last match and still won 11-7!]

Tobermory said:

Dear "JAM,"

Looking at "At Large's" statistics, I have to come to the conclusion that the break is not significant at all. If the breaker wins only half of the games on which he makes a ball and doesn't foul, the advantage of the break looks as if it is nearly the same as a coin flip!

"JRWilliams," however, complicates the analysis by suggesting that the numbers have to be filtered according to the success rate of "top tier" players contrasted with middle range players. Perhaps there is an advantage for top tier players to make a ball on the break.

I am viewing this from the angle of a spectator. "At Large's" statistics seem to indicate that, for pool players as a whole, the break doesn't have much to do with the outcome of a game. But the fiddling with the rack does have a great deal to do with the enjoyment of the audience. I'm willing to trade whatever slight apparent advantage the top players may have on the break for a fairly large increase in the general appeal of the sport.

I'll let a cat out of the bag. When I play in a one-pocket tournament and I draw a player whom I do not recognize, I often go out of my way to lose the lag for the opening break. I have a lot more opponents leak a ball out for me on their first break than I have lay a killer trap on me. Even when the break looks like a great advantage, it may not be.

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Here's something I posted earlier this year when someone asked about the significance of the break.

The percentage of games won by the breaker in pro events is generally in the range of 45% - 65%. It can get much higher than that for the top players near the end of an event when they are dialed in on the break and running out a lot. It can also be influenced by matches involving a strong player and a weak player. A very lopsided match in a winner-breaks format obviously leads to a very high "breaker-won-game" percentage.

Racking templates can also affect this number. If, for example in 9-Ball, the wing ball goes in on the break regularly, the stay-at-table percentage after the break is so high that the breaker has many more opportunities for a B&R game, and that raises the overall winning percentage for the breaker.

Despite the fact that the stats sometimes seem to indicate that it is no great advantage to be breaking, I doubt that many top players would want to give the break to an opponent coming down the stretch in a big event.

jwilliams said:

Something that would also be interesting to see, would be the percentage of games won by the "top tier" players who made a ball on the break vs the win percentage of "lower tier" players who made a ball on the break. Admittedly these two categories are a bit subjective, but we could probably come to a reasonable consensus on the top 5 to 10 players vs the bottom 5 to 10 players in the tournament. It wouldn't have to be perfect. Fargo rate would work well enough. It would just be interesting to see how much those two groups skew the overall average. Not really expecting this by the way...just thinking out loud.

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My stats are based on only the streamed matches that I watch. For a given event, that usually means not many matches for any given player. I do, however, sometime show the results for individual players who finished high in the event and, therefore, probably had several appearances on stream. As you suspect, there can be significant differences between the top players in an event and the others.

Dan_B said:

Understanding post #2; after 412 games there have been no “9 on the break” wins and, a slight decrease of favoring the breaker with the 9 on the spot...

...on smaller tables?

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Two of those 412 games were 9's on the break.

As to racking the 9-ball on the foot string, that was done last year as well. The difference this year is the use of the template for racking instead of using a wooden triangle.

Joe T said:

Thanks again AtLarge.

Stats looking similar but it its a lot more fun for me to watch. Racking is faster, arguments reduced, less cheating, more cue ball risk of scratching when playing the corner ball. The break that seems to work best calls for accuracy with some pace which makes things less predictable. And definitely MORE play battling for shots.

To me it looks like a nice compromise of the smash and hope break and the soft break. Corner ball is playable with a good hit, far from dead and its not as easy to pay shape on the 1 ball as it use to be.

Knocking on wood as I type.

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I agree, Joe, it seems (so far) like a nice compromise. One interesting thing is that a healthy percentage of the wing balls going in are by kick-in from collisions with other balls in that corner of the table rather than untouched (as they are with the Magic Rack).