Timed Match Format

Cameron Smith · Oct 12, 2009

I expect people to dislike this idea, but I figured I'd toss it out there anyways.

English Billiards often conducts it's matches under a timed format. In other words they would play for 2 hours or more, the winner is the person who compiles the most points over the course of that timeline.

The largest benefit to this idea being tournament play, it makes it easy to schedule matches, holding larger tournaments are more doable when you know nothing will last longer than 2 hours or whatever time limit you set. No worry of overly boring matches.

The largest downside that I see immediately is that you have to implement a shot clock, otherwise players can wait out the clock or at least play slower to kill time. Then again, faster players may be able to compile more points in a shorter period of time. You will also have the potential for bigger runs since they don't need to stop at 150. How many balls would Ortmann have run had he not had to stop at the 14.1 championships?

So, what do you think? Could introduce a new dynamic, or it could be an incredible flop.

FWIW I've played a few practice matches under this format before and I enjoyed it. Your entire mindset changes because you don't have a specific goal in mind your trying to get as many points as possible and extend your runs as far as you can. The last 10-20 minutes can get very tense. The best match I played I ended up winning 176-3, (incidentally the best 14.1 I've ever played).

driven · Oct 12, 2009

I kind of like it. At some point timed matches in this format or the 150 point chess clock timer that has been discussed here may become routine.
Have tournaments and see how they go. People will come. work out the problems that are sure to crop up.
I was just thinking the timers could be installed in the table where the counters are now. This would eliminate all the running back to where the clock might be on a table somewhere.
steven

woody_968 · Oct 12, 2009

Its an interesting idea, and I could see the upsides. But the first thing that comes to mind are the problems you have already mentioned. Overcoming the stall would probably be the biggest hurdle.

Cameron Smith · Oct 12, 2009

How about ammending it such that, the player is allowed to finish their inning once time runs out? In other words, time runs out and a warning is issued that this will be the final inning, the player at the table continues to play until a ball is missed at which point the match is over.

A concern that came to me was that, if a player such as John Schimdt runs 200 in 1hr 15 min, the other player has to manage 201 in 45 minutes. The match is for all intents and purposes over they are just going through the motions for an excessively long time. If however the inning can be extended past that time limit mark they have in theory plenty of time to reply in kind. It also allows for limitless potential to conduct a high run prize for the tournament.

I suppose this change defeats the purpose of limiting the matches to manageable lengths, but I don't think it would happen too often. Some matches might still go long, but in a good way

.

Bob Jewett · Oct 14, 2009

Cameron Smith said:
... English Billiards often conducts it's matches under a timed format. In other words they would play for 2 hours or more, the winner is the person who compiles the most points over the course of that timeline....

I don't like this format due to the stalling problems noted earlier.

I looked around for chess clocks, and the technology has come a long way since I was pushing plungers as a youth. I bought an Excalibur "Game Time II" which seems to be endorsed/licensed/patented? by the USCF. It has some features that could be applied directly to pool matches.

It can be programmed with up to 5 user configurations of times (which can be unequal for the two players) and delays and such.

It can allow up to 999 minutes per person, which should be enough for even the longest set/match.

You can set a "delay time" of up to 19 seconds. That means that if your opponent sits down and starts your clock, your time does not start running down until 19 seconds after that start. In games like one pocket, if you have a protracted safety battle, as long as you take no more than 19 seconds (or whatever is decided) to shoot your shot and sit down, no time comes off your clock.

The plungers (buttons) are easy to balance, which turns off both clocks so that you can get a bridge from four tables over, take your authorized break, find a referee, or rack. (It would be nice if the timer also kept track of the time of the pause so you could determine if the break was too long, but it doesn't.)

I hope to try this thing in league.

Cameron Smith · Oct 14, 2009

Bob Jewett said:
I don't like this format due to the stalling problems noted earlier.

What if you instituted a 45 second shot clock?

Bob Jewett · Oct 15, 2009

Cameron Smith said:
What if you instituted a 45 second shot clock?

45 seconds is far too long. If there is no problem on the table, standard shots should take less than 15 seconds. When someone goes up to an average of 25 seconds for shots with no complications, it starts to be agony for the opponent and outrages the audience.

I think any system or format that encourages slow play is bad.

Cameron Smith · Oct 15, 2009

True,

Unless you can ensure no one will stall, this probably can't work. I think it suits (English) billiards because the innings are often shorter than 14.1.

The one cool thing that could have come out of it is the potential for bigger runs.

Marop · Oct 15, 2009

Cameron Smith said:
What if you instituted a 45 second shot clock?

If the final score in a game to 150 was 150 to 140 and a 45 second clock was used the match could take up to 3.6 hours for pocketed balls only. When you add in missed shots, safes and racking time the match would probably exceed 5 hours.

Granted the players would not take 45 seconds on every shot but with 2 slow players it could happen.

Cameron Smith · Oct 15, 2009

Marop said:
If the final score in a game to 150 was 150 to 140 and a 45 second clock was used the match could take up to 3.6 hours for pocketed balls only. When you add in missed shots, safes and racking time the match would probably exceed 5 hours.

Granted the players would not take 45 seconds on every shot but with 2 slow players it could happen.

That's what prompted the timed match suggestion. I figure that if you allow the player at the table to finish his/her inning once time runs out then that fixes some of the problems. In this case a match will rarely go for more than 2.5 hours (assuming you time it to 2 hours) and if it does someone is probably on a big run and trying to make an epic comeback.

Bob Jewett · Oct 15, 2009

Cameron Smith said:
That's what prompted the timed match suggestion. I figure that if you allow the player at the table to finish his/her inning once time runs out then that fixes some of the problems. ...

I think the chess clock has a good chance to work really well. Among other things, it allows players to budget their time and take two minutes on three consecutive shots if it's needed. Even with that, it allows fairly tight control of the total time of the match.

One problem is deciding what to do if time runs out. What should the penalty be? Here are some possibilities:

If the player who runs out of time is also behind in the score, he simply loses.

If the timed-out player is ahead, I don't think it is fair to simply award the game to his opponent. I propose that the player who is behind with time left on his clock be allowed to finish his time and have a chance to catch up. The rules would have to change slightly for this phase of the game. Any foul should end the chance to catch up. You could also limit the number of misses, but I think that would be a needless complication. This phase of the game would certainly encourage swift play.

In any case, you have to give the players enough time for the length of the game so that they rarely run out of time. With an average of 30 seconds per ball to start it would be 2.5 hours for both players to get to 150, not including time-outs for racking and such, which would probably bring it to 3 hours. Lop-sided matches would end sooner.

AtLarge · Oct 16, 2009

Bob Jewett said:
If the timed-out player is ahead, I don't think it is fair to simply award the game to his opponent. I propose that the player who is behind with time left on his clock be allowed to finish his time and have a chance to catch up. The rules would have to change slightly for this phase of the game. Any foul should end the chance to catch up. You could also limit the number of misses, but I think that would be a needless complication. This phase of the game would certainly encourage swift play.

Bob -- not sure I fully understand this. If the player is allowed several misses, couldn't he just blast the rack open without any repercussions -- shoot 'em all in -- rack quickly -- blast them open again -- etc.? I think I could make a lot of balls fairly quickly that way.

Danny Barouty · Oct 16, 2009

Hey guys. I'd like to weigh in on this as I'm about 225 pounds. Steve Lipsky and I are experimenting with a clock. It seems that a 150 point game with 90 minutes per player poses no problems. We are going to push it down to 60 minutes and that should make for exciting finishes. (Remember that you can't run down the clock as only one operates at a time.) We are up in the air as to what the final penalty should be for overstepping the time limit, e.g., lose of turn or, true to chess, loss of game! Timing each shot is okay for the majority of shots but it falls short when a critical problem occurs. We will practice with this a lot before a final verdict but we are sure that we are on the right track.

Bob Jewett · Nov 20, 2009

Bob Jewett said:
.... In any case, you have to give the players enough time for the length of the game so that they rarely run out of time. With an average of 30 seconds per ball to start it would be 2.5 hours for both players to get to 150, not including time-outs for racking and such, which would probably bring it to 3 hours. Lop-sided matches would end sooner.

I tried this in league last Tuesday, and it worked pretty well. Some details:

1. We tried 30 seconds per ball for two handicapped matches. That was fine for me and for one of my opponents, but it would have been tight for my other opponent if he had been on the table for more of the match. We had scores/times of:
balls/minutes
112/29 -- 15 seconds per ball -- 29 of 75 minutes used
70/15 -- 13 seconds per ball -- 15 of 35 minutes used
150/38 -- 15 seconds per ball -- 38 of 75 minutes used
34/15 -- 26 seconds per ball -- 15 of 35 minutes used

The last time was for one of the league's slowest players. He was playing noticeably faster than his usual pace.

2. There were a couple of details about running the clock. For racking time, the shooter/breaker is responsible for pausing the clock, but the seated player sometimes helped. If the shooter is hampered by a neighboring table, the non-shooter should pause the clock. We set the clock so that there would be a free time of 19 seconds at the start of each inning. This meant that safety battles took little time off the clock.

3. We were using the out-of-time penalty of "player with time continues to shoot." Under this rule, if time expires for one player, the other player continues to shoot regardless of misses until he fouls or wins or runs out of time himself. Because the matches were handicapped by points, the winner in a match where both players ran out of time would have to be determined by percentage of required score. Since no one ran out of time, we didn't have to test this rule.

I think 30 seconds/ball plus 10 minutes would be a good amount of time for league play. This gives a little extra time to the weaker players.

Steve Lipsky · Nov 20, 2009

Bob Jewett said:
I tried this in league last Tuesday, and it worked pretty well. Some details:

1. We tried 30 seconds per ball for two handicapped matches. That was fine for me and for one of my opponents, but it would have been tight for my other opponent if he had been on the table for more of the match. We had scores/times of:
balls/minutes
112/29 -- 15 seconds per ball -- 29 of 75 minutes used
70/15 -- 13 seconds per ball -- 15 of 35 minutes used
150/38 -- 15 seconds per ball -- 38 of 75 minutes used
34/15 -- 26 seconds per ball -- 15 of 35 minutes used

The last time was for one of the league's slowest players. He was playing noticeably faster than his usual pace.

2. There were a couple of details about running the clock. For racking time, the shooter/breaker is responsible for pausing the clock, but the seated player sometimes helped. If the shooter is hampered by a neighboring table, the non-shooter should pause the clock. We set the clock so that there would be a free time of 19 seconds at the start of each inning. This meant that safety battles took little time off the clock.

3. We were using the out-of-time penalty of "player with time continues to shoot." Under this rule, if time expires for one player, the other player continues to shoot regardless of misses until he fouls or wins or runs out of time himself. Because the matches were handicapped by points, the winner in a match where both players ran out of time would have to be determined by percentage of required score. Since no one ran out of time, we didn't have to test this rule.

I think 30 seconds/ball plus 10 minutes would be a good amount of time for league play. This gives a little extra time to the weaker players.

Danny and I are honing in on 90 minutes for each player per 150 point game. We're trying to come up with the shortest amount of time possible with which, say, 98% of games will finish without going over. (In my opinion, a 95% success rate is not good enough, as that would mean almost 1 game every 2 rounds of play would not finish on time. This seems too high.)

Even though three hours sounds like a lot, as others have said, this is simply the maximum amount of time and most games would come in far under.

I think the key to getting Charlie to consider altering the format of the World Championships is formulating all this into an easily-understood rule. Too many caveats and we won't be able to sell it. So here it is:

1) 90 minutes per player.
2) Shooter racks his own, time continues during racking.
3) You are responsible for your own time (i.e., if you forget to switch it off after your inning, there is no recourse AT ALL. Just switch when you notice.).
4) If you exhaust your time, the only penalty is that a referee is assigned to your table. He ONLY times the offending player, and such player will be on a permanent 15 second shot clock.

I think this system is pretty simple and hard to break. If anyone sees a flaw or a way to improve, please let me know. I'd love to be able to condense these 4 rules into 3. I think if you can get the system down to 3 rules, Charlie will at least have to listen.

- Steve

Bob Jewett · Nov 25, 2009

Steve Lipsky said:
So here it is:

1) 90 minutes per player.
2) Shooter racks his own, time continues during racking.
3) You are responsible for your own time (i.e., if you forget to switch it off after your inning, there is no recourse AT ALL. Just switch when you notice.).
4) If you exhaust your time, the only penalty is that a referee is assigned to your table. He ONLY times the offending player, and such player will be on a permanent 15 second shot clock.

I think this system is pretty simple and hard to break. If anyone sees a flaw or a way to improve, please let me know. I'd love to be able to condense these 4 rules into 3. I think if you can get the system down to 3 rules, Charlie will at least have to listen.

- Steve

I think the time needs to be stated in seconds per ball. 30 seconds is about right. Add 10 minutes for overhead, so 150 points would be 85 minutes.

I think you have to pause the clock during racking. There should be a referee racking. The opponent might not like the rack. You also have to reconcile the score. I don't think this phase of the game is a problem for slow play.

Especially for league play, a person with a shot clock is not possible. Shot clocks have their own problems. I much prefer the penalty I mentioned above: the player with time left shoots until he wins or fouls or runs out of time himself.

One more match to report:

150 in 41 minutes including a 3-foul penalty (16 seconds/ball)
53 in 24 minutes (27 seconds per ball) (known slow player)

unknownpro · Jan 19, 2010

How are the timed matches going guys? Or are they? Thanks for working on timing formats. I believe keeping the players to a brisk pace of play will be essential for straight pool to have a real comeback in tournament play.

Bob Jewett · Jan 19, 2010

unknownpro said:
How are the timed matches going guys? Or are they? Thanks for working on timing formats. I believe keeping the players to a brisk pace of play will be essential for straight pool to have a real comeback in tournament play.

The timing seems to be working out OK, but we don't have anyone in league that is excruciatingly, painfully slow. Just irritatingly. I think that 30 seconds per ball with timeouts for racking and a per-inning allowance for start-up will be enough time for nearly everyone. You are still looking at 3 hours for 150 points if both players are slow.

The real problem is to decide on a penalty for running out of time. I think "the chance to run out" mentioned above can work, but I've never seen it in play.

I think the proposal of putting a time clock on the slow player could also work, but it requires more resources. If that is done, I think the players should start with only 20 seconds per ball at the start. That means you will get the time clock on the slow player sooner. You don't want him to burn through an hour and a half for just 20 balls scored, as you would still be in trouble on the schedule even if he goes on the per-shot time clock.

TSW · Jan 19, 2010

Speaking as an accuracy-challenged pool player, you might run into problems in league play with a per-match shot clock. 30 seconds per shot is fine on average, but when one spends several innings batting around at the same ball, that 30 seconds quickly drops to an unreasonable amount of time.

Granted, this may be an issue in 9-ball but not so much in straight pool. Still I feel compelled to speak up for the contingent who can't run 50 with their eyes closed.

Bob Jewett · Jan 20, 2010

tsw_521 said:
Speaking as an accuracy-challenged pool player, you might run into problems in league play with a per-match shot clock. 30 seconds per shot is fine on average, but when one spends several innings batting around at the same ball, that 30 seconds quickly drops to an unreasonable amount of time.

Granted, this may be an issue in 9-ball but not so much in straight pool. Still I feel compelled to speak up for the contingent who can't run 50 with their eyes closed.

The new electronic chess clocks have a semi-fix for this. At the start of each inning, the player gets up to 19 seconds of free time. In theory, fast safety players could play forever, 19 seconds at a time.

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