Break Stats -- 2016 US Open 8-Ball Championship, July 2016

Here are some aggregate break statistics from the 2016 US Open 8-Ball Championship, played the past three days at the Rio Las Vegas Resort & Casino. The promoter, CueSports International, provided pay-per-view streaming.

Conditions -- The conditions for this call-shot 8-Ball event included:

These stats are for all 13 streamed matches, which were 11% of the event's total matches:

Saturday, July 23
Sunday, July 24
Monday, July 25

Overall results -- The breaker made at least one ball and did not foul 76% of the time (149 of 197), won 64% of the games (127 of 197), and broke and ran 53% of the games (104 of 197).

Here's a more detailed breakdown of the 197 games.


Break-and-run games: The 104 break-and-run games represented 53% of all 197 games, 82% of the 127 games won by the breaker, and 70% of the 149 games in which the break was successful (made a ball and didn't foul).

With alternating breaks, B&R "packages" of the normal type are not possible. But we can still look at the breaks of a given player and see how many he ran on his own successive breaks, and we can call these "alternate-break packages." The 104 break-and-run games consisted of 1 alternate-break 8-pack (Van Boening), 1 alternate-break 7-pack (Deuel), 1 alternate-break 5-pack (Van Boening), 3 alternate-break 4-packs, 4 alternate break 3-packs, 18 alternate-break 2-packs, and 24 singles.

8-balls on the break: The 8-ball was made on the break 6 times (3.0% of the 197 games). The breaker chose to spot it 5 times and to re-break once.

Miscellany from the data for the 2016 US Open 8-Ball Championship:
[This relates only to the 13 streamed matches, not to all the matches in the event.]

• In tournament winner Van Boening's 5 streamed matches, he broke successfully at a 79% rate (30 of 38), won on his break at an 82% rate (31 of 38), and broke and ran at a 68% rate (26 of 38). The comparable figures for the other players in the streamed matches were 75%, 60%, and 49%, respectively.

• The most balls made on a single break was 5, done just once, by Roberts. He ran out that game from the break.

• The average number of balls made on the break was 1.4 (this includes dry and fouled breaks). On successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul), the average was 1.7.

• 86% (170 of 197) of the games ended in one inning – 53% (104) won by the breaker (B&R) and 34% (66) won by the non-breaker. Twenty-two games (11% of 197) ended in the second inning, and only 5 games (2.5% of 197) went beyond the second inning.

• 69% (136 of 197) of the games were run out by the player who was at the table following the break. These run-outs were:

• The player who made the first ball after the break:

• The loser won an average of 6.0 games in the 12 races to 9. Four of those matches went to hill/hill; one finished at 9-3 (the shortest).

• Fargo Favorites -- The player with the higher Fargo Rating at the start of the match won 69% (9 of 13) of the matches.

• The average elapsed time for the 12 races to 9 was 86 minutes. The average minutes per game, including the races to both 9 and 11, was 5.7. The elapsed time was measured from the lag until the winning ball was made (or conceded), so it includes time for racking and timeouts (exception -- a medical timeout of about 16 minutes for a nosebleed was excluded).

• The match that was both longest in elapsed time (121 min.) and highest in average minutes per game (7.1 min./game) was O. Dominguez d. Wilkie 9-8.

• The match that was both shortest in elapsed time (61 min.) and lowest in average minutes per game (4.1 min./game) was Van Boening's "perfect" match defeating Roberts 9-6.

• Breaking fouls averaged about 1 for every 12 games, other fouls 1 for every 13 games, and missed shots 1 for every 3.5 games.

• Only 9 of the games (4.6%) involved one or more safeties.

skip100 said:

53% break and run, that's crazy. Two out of three times they made a ball on the break they ran out.

Click to expand...

Yup. And that (2 of 3) is how it was last year (or even a bit higher) in this event, and that's how it is for the top players with 8-Ball on 9-footers as well.

I've said this before -- I kind of waiver between (a) feeling that 8-Ball is just a lousy game for discriminating among top pros and (b) just admiring the skill they display in achieving all those run-outs.