Paul Schofield's 'No Conflict' rules vs. Current Rules for 9 ball.

Maybe you could post a link to the rules so people could see what they are voting on?

Roger

I suppose that's a good point - some people might not know about them.

http://www.goldcrownbilliardseriepa.com/noconflict.html

I'm not really in favor of one over the other. I have no *real* problems with either. But then again, I'm not a consistent run-out player, so ...

You folks really should play them first.

This isn't the thread to argue the merits of the rules. However, I'll go ahead and sum-up my thoughts anyway. heh

I already said I like alternate break, I like the random racking order, I like that as the breaker, it's my responsibility to get it tight and on the spot - and as a player who doesn't run out very often; being able to shoot after the break is nice, but also that much more dangerous. Because if I don't run out, now I've just given a half-ran and hopefully wide open table to my opponent. :/

Breaking and racking are skills just like every other part of the game. If you take them away you are taking away part of the game. I prefer rack your own.

If Mika and SVB played by these rules Mika would have won.

Wow

mnShooter said:

Breaking and racking are skills just like every other part of the game. If you take them away you are taking away part of the game. I prefer rack your own.

If Mika and SVB played by these rules Mika would have won.

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I have not watched, but you are saying that SVB was slipping him the rack ? Did he not inspect the rack each time and get the problems corrected ?

Really ? This is shocking to hear. I will check the forum for more comments about this.

I have a lot of respect for Paul and his posts....he seems to be very honorable man, with a viable alternative to the current system....

With that being said, I heavily favor the current rules....

My very simple mind has one conclusion....enforce the rules that we have and you avoid the need to change them.....a nine ball rack is simple - one on top, nine in middle, no need to move any other balls.....if you do, forfeit.....

Better yet, tournies could easily avoid all this with a 3rd party racker.....he throws them in, gets it as tight as he can.....you don't like his rack, forfeit....

IMHO, Paul has a good alternate solution that works for his events and that is good stuff.....if I play in one of his events, I would play by the rules and do exactly as he said.....if I play BCA, or anything else requiring random, I'm gonna follow the freaking rules....if it's rackem however you want, then I'll do that too.....wherver you play, read the rule sheet and abide....this shouldn't be this hard....

mnShooter said:

Breaking and racking are skills just like every other part of the game. If you take them away you are taking away part of the game. I prefer rack your own.

If Mika and SVB played by these rules Mika would have won.

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Did you and I watch a different match? They played rack your own with a magic rack. Mika Broke dry way to much and missed alot of shots. And when he did miss Shane got out. Shane missed plenty too but Mika did not get out enough to keep the match close. And when he did he broke dry anyway.

Unless i misunderstood you and what your saying is if it was alternate break and you didnt have to make a ball then Mika would have won. Again im gonna say no way cause Mika got poor shape on the one ball a ton, got out of line to much and missed to many balls throughout the racks.

I can envision a lot of conflict over whether the guy racking his own is doing it randomly.

I have only one problem with the rules and that's the breaker getting to shoot after the break fails to drop a ball. This is a fundamental change to the game. 8 ball, 9 ball, straight pool, one pocket.... if you don't make a ball on the break your opponent steps up to the table. Lets start playing one pocket with this rule and see what happens. Regard less of the many rule changes to the games as time has gone on. The requirement of the making a ball on the break to keep your turn at the table has always been there. I wonder how football would be played if the kicking team got the ball back at the start of the game once the kick off play was finished? hmmmm, funny.



I've only just recently gotten to the point where I can control my breaks, regularly drop balls on the break and control the cue ball. Its made a large difference in my game. But if you had asked my opinion on this rule a year ago when I didn't know how to break well, I would of still given you the same answer. I don't like.



I've read most if not all the arguments on this set of rules and I haven't seen anyone address one issue. I've read the argument that the challenge in the rule becomes controlling the cue ball and the one ball. Well there is nothing stopping a player from learning to do that now. That is currently what I'm working on with my break simply because I noticed that once I was dropping balls on the break at a consistent rate I wasn't getting a shot on the one after the break. Since I'm still not a good kicker I decide to try and find a way to break with the idea being increasing the odds of having a better shot on the one. One could argue that my next step might of been to learn how to kick better and round out my game, but that's a discussion for another thread.



Make the pros start to play with this one rule and give them a year they will find a way to make the rule useless and this is the one point in that whole set of rules that can be exploited the easiest. Lets just use SVB as an example. He would tear apart the fundamentals of the break a figure out a way to regularly give him a shot on the one because he knows he going to get to go again.



I guess the last thing I would like to point out about this one rule is this.... If the break wasn't such a major part of the game ppl wouldn't of taken the time to find ways to exploit it. i.e. the soft break, SVB's break and so on. You shouldn't take the break out of the game just because some ppl are better at it then others.... and there is still a way to exploit it.

alstl said:

I can envision a lot of conflict over whether the guy racking his own is doing it randomly.

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Well the breaker does not get to put the balls into the rack... his opponent does; once their in the breaker pushes the rack up, tightens it up, and breaks. the breaker has NO CONTROL over the ball-order within the rack.

So, what's more likely to happen is that the opponent will be figuring out how to pattern rack so every other ball ends up on the opposite ends of the table. The balls are supposed to be gathered in the rack, then the rack spun some variable number of times, then triangulated, then handed off - but I dont see that happening either.

stljohnny said:

Well the breaker does not get to put the balls into the rack... his opponent does; once their in the breaker pushes the rack up, tightens it up, and breaks. the breaker has NO CONTROL over the ball-order within the rack.

So, what's more likely to happen is that the opponent will be figuring out how to pattern rack so every other ball ends up on the opposite ends of the table. The balls are supposed to be gathered in the rack, then the rack spun some variable number of times, then triangulated, then handed off - but I dont see that happening either.

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ok so lets say the opponent put the balls in, and no matter what happens the breaker can't get the 1 ball to freeze to the 3. The 3 ball might be smaller than the other balls. He is supposed to break that rack?

I think there is skill and knowledge in racking the balls. Taking away the requirement of making a ball is no different than handicapping. Also takes away some of the luck factor which does need to be in the game.

Perfect example. In the 90's everybody knew Efren was the best player. But he was regarded of having a "weak" break. At least compared to earl, buddy and sigel. Would these rules been fair at that time?

The best players have the best breaks and to take away that from them is wrong.

Straight pool is a great game and I would like it to return to dominance. But you cant make 9 and 10 ball into straight pool and that is what you are trying to do.

mnShooter said:

Breaking and racking are skills just like every other part of the game. If you take them away you are taking away part of the game. I prefer rack your own.

If Mika and SVB played by these rules Mika would have won.

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I think it would take much more than that to make up a 21 game spread...

If you wanna break soft,and potentially not make a ball play one pocket. That was easy we solved this dilemma.

Bob Jewett said:

Actually, that large a spread could have been purely by chance. If you flip coins with someone in a race to 100 wins, the loser will have 79 or fewer wins about 14% of the time.

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14% isn't quite a scary high amount. And are you saying its chance that Mika missed some easy shots and gave Shane hangers when playing safe? That's something Mika had control over rather than flipping a coin.

I think it's hard to vote on these rules without having played them first. Everybody's gut reaction is "OMG it's different! Change can't be good. Forget it, the new rules must be bad!" And I think Paul is right, you can't decide unless you give it a try with your friends for more than a day or two. Better yet, try and go to one of his tournaments and see how NO ONE is calling refs over to check the rack, or racking for 4 minutes at a time, or having your opponent check and deny your rack, rack after rack, or pattern racking, or bit*hing about being slug racked, or the other guy getting lucky and making 3 balls on the break. The list goes on and on.