I know 14.1 has never been about records

[Cameron Smith]

Actually, I was quoting Jack Colavita, who opined in the early 1980s that one had to average 35 balls off an open table to compete with the very best (which, at his time, meant Sigel, Varner, Mizerak, Rempe, Margo, Martin, Hopkins and West). As we all know, sometimes even that wasn't enough!

At least I got the number right! Thanks for that, this always stuck with me as the benchmark for world class play over the long haul.

 

[AtLarge]

Match winners -- 28.5
Match losers -- 17.9
Total -- 23.7

I decided to look at a few more years to see if these results are fairly stable. Here are the results for the matches streamed on the feature table for the last 4 American Straight Pool Championship events. Results are shown in order for 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, and then for all 4 years combined. The number of matches for the 4 years were 21, 16, 17, and 16, for a total of 70.

Points per attempted scoring inning (i.e., not counting innings with only a safety or an intentional foul)

Match winners -- 28.5, 29.4, 28.8, 35.9, 30.2​

Match losers -- 17.9, 16.6, 16.8, 22.5, 18.2​

Total -- 23.7, 23.7, 23.2, 29.8, 24.8​

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Points per attempted scoring inning (i.e., not counting safeties or intentional fouls) ...

It's too bad that the scorekeepers didn't keep track of PPASI back in the day. They did fill out scoresheets with what happened in every inning. If we could find a trove of those, it would be possible to see how things changed in 50+ years.

 

[Pete H]

I talked with Pat Fleming about the amount of book keeping and record preserving for 14.1, he says it is a lot.

The benefit of stats is give an idea of what is a reasonable expectation versus witnessing a once in a lifetime record setting runout.

If 14.1 were to be rebranded, Strickland suggests offense only games.

Even if a simulated 14.1 pool tournament took place there are few to no advantages in collecting statistics.

14.1 is better suited for general problem solving in billiards. It is rare any two players will play the runout or break the same.

There are some threads about solving 3 ball table leaves. The discussion focused on identifying opportunistic position and angles.

It makes for a great math problem. There are clear solution sets and many that are not. What does it take for a player to realize those differences?

It would be foolish for a professional player not knowing the stats. If you talk about stats for the fans, read this thread and you should notice that there are lots of us who are interested or even love all kinds of statistics.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu

We all keep stats about everything we see. But we do it subconsciously and almost never even realize it. Each shot you make is registered and affects on your next shot. All the pros have a "feel" of how their opponents play in different situations and conditions. When they play it's their instinct that tells what to do. In most situations there's no conscious thinking, they just look at the situation and do what feels like the best choice.

Most 3 ball situations are trivial for the pros but experience is the answer. 9-ball pros don't care if they need to take 2-3 cushions to get to the middle of the table with a nice angle for a break shot.

My cue ball control is not good enough for that so I'm looking for solutions where the cue ball travels as little as possible. When I play I usually stop when there's 6-8 balls left and plan my route to the break.

When I practice and miss early, I often take some balls off and leave those 6-8 on the table and continue from the break shot I was able to develop.

 

[Pete H]

I don’t know what this stat would look like for 14.1, but in snooker Neil Robertson rates almost ahead of Ronnie O’Sullivan, in century break frequency but well behind him in 50+ and 70+ break frequency.

I would say that Ronnie is the only top pro who's more likely to miss a similar shot after securing the frame than before.

At least when he's in a good state of mind. Every other pro relaxes when the frame is over and is able to perform better than under extreme pressure. Ronnie at his best needs that pressure to give the 110% I used to think is impossible.

The last 5 seasons or so I've only watched the world champs though, but at least in the Crucible this seems to be the case.

That said, I'm very interested to see what Luca Brecel, who seemed to treat even the world championship finals as practice sessions, will do in the future.