Baby Huey said:

Bob and Stu, this lack of full utilization of tables has led to complaints of “slow play.” In the streamed match between Garcia and I think Megliano (spelling not correct I think) you could see at least 4 tables open for over an hour. I think this occurs in part due to the time allotted for buybacks. Something has to be done about the time allotted for buybacks which can be 12 hours. I know because I lost at 10 pm and had until the next day at 10 am to buy back then the redraw could happen.

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There is a system in place such that they can do a partial draw for the next round while the current round is still playing and not all the buybacks are in. If they use that system, they can keep the tables busier. I'm pretty sure they were doing this on Saturday when matches from two rounds were happening at the same time. I think they had also made buyback mandatory by then, so there was no guessing about intent.

If one match gets really far behind, then you can't do a redraw because those players will be two rounds behind. And if one person -- not pointing any fingers -- consistently takes over two hours the TD has to have the gumption to get out a 30-second shot clock. This is mostly a problem when they are down to so few players that the entire round can play at once on the 47 tables. The round cannot go faster than the slowest match plus whatever break you allow between matches.

Even when there are lots of players in the round, you need to be careful to start the snails as early as possible. If you start a snail's match last in the round, everyone else can have a nice, long dinner break.

Here are the longest matches by round on Saturday (Sunday):
Round 5 -- 2:16
Round 6 -- 2:32 Patsura-Sniegocki
Round 7 -- 2:15 Teutscher-Carman
Round 8 -- ~2:10 three matches
Round 9 -- ~2:03 two matches
Round 10 -- 1:54 Meglino-Wallace
Round 11 -- 2:10 Ruuger-Pinegar
Round 12 -- 1:24 Meglino-Patsura speed demons! (Sunday)
Round 13 -- 1:51 Meglino-Patsura back to normal (Sunday)

My conclusion is that unless the matches are sped up for the final rounds, you have to budget two and a half hours per round. I think all players should have at least a 15-minute break between rounds.

For the entire nine ball event, the average match was close to 1:30.

IMO, if its a straight shot it's your mechanics. If it's a cut shot with spin, it's 50/50 either way. The reason is, nothing moves straight, and you need to predict all of the reactions between tip and cb, cb and cloth, cb and ob. If one prediction is a hair off, the shot will miss.

I had a shot where for years I was inconsistent at. Then Bassavich came to my local room and did a clinic, and afterward someone asked him about a shot. He demoed it and showed how to aim it. It clicked that I had been aiming it all wrong all those years, and maybe my arm was moving sideways to "fix" the wrong aim. Now years later, I know how to aim that shot and my arm goes straighter and I'm more successful pocketing it.

PS, I'm not talking about all the cte stuff. I just mean knowing how the balls all move sideways, and adjusting for a thinner or fatter initial aim to compensate.

I play for about 15 yrs. I have a 9 ft table in my basement.
I just finished my 2nd hour session with an instructor.
My biggest mistake is i didnt took lessons 15 yrs ago. My mechanichs were not solid.
Specially PSR.

Baby Huey said:

Bob and Stu, this lack of full utilization of tables has led to complaints of “slow play.” In the streamed match between Garcia and I think Megliano (spelling not correct I think) you could see at least 4 tables open for over an hour. I think this occurs in part due to the time allotted for buybacks. Something has to be done about the time allotted for buybacks which can be 12 hours. I know because I lost at 10 pm and had until the next day at 10 am to buy back then the redraw could happen.

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Yes, reassignment of tables was a big problem. It was not handled efficiently. Tables in the main arena that were empty for hours at a time were far too common.

For me, as someone who "aims by feel", I get the best results by always assuming my misses are from mechanics, not aiming. This builds a positive feedback loop for sharpening my focus into the right things, and doesn't sacrifice my trust/intuition in aiming.

Of course I sometimes aim wrong too, but sometimes the truth isn't what your mind needs, especially when building habits in a game where your main goal is to make it as automatic as possible.

This goes for 99% of normal shots, there's exceptions like very close cuts, kicks, certain banks etc. where aiming has a much larger margin for error than technical failure so I treat those as different cases and do conscious aiming methods.

In those cases (conscious aiming exceptions), my answer to your original question is more nuanced. A good way to figure out is to try the same shot over and over and see what happens. In competition where you can't do that in the moment, I assume it's mechanics 100% of the time, just like with normal shots.

Bob and Stu, this lack of full utilization of tables has led to complaints of “slow play.” In the streamed match between Garcia and I think Megliano (spelling not correct I think) you could see at least 4 tables open for over an hour. I think this occurs in part due to the time allotted for buybacks. Something has to be done about the time allotted for buybacks which can be 12 hours. I know because I lost at 10 pm and had until the next day at 10 am to buy back then the redraw could happen.

sjm said:

In my experience, Bob, if they finish Round 7 by end of day Friday, they are always in good shape.

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This year, that would have left six rounds for Saturday. That can certainly work, especially if the players step lively, but there seems to have been at least one two-hour match in every round. Sadly, Filler's sub-30-minute matches don't compensate for those. Meglino and Patsura went deep.

Lawnboy77 said:

A Heli-coil would typically work for these types of repairs, but in this case where you have a threaded rod in a hollow tube you are going to lose some strength in the process. The wall of that tube will be reduced fairly significantly by the time it’s drilled and tapped to accept the insert. 1100 lbs. divided by 4 is not too much, but I’d be concerned about the lateral forces applied when a 300 lb. plus player leans into the table.

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I don't hate this idea. I'll have to measure the hole and see if a helicoil will still fit, or if I need to look at one of the fatter keyed inserts. Depends on where its at currently and what would be left after drilling/tapping. Will do some research later this week.

And fortunately I'm nowhere near 300lbs (yet)

fastone371 said:

You can see in the video clip that the OD of the foot is larger than the locknut so I would not be the least bit concerned about that. The downside is that a 3/4" x 16 Heli Coil or Timecert is probably going to be rather expensive.

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Buying a twist drill and tap for a single insert wasn't on my bingo card, but it might be the best way forward. Maybe I can sweet talk a machine shop into doing it.

fastone371 said:

Just looking thru your pics, you are leaving no stone unturned with that restoration, that table looks like it was pretty rough to start with, really makes me appreciate what pristine candidate that mine was/is. Cant wait to see it when its done.

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Thanks. It is certainly turning into a bigger project than I anticipated. Will be glad to have it all done right, and if anything sucks, at least I know where the guy who did the work lives.

Thanks everyone. A lot to think about. I am luck enough to live within 45 minutes of Fred.

GoldCrown said:

Such as a recognized SPF instructor.

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If he's looking for one of those near him, this would would be a good place to look:

Bob Jewett said:

Going into Saturday, they were three and a half rounds behind. They were half way through Round 5 and they should have been starting Round 9 which turned out to have 25 players holding 7 buybacks.

They were behind because the tables were not kept full during the tournament. Now that DigitalPool records duration of matches (although somewhat imperfectly), it is possible to see how many hours the tables were actually in use. It turns out that on average the tables had matches on them only 63% of the time during playing hours. That's a problem.

If they get the usage up to 90%, they can easily be down to five rounds on Saturday and players and people can have reasonable bed times. Maybe even time for a nice dinner.

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In my experience, Bob, if they finish Round 7 by end of day Friday, they are always in good shape.

mikepage said:

The evidence suggests all three are playing better.

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It's expected that the top players will improve in absolute terms when there is so much pressure from below. I think the great increase in pro events contributes to that.

As for a 1000 (relative to the scale today), that would be quite remarkable. Five-packs in nearly every match?

Bob Jewett said:

It's best to find someone who has experience at analyzing stroke mechanics.

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Such as a recognized SPF instructor.

jimstone said:

How do you troubleshoot your potting to decide if it is your aim, or mechanics (stance, vision center, grip -stroke) that caused the miss? This has become frustrating for me on long, difficult cut shots.

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If you can't see yourself what's going on with video recording, you will probably need to find someone to help. It's best to find someone who has experience at analyzing stroke mechanics.

That is a good price on a great cue. I have a similar one I paid a little less for 2-3 years ago. One shaft. No extension.

Coos Cues said:

When I get moved into my new shop and get rolling again I would be proud to offer one of my cues for raffle for St. Judes.

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That would be a welcome offering. Thank you Sir.