Raph Cleary said:

If this is the bench mark, in rotation, for the modern era (WPA Worlds-8,9,10, U.S Open, China Open, All Japan)-
Earl- 8
Shane- 7 *
Filler- 6 *
Pin-yi- 6 *
Wu- 5 *
Efren - 5
Biado- 4 *
Thorsten- 4 *
Immonen- 4 *
Souquet- 4 *
Darren- 4
Okumura- 4
Chang- 4

*Currently Active

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JAM said:

One more thing, please take the time to listen to colloquy in the link that I shared. The commentators were speaking about the soft break being used throughout the 2007 WPC, which was the point of my post, not the exact date and time when Corey Deuel first utilized the soft break.

Again, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

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nataddrho said:

How do you know?

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skor said:

The thing with MR rules is that almost every frame starts with a safety battle, which takes a bit from the heart and soul of 9-ball and sometimes makes the game quite boring to watch. Yes, I do appreciate a good safety battle, but not on every rack. Races to 9 take 1.5 hours with a 30-second shot clock... they were shorter without the shot clock when the 1 was on the spot.

If I were a pro playing by MR rules, I would find a different break, something that will keep the 1 on the table and pocket something else.

In Europe they also restrict the 2-ball position in the rack; it could be in the back spot or at the wing spots, so a player can still pot the 1 ball but needs to learn 3 breaks to get position on the 2. Not randomising the 2-ball position is a bad idea in my opinion.

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