China Open

There was a statistic analysis that showed that there is no difference for the end result, so why do people feel so strong about it?
On one side, I like winner breaks (and the looser rack), sort of prize and punishment for the winner and looser, works great for amateurs, didn't work well for pros when they would argue about the racking and it took forever to rack and get the game moving... now that was a pain to watch... then came referee racking and then the Sardo rack etc etc but that's another story.

Here is another perspective, you travel across the world to play in a tournament, winner breaks format, loose the lag, your opponent break and runs 9 racks, you pack your cues and go home... fun...
Or go with alternate break and at least you get on the table and maybe on the score board, even if we follow the statistic that show that since it doesn't matter, you were about to lose anyway at least you got to play.

All the WNT events early stages are boring as hell, all the seeded players are playing dead money and win 9-0 or 9-1, give the dead money a reason to come back next time.

The ability to comeback from an 8-1 or something like that, that we saw in Arizona, means that the players have figured out the break.
You want to keep it interesting and keep the winner breaks, bring the 3 points rule in. we will see less cut breaks and more good old pool.
Well you have to understand that those statistical analyses have an inherent flaw. It's only showing tv table matches, which are going to err to the side of the better performers. So yeah, there might not be a difference in the break between those players who are playing better and are more likely to be on the tv tables and to get farther in the tournament. but that doesn't mean that the players who aren't playing as well aren't having more difficulty than they normally would be with other breaks.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not arguing that in the long run, it's different. Honestly, I doubt that it is, but any statistical analysis needs to include all of the matches to be truly reliable. The tv tables are inherently going to have better performing players on average.

China Open

Perhaps skor is remembering what Bob Jewett has said on winner breaks vs. alternate break formats, such as this from 2024:
In summary, the two main results are that the match-winning chances do not change for a change in format (winner/alternate) and the match length is generally a little longer for alternate breaks. Loser breaks also does not change the match-winning probability.

Thoughts on players who seemingly take Zero practice strokes, before shooting / final follow through?

So much for the '1st Amendment'!
What? lol. I didn't say anything about restricting anyone's speech...lol. I'm just not going to subject myself to it anymore. The first amendment isn't the wedding singer...lol. "I have a mic and you don't so you will listen to every word I have SAY!!!!!!", lol.

Big Ko on Waxed Balls

When you get a new cue ball, there is a coating and it is a little slick. Once you wear that off, the cue ball plays differently. As we all know. When I practice the vertical masse shots, you can imagine that ball gets dirty and it isn't as slick as a new cue ball. After I clean the cue balls, I do put a small amount of car wax on a micro fiber cloth and rub the cue balls. It makes the cue ball play like a new ball again. I have no problem with a pool room that wants to keep the balls playing like they are new. Usually for pro tournaments the balls are new anyways so that shouldn't be an issue.

I think there is some confusion between (a) clean and polish and (b) wax/silicone.

Attached is a picture of my Super Pros that are over 15 years old after I cleaned and polished them with Aramith Ball Cleaner. No wax. They looked like they were new out of the box after I polished them.

I am pretty sure that new out of the box Aramiths are just polished. In particular I don’t think the new CB would act like the CB in the Ko video.
a3c1f22418a09860f8295c381d7d2f8c.jpg

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