i have been skeptical that the draws are somewhat tailored to which alot of the non chinese ( and pool players and fan favorites) get easy paths to the latter stages
No, your right - they do favor mixing in international players for viewership. Foreign (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) players get to skip directly to the stage two draw, which skips a large chunk of the tournament. It both incentivizes participation by foreigners and reduces the chances of a monotonous final stage.
Do you ever video record your practice? For this shot, you want the camera perfectly in line with the balls and zoomed in on just the cue ball and cue stick.
30 minutes each way is my max, and I won't sign up for any league that doesn't essentially guarantee I'm playing that night (whether it's Double Jeopardy APA or another format).
I used to live one block away from my league room and didn't mind the nights I didn't play because I enjoyed just walking over and hanging out. But now I can't justify a long drive and leaving my family at home just to sit in a bar for hours and watch bad pool if there's a possibility I won't even play that night.
We live a bit on the outskirts and travel about 30 highway miles. Only 35 minutes door to door but we do the round trip twice a week and one Sunday a month. Absent any extras like playoffs and/or tournaments, it's still 540 miles and 10.5 hours a month...
Good USAPL and BCA leagues and a great venue with quality equipment/food/staff, so well worth it.
What advantages to you see? I understand not wanting to change things that effect match play (shot clock, racking etc) but I don’t see why having a table ref can be a bad thing.
The problem is that refs and players make mistakes. Most players play the large majority of their games without a ref and without deep knowledge of the rules. Add a ref, and you change the flow of the game and suddenly add rules that the players never apply in unreffed games. I can remember questionable calls in the last few years that had viewers screaming at their screens. And good calls that champion players decried as bogus.
In an ideal world, the players would follow all of the rules all of the time and the refs would never make a mistake.
