With a time limit players will game the clock.
Any decent player knows how to go into lock down mode. If you don't need anymore balls you can just stall and bunt balls all day long and give your opponent nothing. Two and a half hours into the match one guy can shut it down and win.
Lou Figueroa
The way I ran my tournament worked great. At the time limit, the player at the table finishes their inning. Then the next player gets one inning. If the game is not finished after that, both players lag for each remaining point, until the game is won. If that still doesn't win the match, then the players will lag for the entire next game, etc. Out of about 25 matches, I only had maybe 4 go to the time limit. One was won on the extra inning. The other 2 just needed 1-2 lags. And a single match needed 5 lags to determine the winner.
I got the idea from Pat in his 650U international Open 9 ball event that I played in. He did the same thing there if a 9 ball match was not finished. The players lagged for each remaining game until a winner was determined.
My format was single elimination, race to 2, 70 min time limit, no handicap, owed coins cancel out. I bought kitchen timers and put one on each table. I had 26 players, 8 tables, started at 7:30 pm (weeknight) and ended at 12:50am.
