Baby Huey said:

The movement of the nineball could have been caused by the table cloth moving under the applied tension of his fingers on the cloth. I’m not sure how that gets ruled on if that’s is the case?

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We've all seen hanging balls Yoda' d in after catching their breath and rules have been created to deal with "spontaneous motion". Right now the best possibility for that is the strike on the cue ball itself. But that's just guessing at it.

He said that the pocket opening was 4 inch, but it opened to 5 inches. I am not familiar enough with the table difficulty post to have a real opinion about the difficulty of the pockets, but pocket with open shapes like that can rattle quite a bit when shooting down the rail.

The real point I wanted to make was to thank you for the post. I watched the link. What an incredible match!!! It was definitely worth the watch. Crazy match.

Oh, and thank goodness for Texas Express rules. Spotting multiple balls and hitting from the kitchen doesn't even feel like 9 ball anymore.

briclops said:

On the WNTTV website it still looks like a foul with better video bitrate available, not just on YouTube with lower bitrate. It would have been hard for a referee to notice it, or a player to perhaps noticed it happened. The 9 ball did not move long enough for a player shooting looking at the pocket to pick up on their own that the 9 ball moved. The impact occurred at the same time the cue hit the object ball making it tough for a player to call a foul on themselves. Yapp probably thought it was a good hit at the time since he knew the ref was watching and made no call.

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Funny. I'm 51 / 49 no foul so what Yapp thought at the time isn't even a point of concern. There are many anomalies in the slomo "proof" clip. At presented speed, the stroke looks faster than it should be and the ball does jog as if fouled.
At frame x frame, there is no movement at the possible contact and the motion of the ball seems controlled by the shadow of the stick only. Enough doubt for me.

I have a Sardo rack and love it. It produces an absolutely tight rack immediately every time. No instructions but simply place the ball in it and press down on the center. I tried pressing on the wings too hard and cracked one. The reason they stopped using it was it was too perfect and making balls on the break was too repeatable. Just like templates do now. Great product, just ahead of its time..

I may be willing to sell off my CueMan Taper Bar setup. I no longer use it. PM me if interested.

Bob Jewett said:

You must have missed the tournaments in the early 2000s when all the pros were breaking soft and making the wing ball every time. Bustamante was breaking about 10mph ... I think I saw that in the world championship.

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This is where the 3 (or 4 in some games) point rule is introduced right? Interestingly, this created a lot of variety in breaking styles. I know some players who break at what I consider to be soft speed, but making 3 points.
DUYA just implemented the break box, which I find redundant on the Chinese table, the middle pockets hoover up that 1 ball. They also must have 3 past the headstrong (CB not included), which does add some interest and variety.
Though Interesting, I can't help feel its knee-jerk reaction to MR and an attempt to get more and more foreigners into the event. I preferred watching Xue Zhengqi blast racks at warp speed.

Benelli said:

Chinese import cue, looks like a KaoKao to me

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Yes. I believe I have seen that cue and/or similar sold under the brand names Victory and Stradford, also maybe Players Edge. Often sold without any branding.

That was maybe the toughest final eight I’ve seen in a long time. Some excellant dark horses and top pros.

Now that it looks like recent spinal surgery, fusing the c-3,c4,c5,and c6 vertebrae, my playing days are pretty much over. I had a nice young caregiver named Ethan...gave him a cheap Taiwan made sneaky and an equally cheap case I hadn't played with in years....At his next visit, he thanked me profusely...said having his own cue allowed him to beat his dad for the first time. Actually it didn't play bad, good maple shaft, and I gave it Talisman tip.

That made an otherwise pretty much crappy day a bit brighter.

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