... Predator started its own tour of sorts for the same reason Matchroom did. It was trying to grow a stagnant sport and protect its existing interests (sales of cues, racks, balls, cloth, eventually tables). Predator leaders are also passionate about the game, just like Barry Hearn.

The first big step by Predator was resurrecting the moribund World 10-Ball Championship in 2019. The event had only been held twice between 2010 to 2018 (it was also skipped in the 2020 Covid year).

Predator followed up two years later by creating its Pro Billiard Series (PBS) in 2021, almost two years before the official launch of the WNT.

The Pro Billiard Series was not big to start. Just five announced events initially, including the World 10-Ball championship, and not a ton of prize money.

The World 10-ball tournament in 2021 had a total $100,000 prize fund, with $35,000 for the winner (Eklent Kaci).

The following year, in 2022, Predator brought back to life the World 8-Ball Championship. The last time the event was held was a decade earlier in 2012.

Interestingly, Predator's website now touts its Billiard Series as the "No. 1 Pro Billiards Tour in the World."

This year, the PBS has 15 or so events overall, being held in eight locations (Las Vegas, St. Louis, Austria, Rome, Ho Chi Minh City, Bali, San Antonio and Jacksonville, Fla.)

TBC

deep said:

I have a Horo Perfect Storm tip on my Y2-J jump cue and think its even better than the White Storm.

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I haven't tried that one.

jbart65 said:

You are correct. MR ran it from 2000 to 2007. The event wasn’t held in 2008-2009.

When I did my research earlier in the year, it was hard to find lots of good information on the history of pool tournaments....

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Wikipedia has a pretty good history of the World Championship. It seems that Matchroom's first event in Cardiff in 1999 (Reyes) was retroactively given world championship status.

Jerry R said:

I agree and have said before choosing 9 ball was a huge mistake. The recent rise of Heyball (more so globally than in USA) and the money behind it will likely make it more dominate. The times I've travelled to Europe seems like most were playing English eight ball or blackball. When/if pool gets into Olympics, we will certainly be watching Heyball.

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sure, but the reason heyball looks like it does (i.e. boring, for the most part) is because regular 8-ball is too easy for the pros. watching 650-700 level players is more fun to me than watching the top players just run out.

if there were no money to speak of in heyball, interest would be even lower.

jbart65 said:

I do wonder if Hearn was already thinking a global tour when MR got involved in the early 2000s with WPC. We had two recessions, in 2001 and 2008-2009, and they were probably a big setback.

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We may never know, but it seems quite possible.

It's the Matchroom way. Purchase and production of the US Open 9ball in 2018 was surely a Matchroom experiment to see whether Matchroom could make the big field event business model work. The 2019 US Open 9ball was a huge success that I presume whetted Matchroom's appetite for greater entry into the world of big field tournament pool. As we know, 2020 was lost to COVID, but by 2021, Matchroom was already devising plans for producing new events, and these plans, over time, gave rise to the WNT.

8 ball is the most boring game possible on a pool table. Please, let's not go there.

KissedOut said:

I was having ticky problems in cases where the ball was more than a couple of ball widths from the cushion and Dave Gross aka @12squared showed me a way to determine the proper aiming point. Unfortunately I'm old and haven't been able to play for a couple of years and I forgot what it was, so I'm hoping that Dave sees this and tells us.

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Wouldn’t you just use the mirror system?
Regarding where to aim

maha said:

looks great and likely will play well with big pockets for your home. nice wood and 6 legs is the ticket to quality for older tables.
might have been worked on in the past. so who cares.
i would put a grand into it getting it set up if needed.

unless you are one of those that has to have tight pockets and super fast cloth to test your self. then go get a diamond.

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Black-Balled said:

Youre opening a can uh worms now.

When taking size on a pool table, outer measurement isn't used, we use playing surface length.

9' table is 100" inner length.

Makes sense, right?!?!

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Makes sense. Here’s what I got.

white1 said:

Interesting. You are older sir than I thought. I’ve read many of your posts. My mind was guessing you in your thirties. I’m 62

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I am in my 70s

jokrswylde said:

Approximately 65% to 70% of all pool participants in the United States are considered casual players who play fewer than 13 times per year.

The vast majority of the pool-playing population falls into the "casual" category, often defined by recreational play in social settings like bars or home environments.
Eight-ball is the most played pool game in the United States. It is the standard game found in nearly every American bar and home, often treated as synonymous with the word "pool" itself by casual players.
While eight-ball dominates the social and amateur landscape, nine-ball is the most popular game at the professional and competitive tournament levels.

This is certainly not anything new or groundbreaking to us, the same things have been said many times on here before. However it does serve to reinforce those points.

It just seems to me an exercise in futility. The most popular game to the casuals, whose money and viewership is needed, is not being promoted as THE professional game.

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This is a subject we tend to get around to from time to time on the forum. Let's not pretend that nobody has ever tried to make 8ball the standard game in pro pool.

In 2006, Kevin Trudeau's IPT 8ball tour offered more prize money than any pool tour in history but his business model fell apart. About 10 years later, Darren Appleton created an impressive new tour called the "World Pool Series" which played 8ball. In the end, however, he could not make financial ends meet and the project lasted just a couple of years. Now, we have the Ultimate Pool events trying to bring 8ball back to prominence. Nobody has made a really big splash with an 8ball tour yet, but the day may be coming.

A major reason that straight pool was replaced by 9ball (approximately 1983) was that it was too slow to make for good viewing. The worst thing about straight pool was the calling of shots. The player would call the shot, wait for the referee to repeat the call (which only a few of the attending fans could hear) and then shoot. Fans grew weary of call shot, and it was obvious that televised pool would do better without it.

Snooker, which was starting to gain some momentum at that point, had it right. You never had to say which red you were trying to pocket or which pocket. If you made a legal hit on any red, then any red that dropped counted. 9ball was the same, for on any legal hit, anything that dropped counted. TV viewing always worked best without call shot.

When TV coverage became accessible to pro pool, they knew they had to play a game that would move along at a much faster clip than straight pool. As so many of the best pro players were already playing 9ball exclusively (examples include Earl Strickland, Jose Parica, and Buddy Hall), the choice, right or wrong, was easy.

Hence, the undeniably intuitive argument for 8ball being the pro game has not held up very well in practice. That's because recreational players, on average, so rarely watch the pros. Most of those who follow the pros are more serious players, and most of them would rather watch 9ball.

Price drop
1050.00 shipped with case.
Still looking for trades.