14.1 Format

[pdcue]

OK, you found a flaw in my almost ridiculous example. But the point was that one of the players in my example was far, far slower than the other, but the slower guy gets the win. That would be possible, wouldn't it, even if the time allowance for 150 points is fairly liberal? I guess the response would be that both players were too slow, so the loser (by forfeit) has no real complaint.

First off, any 'solution' is going to be a bit of a compromise,
nothing will be perfect for everybody.

I spent many a happy week at the PPPA World Championships in
New York back in the 70s - 80s, and I can tell you that
3AM matches were not a rairity.

Of course, they welcomed anyone with $300 and a tuxcedo, plus,
they had a Ladies Division, as it was called then.

Over the years, I was personally tourtured by a handfull of very
good, but VERY slow players. At the time, I felt that although the best
players should be in a tournament - there were some who played
so slowly they should not be allowed to play in any tournament.

IMHO - short matches to 60 will still not protect the spectators
from the likes of Dick Lane - but, he is a top player.

IIUC - there are some tourneys that have a policy of a shot clock
for only one of the players if he/she is too slow.

I have long thought of the chess clock type time limit.

Perhaps the best 'solution would be to put the slowest players
on the clock after a warning or two.

Dale

 

[Steve Lipsky]

In my honest opinion play should have resumed on Monday morning at Comet for the finals and in my opinion Mr Dan louis seems like a great guy I personally dont know him but why is it Steve Lipsky's fault if he had a plane to catch.

I know this has been talked about but when it comes to straight pool I honestly think that at a championship level whether it be at the NCS or at the Worlds in a few weeks there should not be a shot clock and if the matches are slow then tough titties.

just my .02

Hi Charlie. As I mentioned in the thread on the main forum, the decision to forfeit was entirely mine. Dan's flight was at 6am, not 4am. He could easily have played the finals, and in fact, he was prepared to.

I had a situation at work where taking the day off was simply not an option on Monday. I think a player should have a reasonable expectation that any tournament he plays will be over by a reasonable time on the final day. Getting home at 2am on a work night, though not reasonable, would have been doable. Getting home at 4am was not, and it could have been later.

As to your opinion of slow play being acceptable, all I can say is I strongly and respectfully disagree. It's selfish and unnecessary. I say unnecessary because no good player should need to study a wide open table for so long. Studying problems is different but comes up a whole lot less. Maybe once or twice a rack, and in a lot of racks, never. And I say selfish because playing an entire game where you average 15 minutes a rack, about one minute per ball, shows little concern for the fans who, as pdcue mentioned, have to be tortured by this lunacy, nor for your fellow players who are forced to wait through demolished schedules.

I was told that I was playing slowly in my match against Matt. I suspect this was more toward the beginning of the match, when things weren't working out as well after break shots. I'm sure the pace picked up towards the end. However - that said - my reaction to being told I was slow is not "tough titties"; I will make a genuine effort next time I am on a TV table to speed it up.

- Steve

 

[selftaut]

How about games to 100 instead of 150, but you have to win by 10. For example if you have 93 and leave the table your opponent now has to get to 103 to win. This could not possibly go 4-5 hours I don't think, and lull the spectators to sleep or hold up the tourney, but also not take someone out of their game. Might even add a cool little twist to the tourney. Any thoughts on this?

 

[3andstop]

Help me understand what you are saying. Suppose you play atrociously slowly, and after 59 minutes and 59 seconds on your clock, you have scored 6 points. I play at a much faster pace, but my clock expires (60 minutes) when I am at 147 in a game to 150. You win by forfeit?

Maybe I should have first clarified how a chess clock works. A chess clock has two individual clocks on it. They also have individual buttons on top of them that start their opponents clock.

In the beginning (using one hour as an example for each player) the billiard game would have a total of two hours to play. Both clocks are set to raise their individual flags when their individual hours have expired. Both clocks are designed to run their individual times when the opposite button is pushed by the opponent.

Also in the beginning both clocks are stopped. Time is not running until the game starts, after the lag for example the winner of the lag hits the chess clock button which starts time ONLY for his opponent who has the break.

Once the break has been made, that player hits the other button which stops his time and starts the other clock for his opponent who's turn it now is.

The player who's inning is over now has a clock that is no longer running. If he or she took 10 seconds to break that is how much of their one hour total time they used up. It it took them 3 minutes to break then they only have 57 minutes left to play, while their opponent still has the full hour since their clock wasn't running.

It's absolutely the most precise way to fairly afford each player the same exact amount of time to finish the game without manually having to time each shot at 45 seconds (which is not only isn't practical but is ridiculous) The chess clock gives players the luxury to use their time as they need to, when they need to use it for difficult shots or decisions and not spread out over increments of 45 seconds each which obviously is not how long easy patterns take.

Use your time the way you have to, 5 or 6 seconds for easy layouts and maybe 2 or 3 minutes in tough spots. Forcing 45 second shot clocks detracts greatly from the depth of the game.

If a match MUST BE TIMED then, IMO a chess clock is a "no brainer" solution.

Chess clocks are about 20 bucks. Not expensive at all. Further more the automatically take care of managing themselves by design since no one wants their side of the clock running they are sure to be quick to hit the button after their inning.

 

[AtLarge]

... As to your opinion of slow play being acceptable, all I can say is I strongly and respectfully disagree. It's selfish and unnecessary. ...

I was told that I was playing slowly in my match against Matt. ...

- Steve

I second Steve's comments about ultra-slow play being selfish and unnecessary. It's disrespectful to the opponent. And in tournaments like this one, it can also be disrespectful to the fans, the other players (and their families) who are still alive in the tournament, the organizers, and the room's employees.

As to whether you or Matt played slowly, I'll give you some statistics and let you judge.

The match lasted from approximately 9:45 to 12:20, or 155 minutes. The final score was 150 - 107, a total of 257 points. That works out to about 36 seconds per point.​

When you take account of the misses, safeties, and fouls, the total number of shots was approximately 323. Racking the balls may have consumed about 10 minutes (at about 30 seconds per rack). So 323 shots in 145 minutes works out to about 27 seconds per shot.​

 

[Demondrew]

Some ideas I have for speeding up the tournament. I've run a couple of local tournaments and this seems to work.

Start the tournament at 8 or 9:00am.

Races on the losers side should be to 100 or 125.

Establish a shot clock of 45 sec for the first 2 hours and a 30 sec clock after that.

Give each player one extension per rack and one up to 5 minute time out per game.

Certainly not a perfect solution but the players seem to like it well enough to come back.

Andy

 

[Steve Lipsky]

Some ideas I have for speeding up the tournament. I've run a couple of local tournaments and this seems to work.

Start the tournament at 8 or 9:00am.

Races on the losers side should be to 100 or 125.

Establish a shot clock of 45 sec for the first 2 hours and a 30 sec clock after that.

Give each player one extension per rack and one up to 5 minute time out per game.

Certainly not a perfect solution but the players seem to like it well enough to come back.

Andy

Andy,

I agree; the tournament should have started earlier on both days. I think we definitely have to move towards a chess clock idea, as it's the only one which doesn't penalize the non-slow player. It also solves the problem of not having enough referees. In your example above, it sounds like you would need a great deal of referees. Besides being hard to find, it can get a bit unwieldy having 8 referees calling out "TEN!" every so often.

AtLarge,

Ugh, I didn't realize it was that long a match. I thought we started at about 9:55 and ended at about 12:20. That would still have been a long match, but closer to the 2 hour mark than the 3.

29 seconds per shot seems long. Definitely sorry to all about that, and will try to do better if I am ever afforded the opportunity again. And thanks so much for the detailed stats - good info there!

- Steve

 

[AtLarge]

... I thought we started at about 9:55 and ended at about 12:20. ...

Steve, I think you are right about the match ending at 12:20. I wrote down the starting time of 9:45 when the match began, but I neglected to write down the ending time. I was just remembering that the finals could have started at about 12:30.

So let's knock off 10 minutes in my calculations in post #25. I'll edit it to show the quicker times (36 seconds per point; 27 seconds per shot).

And, by the way, I don't think that match went too slowly. You and Matt are both pretty quick players normally. The importance of the match (and tricky situations early, as you have noted) may have slowed you a bit from your norm.

Congratulations.

 

[Demondrew]

I like the idea of a chess type shot clock.

But when do you get to start the opponents time? when all balls stop? after the shot? when the opponent gets to the table?

How much time do you start with? 1½ hours, 2, 2½?

Not trying to be argumentative just curious I may try this in my next tournament. I have access to chess clocks from the local high school's chess club.

Andy

 

[3andstop]

I like the idea of a chess type shot clock.

But when do you get to start the opponents time? when all balls stop? after the shot? when the opponent gets to the table?

How much time do you start with? 1½ hours, 2, 2½?

Not trying to be argumentative just curious I may try this in my next tournament. I have access to chess clocks from the local high school's chess club.

Andy

Andy, obviously it is flexible enough an idea to set up however you want to. I envision a layout where each player has a seat that they use while their opponent is playing, between these seats could be a table with the chess clock on it.

If you and I were playing for example, after you finish your inning, you walk to your seat and as you sit down you tap the button on the chess clock which would start my time running and stop yours at the same time.

You could incorporate time outs, you could also modify the penaly for running over on time. I suggested in another post that if you like, you could make the first violation of time a 15point foul and ball in hand. At that point you could re-set the violators time to 10 additional minutes and then if his flag falls again, it is loss of game.

I mean there are infinite amounts of variations you could use with the system. The main point is each player has a definite time to finish the game with the luxury of using his time in accordance to the way the game's shot and safety difficulty levels unfold and not as a flat 30 or 45 second per shot time, which makes absolutely no sense for a game who's individual inning difficulties vary so much.

Lets face it, we aren't exactly reinventing the wheel here. Chess is a thinking mans game very much the way pool should be played. This method it tried and true with chess and there is no reason the same logic shouldn't be applied to the thought needed to play pool properly.

( I wouldn't be surprised to see players pick up a speed or two in their playing ability simply by adding this extra structure to the game.)

As far as how long to allow, simply figure out how long you think the average game should take, add a slight amount of time to that since the idea here isn't to be playing speed pool, and go with it.

Personally I would figure in a few 5 minute time outs for each player. (Figuring it in means add time to the game clock and let the players clock run when he or she is on their time out)

For a 150 pt game, perhaps and hr and a half each which makes for a 3hr game that includes a time out or two each.

Plenty room with this system to customize to your liking.

 

[Demondrew]

I'll give it some thought and see what I come up with. If I decide to use the system I'll post the rules ahead and report on the results.
Thanks,
Andy

 

[accustatsfan]

Interesting points. What is used as a shot timer at local tournaments? Is there a portable timer or watch that is used.

 

[3andstop]

Interesting points. What is used as a shot timer at local tournaments? Is there a portable timer or watch that is used.

I'm not sure it it's a universal way of doing it, but from what I've seen they have to hunt down enough willing individuals to sit near the game tables clicking 30 or 45 second timers all night for free or next to free, and if they don't have enough people to keep time, they decide which tables are most likely to play fast and they don't time them at all. Pretty fair huh? ( hence my ridiculous comment)

 

[14oneman]

I say leave Straight Pool the hell alone, and play it the way it was intended, and has always been played, slow or not. If you don't like slow players, or a slow game, then take up 9 ball.

 

[3andstop]

I say leave Straight Pool the hell alone, and play it the way it was intended, and has always been played, slow or not. If you don't like slow players, or a slow game, then take up 9 ball.

The truth is I totally agree, why rush through something you enjoy and in a perfect world the best idea is to simply play the game.

The reality of it all is, if 14.1 is going to get the exposure it deserves, it has to somehow be managed with respect to time in a tournament environment where ( after all) time is finite and limited in terms of completing the tournament.

That being said, the much lesser of two evils is a flexable timing system that allows you all the benefit of taking the time you need to play the game the way it should be played and to give the difficult positions and shots the time they require to execute.

It's a much better alternative than giving players 45 seconds flat for each shot. To me that is counter intuitive and the worst thing that could happen to 14.1