What would work might be:
- 45-60 second shot clock (no extensions)
- 4.000" or 4.125" pockets
- 9' tables
- Longer races but within the attention-span of an average player. I'm thinking 1 hour at the outside. Anything more would make it monotonous for an average person.
- Stalemate condition (7 innings without a ball pocketed)
I agree with all of that except the stalemate condition. As long as the two players are playing defensive shots that progress the game there is not reason whatsoever to end the game. Snooker has long safety battles at times that are crucial to winning the frame and the fans enjoy those moments every bit as much as the century runs, it is in the safety battles that you have a chance to see the amazing kick shots, masse shots, ect... Each and every tough return safety has the game on the line.
If snooker got into a huge safety battle on the last red where a player needed a snooker to win and they went and re-racked after 7 consecutive non-pot shots it would be idiotic. It is no less idiotic in 8-ball to re-rack a game in a crucial safety battle where things are moving and the table is shifting. The only proper time to call a stalemate is when both players refuse to actually move balls, where they both cannot do anything even with ball in hand, normally when the 8-ball is in the jaws of the pocket and a player has a ball frozen to it such that you cannot legally hit the 8 and you cannot legally hit the other object ball without making the 8, at that point noone is going to touch either ball because the 8 will drop on an illegal shot and they will lose the game. That is a stalemate condition.
And as far as the comment from Mark and Justin that 8-ball makes more sense for the pro's on the 7-foots because that is what the amatures play on? The ONLY reason the amatures play on those is because the pubs and bars where league is normally played have 7-foot tables solely due to space issues. That is why the amatures play on 7-foot tables. It is not that amatures "like" 7-foot tables in truth, I see most amature casual players in the few pool halls in Calgary playing on the 9-foots, rarely do they play on the bar boxes by choice. We in league play on the bar boxes because that is what we are required to play on due to league rules. When we gamble we tend to go to the 9-foots.
You cannot put pro 8-ball pool on the 7-foot tables, it is too easy to shoot on those tables and the game will fail. If the reason to put the game on those tables is to actually see it fail and then say "see, pro 8-ball does not work, told ya!" then understand right now, it is already known that it WOULD fail on 7-foot tables in the long run, that is in no way a sustainable game for professional play.
There is no great disconnect between the pro's and amatures if the pros play on 9-foot tables with 4 inch pockets. The PGA has their pros playing off of back tees on courses like Augusta which have greens 10 times as fast as anything amature golfers have ever dreamed could exist. And yet the amatures go out and play their short courses from the white tees and slow greens, then they go home and drink a beer and watch the professional golfers playing in the US Open on 650 yard par 5's. That works and it would work fine for pool as well.
You need to put the pro game onto the proper equipment for 8-ball if you are ever going to actually do it or else you are setting out to fail before the first break even takes place. The game needs to be played on larger tables with 4 to 4 1/8 inch pockets or don't bother at all, seriously.
I don't need or want to watch it done on the wrong equipment and fail. If it is not done on 9-foots or larger with 4 1/8th inch pockets or smaller then don't bother doing it at all, it is not going to work.
