Ultimately, the answer of all your questions lies inside the mind of the two promoters. I was from a racing promotion back ground who loved banging balls! Eight Ball was all I loved because it was all I knew! I first saw it in the bars as a game called Boston and then simply as solid and stripes! Neither name is any better than Bonus Ball or Jaberwocky for that matter! As I improved my game the more I wanted to play more difficult games. As you gain cue ball control, you also make the game of eight ball less exciting. That is, unless
you love potting balls, and there is nothing wrong with that. I was searching for more than that when I first met Larry and his interesting game! Part Snooker and part pool!
The first thing I recognised was the difference between the top amateur pool player and the "pros" was not much at all playing eight ball. I saw Shane Van Boening almost knocked to the B side in his first match at an amateur pool tournament by somebody I never heard of. Now, I knew before Earl Strickland first said to me...no plumber, electrician or any other part time player would beat him playing Bonus Ball. I truly believe that is the way professional pool needs to be.
In Nascar, Bill Frances built his sport by making that insanely fast two and a half mile track (daytona) and said ok boys, get on it! What it did was seperate the men from the boys! I can drive head to head on a local dirt track with any of the top NASCAR drivers but throw me against them on a mile paved track and im toast. Nobody in the racing community longs for NASCAR and the top professionals to drive dirt track modifieds like mine! I still watch NAScAR. Why do pool player insist that professionals should play simple games like Eight ball?
Bonus Ball, the game does seperate the men from the boys. That is why Larry chose to play this unknown game as the game of choice of his professional league. A gamble? Probably, the reasoning, simple, to seperate the men and the boys. The most complete and utterly devastating nine ball player this year at the US Open, actually looks rather average in the Bonus Ball videos.
www.wpbl.tv
To be fair, your going to see some average nine ball players look insanely good playing Bonus Ball! The Bonus Ball Break and Shoot, totally takes away the huge breaking advantage and that levels the playing field. In this game you need to possess a lot of the all around skills found in one pocket and bank pool. Why? The three pockets of Bonus Ball. It plays a lot more like One pocket at full speed which many agree is a fantastic and strategic game.
To end this rather short story on why the hell Chiborak has stuck by the hard choice of presenting Bonus Ball as the game of the WPBL professionals is nothing against any of the other games mentioned. It is because this game is really exciting, strategic and challenging to play! Take some time and simply watch the game, the strategy and how much harder it is for players to keep holding position for only three pockets and then maybe you can understand the substance of this game! It is structured beautifully! Many of the top players in the world helped Larry structure it from Darren Appleton, Johnny Archer and the world famous, Mike Massey!
Larry's league is a crap shoot if will it generate the excitement and income to make billiards an accepted sport outside the world of nine ball or eight ball. Especially to people that don't have the vision of the Canadian who invented basketball in Canada, in a country that loves hockey. The vision of NASCAR that decided to build a big bloody insane fast race track to make their professionals above the rest of the local drivers. The vision of a great American who decided he wanted to make the United States the first country to put a man on the moon! Larry will go down in history as either a great visionary or another poor pool promoter. He should never walk away from billiards looking as a failure if this does not work out for him! The game will continue to gather a following either way. It's simply a real good billiard game! Thank you Larry Chiborak for pioneering this game! I love Bonus Ball!
PS next time let me hire the dam construction company for the next venue in New York!
