First let me clarify that I didn't see the match. I do watch one pocket sometimes, whenever there are creative and aggressive players playing. Not a fan of 1.5 hour wedge games.
However...When players are truely struggling to put balls in the hole, as it were, I find it quite puzzling that nobody questions the pocket sizes used. To me it seems as if pockets are sized so small for one pocket as to discourage shooting. I can appreciate the people who enjoy a bit of tactical play. I play a lot of snooker and blackball, and it certainly is a huge part of both of those games, but still, in the end it's all about putting balls in the pockets. Blackball certainly has tiny pockets, but then again, the table itself is tiny, so there is always a good chance to play offensively.
As far as snooker is concerned, nobody would want to watch even decent level amateurs on a pro snooker table, like on tv. The pockets are just too small. Nobody would get any runs together. You need to be at least a semi pro to play half decent on them.
When pockets are too small for the players (relative to their skill), the threat to the safety player is greatly diminished, as is the general stress level of the game. Errors are not forced to the same degree as a more realistic table, where the safeties have to be perfect, in order to stop the player from running out. The whole thing becomes a test of patience, rather than a tense contest. I just watched the warming up, and noticed that the pockets were tiny (not sure what the sizes actually were). If the players were indeed struggling, then that certainly wouldn't help matters.
My feeling is that the insisting upon smaller and smaller pockets (even in one pocket) is a misunderstanding based upon disregarding the totality of the game, in order to remove the advantage of shotmakers. The problem is, that this doesn't reward tactical play, as much as NOT punishing sloppy tactical play. There is a difference. At the very highest level, this barrier too shooting is mostly overcome by sheer brute force. Still, I think we'd se a lot more delicate, explosive and creative one pocket with normal (pro) size pockets. It might even have made matches such as these more exciting.
This is just an observation, btw, not a call to change one pocket.
but I learned a lot from watching this match and can understand the pressure. Thanks for putting yourself out there
