No Rule Change for DCC One Pocket This Year
- Thread starter lfigueroa
- Start date
Last year was an anomaly. Something happened which extended the One Pocket event. On Wednesday night play was stopped about 7PM for the HOF dinner, if I remember correctly and this backed the One Pocket up. In all the years I've been going to DCC this never happened. What happened last year? Maybe just maybe the staff screwed it up. I do agree begrudgingly that the pocketed ball on the break should be a re-rack but not the Grady rule. Speeding the game up with the Grady rule is not an answer. The chess clock or some other method of moving the players along could work but I've seen champions who play top speed have long defensive matches with or without clocks. That's just going to happen and that's what some of us purists love to watch.
This is like the rule that says you have to wear a collared shirt, button down, or Henley, but your opponent shows up in a t-shirt. What is the penalty? Like you said, do you call a t-shirt foul?
kollegedave
Haven't gone through the whole thread yet but wanted to inquire about the baby powder ban. Is this a way of steering everyone into wearing a glove? I understand some players make an entire mess of the table. Johnny archer used to respectfully put a dab of powder on his bridge hand which I never saw a problem with. Does that mean Johnny Archer and others who still don't wear a glove will have to conform?
Are they really going to tell Efren or Bustamante to put the powder away?
No.
It has nothing to do with gloves and everything to do with a few players using so much powder the table looks like it's positioned in a French bakery and starts contributing to skids. Talking to Greg today -- if you are judicious in your use of powder you should be fine. If you use it to excess that may be another story.
Lou Figueroa
Break
Why is a ball on the break a re rack? Are other 1p tournaments using this rule? Break and run in 1p is fun to watch and execute. The opponent needs to be responsible for a good rack.
Why is a ball on the break a re rack? Are other 1p tournaments using this rule? Break and run in 1p is fun to watch and execute. The opponent needs to be responsible for a good rack.
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It has become fairly standard.
I believe they are playing rack your own at one pocket.
I have seen it done-where a player gets chalk over the entire table on purpose just to get under the skin of his OCD leaning opponent. That really is low.
I admittedly know very little about 1 pocket other than the fact that I am terrible at it. Curious to know what the 4 ball rule is?
Thanks
The four ball rule is set to cut down on what is called an up table game which may take a considerably longer time to finish but it also changes the game. Up table is what a lot of old time players consider 'real' one pocket. The more modern players are about run out pool and not the strategy of an up table game.
One style of play at one pocket is when one or both of the players start sending all the balls to the kitchen as a defensive move and the game has many innings in which no one shoots towards his pocket. That can lead to racks that take over an hour which screws up the progress of the tournament. To prevent that, the rule says:
When more than four balls are in the kitchen at the end of a player’s inning, the ball or balls closest to the end rail are spotted until there are only four balls remaining in the kitchen.
That brings balls back into active play and speeds the game up.
The rule was announced for DCC 2019 one pocket and then withdrawn.
I have lost matches when my opponent made a ball on the break and I have won matches when I have made a ball on the break.
And basically, making a ball on the break is luck, and I think most of us are fine with that. But especially in a short race v an extended money match, it’s a humungi advantage because if you make ball on the break you’re getting at least two shots before your opponent is even out of the chair. And the guy who has made the ball on the break is likely to run some AND THEN put you in a death trap or, if no shot is available, is going to drive more balls to his side and then put you in a death trap anyways.
A ball on the break at 1pocket is big. Huge.
Lou Figueroa
The four ball rule is meant to speed up the game of One Pocket by not allowing more than four balls to be down table (past the head string) at any one time. This stops the creation of "wedge" situations where several balls are trapped in one of the upper corner pocket areas and continual safeties are played back and forth off this cluster of balls. A safety battle like this can go on for ten or twenty innings or more and extend a game by 30-60 minutes, or more!
This so-called "real" One Pocket is actually very boring and takes away from what can be a very beautiful and strategic game. No one likes to watch two players bunt the cue ball endlessly up and down the table, with very little change or disturbance of the locked up balls. The use of the four ball rule does little to change the outcome of a match, other than to put a stop to endless safety battles on groups of balls all bunched together. The best player will still win either way. It just won't take forever! :grin:
Lou, this is fine for money games. I will agree with you there. But not for a tournament that is being played on a schedule with a limited time frame for each match/round of play. In this case, the four ball rule is a Godsend.
In the last few days I've talked to Greg several times about this and basically what it comes down to is that he likes the traditional 1pocket rules.
As he sees it, the problem lies -- with a tournament of 400 entries -- with fewer than a dozen matches. He see's no need to change the fundamental nature of 1pocket and is just looking to fix a few matches, among hundreds of them -- in one tournament.
Lou Figueroa
Does he have a way to do that this year that's going to be better than before? I'm thinking of Appleton's seven-hour one pocket match.
I cannot provide a definitive opinion on how it will be handled.
I passed on suggestions from the group (standby FargoRate fans) and we talked about various options and I think what will happen is if the desk notes a match has gone beyond a certain time limit, TBD, that table will be given a visit by an official with "ultimate no contesting it" power to apply what they, in their best judgement, will lead the match to a timely conclusion. That may be making the match a race to three, or a game a race to five, or something else. I think all will be revealed at the Player's Meeting.
Lou Figueroa
It's only a slight exaggeration to say that a tournament bracket can only go as fast as its slowest match.