racking
Notice one thing neither Buddy or Earl are doing? Checking the rack... and they're using a *triangle*! Man, they musta been realllyyyy stupid, huh? Guess they didn't know nuthin 'bout pool.
It's a wonder either of 'em could ht the end rail.
I believe I understand your point; that people are too dismissive of yesterday's champions. Yet I think racking has evolved quite a bit as well. I think Earl and Buddy were usually checking to make sure the one ball was frozen and there weren't too many big gaps. Today's players are checking various 'tracks' to make sure the understand how the gaps will impact the timing of the wing ball carom. This information just wasn't out there 20 years ago.
I didn't play pre-Simonis but I have no doubt that made an impact. This was an issue before Diamond and Sardo Tight rack. In 1990 at the US Open Nick Varner vs Mike Sigel the corner ball was made 21 times in a row (11-10 match, my favorite of all time). That was with a triangle and breaking from the edge of the box (it was before the box, but they were breaking from halfway from the rail to center of the headstring).
All in all though, the DCC rules are the closest I've seen to fair. The wing ball isn't always wired with the 9 on the spot, and getting 3 balls through the kitchen or pocketed was far from assured. I saw quite a few illegal breaks, and I'd estimate that 10% of my breaks were illegal. Then again, Sky was able to solve this rack which is part of the reason he took 3rd at the US Open and won the DCC 9 ball, they used the same format. As I mentioned before he was racking and breaking with such consistency he made the 2 ball three rails in the side two breaks in a row.
It's really strange that we haven't fixed this yet. We could go one of a few ways. We could make it much harder to break the balls, or we could make it much easier and allow for a dead wing ball and then everyone can soft break in style and have an equal opportunity to convert on their breaks. At the US Open Bar Table championships the corner ball was so dead people shot the break like any other stop shot and played shape for the 1. At first I hated that, but it did make things fair and I grew to enjoy it.
I've always felt that a mandatory push out would take the break out of the game entirely and make the entire game a pure test of pool knowledge and execution. It would put so much play in the game that a race to 5 would have as much pool as a race to 9 today. But 9 ball is supposed to be a momentum game where people can string racks and play explosively, and a mandatory push out would kill that.
The solution isn't obvious. In the meantime as a player you just have to keep up on the best strategies and try to duplicate what the top players are doing. It is what it is.
