US Open Miscue The Game
- Thread starter Island Drive
- Start date
I suspect the policy in Atlantic City was to avoid chaos. The initial setup of the 33 tables was tight on timing, so there would have been little time before the start of play. During play on the first two days you would have had 150 players wanting to practice and a few open tables. Play was from 9:30AM to about 9PM which is a long day for the staff. To have orderly practice, you would have needed additional staff and they were short on local staff the first day or so -- local people failed to show up as agreed to work as scorers.
Of course there could have been a separate area with another 10 tables for practice and a couple staff people to operate it. It's only a matter of time, money and effort.
I think the matches went quickly enough that they could have had more time on the tables just before each match -- like five minutes per player -- but that would have added time to all the matches.
At carom tournaments the players typically get five minutes of practice on the match table after introductions and before the match starts. I think practice times are often scheduled on the match tables prior to the start of the event, like in half-hour blocks. That's for major events like world championships.
Of course there could have been a separate area with another 10 tables for practice and a couple staff people to operate it. It's only a matter of time, money and effort.
I think the matches went quickly enough that they could have had more time on the tables just before each match -- like five minutes per player -- but that would have added time to all the matches.
At carom tournaments the players typically get five minutes of practice on the match table after introductions and before the match starts. I think practice times are often scheduled on the match tables prior to the start of the event, like in half-hour blocks. That's for major events like world championships.
I'm sure you know the answer to that already...golf pro's are allowed to warm up, but not on the tournament course, its the same logic as snooker pro's being allowed to warm up on the practice tables and in all other Matchroom events pool pro's being able to warm up on the practice tables.
My point was that this approach is not unprecedented, I'm not trying to defend it (other than not allowing practice on the match tables themselves whilst matches are in progress as that is standard practice for seemingly all sports).
I'm simply saying that where there is a shortage of space (that's everywhere in the UK and some European venues too I suspect), this approach is used, it's far from ideal, but it keeps costs down.
I would of course hope that it gets rectified for future years as I feel particularly bad for the amateur players who will find it harder to produce their best from a cold start, but also for TV you want everyone at the top of their game (that said I don't think we were starved of quality so perhaps it doesn't affect the top guys that much)!
Golf pro's get to play practice rounds on the course being used. Pre-round for golf pros is just getting loose not actual practice.
Not during the tournament they don't!
Don't need to. After 2-3 pr's a touring pro knows the course. Pool tournaments should allow 5min per player warm-up. Its not practice just a time to get loose. Don't see the big deal here.
I don't disagree with you on that front.
But golf pro's would be able to go onto the range every morning and hit (quite a few) balls, whereas on this occasion there was no opportunity for the players to do that.
Shaun Murphy was making the case for player warm ups in snooker (i.e. on the actual Match table) and I think they may have tried it at the British Open, not sure!
I guess the issue with practice on the match table is that it adds to the broadcast time, so its fine for low level non-televised tournaments, but more of an issue for what Matchroom are trying to achieve (its less of an issue in snooker as only 1 or 2 games are likely to be shown and the matches are longer anyway, so an extra 10-20 minutes is proportionally less of an issue and they typically have a long pre-match build up in the studio so they don't actually need to show it).
I suspect the 2 mins / 1 rack practice is here to stay for Matchroom events, but I still think it would be good if players had behind the scenes access to practice tables with a booking system to ensure everyone gets a fair time allocation.
What would have been needed to allow half an hour of practice time per player prior to the event starting?
256 players, half an hour each, 128 table-hours. Using the 32 tournament tables, that would be four hours of practice scheduled, or probably five with overhead. Is that worth delaying the start of the event by half a day? Should there be an entire day of practice so everyone has an hour? I'm guessing that no one wants to pay the hotel for an extra room night and food.
256 players, half an hour each, 128 table-hours. Using the 32 tournament tables, that would be four hours of practice scheduled, or probably five with overhead. Is that worth delaying the start of the event by half a day? Should there be an entire day of practice so everyone has an hour? I'm guessing that no one wants to pay the hotel for an extra room night and food.
They didn't allow practice because of covid.
Why not? They blame everything else on it.
Why not? They blame everything else on it.