World Pool Masters 2023 (10-13 May), nineball, Essex UK, Winner $40K

Lucky for sure. This may be the most luck I've ever seen one player get in one set, at this level.
3 9ball breaks, several lucky misses, and one insanely good roll off a bad position play.
Lechner should buy a scratch-off on his way back to the hotel and retire a millionaire.
 
I like the single session first day. It's just enough to get you in the mood for the action to come.

No easy draws here, so it will take a truly great effort from someone to snap off this title.
 
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wilhelm said:
Can you elaborate? I only started watching pool in the early 90's.
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As I recall from the 70s... Start with a somewhat loose rack, break from the center, and hit them as hard as you can. Emphasize speed over control.

For those who want to return to those days, I'm afraid Pandora's box has been open too long for us to close it now. We could, however, play first shot is a push out. ;)(y)
 
wilhelm said:
Can you elaborate? I only started watching pool in the early 90's.
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“Official” break rules before every promoter and his brother bastardized them. 1 on the spot. CB anywhere behind the line. 4 numbered balls must hit a rail. Random order. That’s it. That’s what was in effect in the 90’s. Probably as far back as the 40’s or 50’s, but that’s an educated guess by me.

Those claiming Corey’s soft break broke 9 ball must not have seen Archer beat the snot out of him in a 3 set 30k challenge in the early 2000s, or Shane demolish him in TAR 1, or Shane Demolish Donny mills in a TAR match when donnie soft broke even better than his teacher Corey.

It was a fad only employeed by a few players.

Imo:)
 
iusedtoberich said:
“Official” break rules before every promoter and his brother bastardized them. 1 on the spot. CB anywhere behind the line. 4 numbered balls must hit a rail. Random order. That’s it. That’s what was in effect in the 90’s. Probably as far back as the 40’s or 50’s, but that’s an educated guess by me.

Those claiming Corey’s soft break broke 9 ball must not have seen Archer beat the snot out of him in a 3 set 30k challenge in the early 2000s, or Shane demolish him in TAR 1, or Shane Demolish Donny mills in a TAR match when donnie soft broke even better than his teacher Corey.

It was a fad only employeed by a few players.

Imo:)
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Yep.
 
telinoz said:
Yep.

Or they could be quoting Alex, because he said that.
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"Ummm.... The 9 was going in exactly how he played it. He has been playing that break for years."

Many of the top pros have gone to using that break to slop the 9 in the lower 2, not just Max.
They have stopped trying to squat the CB in the center of the table for shape in exchange for the chance at bingo.
It ruins the game imo.

I don't watch "World Championships", to see professionals go for the cheese every single rack.
MR thinks the break is the best part of pool and they would like nothing more than to see players get so dialed in that there were at least seven games per set decided by a 9 on the snap.
Do they really want players to win a world title by repeatedly doing something for which they feel a legitimate reason to apologize?

That is one reason the WPA is better than MR or 9Ball. WPA seems to believe, as I do, that championships, especially World Championships, should be decided on how well a player plays pool, rather than how often they can whack at the money ball.
 
I feel like this is still just pool. It’s not like the ref is gapping the 9. This kind of luck only bothers me when it happens against the player I’m rooting for.
 
I watched Niels beat Joshua, but then I had to watch the Max v. Soufi match on mute because I had to work. WTH was going on with the rack? I wondered. Was it the table and/or equipment?

My other half said he thinks the 9 should be spotted when there is a golden break.

I loved seeing Max smile after he made the 9 on the break the third time. That was fun for me!
 
JAM said:
I watched Niels beat Joshua, but then I had to watch the Max v. Soufi match on mute because I had to work. WTH was going on with the rack? I wondered. Was it the table and/or equipment?

My other half said he thinks the 9 should be spotted when there is a golden break.

I loved seeing Max smile after he made the 9 on the break the third time. That was fun for me!
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i think a lot of people would've liked to see a filler - soufi match but fair play to niels and max, they earned it, especially niels
 
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Bob Jewett said:
Ummm.... The 9 was going in exactly how he played it. He has been playing that break for years.
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Yeah, take a look at this, all three overlayed - takes a lot of skill to be that lucky/consistent:

Has a 0 area break box - i.e., break from the head spot - ever been tried? Though it seems like the top players are going to solve whatever break rules come up.
 
Three nines on the break doesn't mean the game is broken and neither would five. I saw David Smith make three straight tens on the break against Strickland playing ten-ball at a PBT event in Cherry Hill, NJ in what I believe was 1998, and it decided the match.

As a veteran sitting in the stands, I know that golden breaks are exciting for most of the fans in attendance and they help market professional pool. Yes, Lechner had 3 and Soufi had just 1, but Lechner won six of the other nine racks and was the deserving winner. Pat Fleming once told me that a golden break is a 3% chance and that sounds about right, and I'll look forward to learning the final golden break rate for this World Pool Masters.

At the Challenge of Champions at Mohegan Sun, they played nine spots on the break one year. At double hill, Jeanette Lee made three balls on the break and hung the one over the side pocket. She had a very simple runout to win, or so it seemed. It turned out that one of the balls she made on the break was the nine, and after it spotted, she was snookered tightly behind the spotted nine and was forced to push. She lost, despite a double hill golden break.

My philosophy is to embrace the randomness of sports or risk dying from the boredom.
 
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Definitely at the end of the day there's skill involved with sending the cueball to the side rail and back over to hit the nine and there's luck in whether the 9 goes in or whether the cueball scratches. Like the 2nd ball break in 8-ball, there's a chance of it but you're not really forcing it to happen every time.

And outside of the golden breaks, this format is still creating a lot of pool. Many breaks are making the 1 in the side with a roll of the dice whether they have a good shot at the next lowest ball. It's not creating consistently repeatable layouts like we've seen in some of the soft-break/cut-break formats with the 1 on the spot, no break box, magic rack, or 3-point-rule versions of the break. I think this current format is still showing to be a success as of this event.
 
All the Matchroom box office stable of darlings are dropping like flies. Feels like this event might send the spotlight on someone who's not been shining as brightly of late. Kinda exciting.
 
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