Slop counted on object balls. Often people are playing this way here anyway when playing 8-ball. The old Chinese-8 rules basically. I have to try hard to convince people to play call pocket with me. Safeties are not frowned upon, but encouraged. The standard of this event was the higher end of amateur. From what I understand, the guy saw the deliberate foul as a concession. I asked the TD today on WeChat, and he said he's going to make a more concrete list of rules. Deliberate fouls will not be part of play in this event. He cited that it was because he wanted to encourage as big a turn out as he could muster for the event, while keeping the playing time to one evening. Which I think is fair enough. He was generally quite apologetic. I accept that, was just a bit bewildered at the time. I shouldn't have let it get to me. But then I think being tired added to that, which also backs up his logic in removing deliberate fouls from play.