Recent content by Bob Jewett

Do you think that actual playing rules of "Ultimate Pool" are better ? Is there any reason to play by other than standard eight ball rules? I did think the speed pool for a decider was kind of interesting in a carnival sort of way.

I never paid any attention to whether a player slid his hand getting down on the shot or not. I've now watched while paying attention to that. It seems to me that it is often just a natural result of getting down on the shot and stretching out the forearm while lowering the head. If the hand...

So far as I know, there is no US referee association separate from the major amateur leagues, which train and certify their own referees. I think the BCA leagues -- back when they were part of the BCA -- were the major training organization, and they were using the WPA rules. I believe the ACS...

I doubt that they are playing by any official rule set. Sounds like the usual problem in bars in the US. And I doubt that the owner/TD will tell you what the rules are ahead of time. By all of the official rule sets that I know of is the US, it is permitted to foul intentionally (with what...

From the time a lag shot takes, it is possible to measure the speed of cloth. I have seen Simonis 300 that had an equivalent slope of 1 in 200. Pool cloth usually comes in around 1 in 100. 760 is faster and might be 1 in 120.

Souto and Oscar in the finals. The stream stopped at 7-5 or so.

Top 8:

Maguire over Carter was not much of an upset. 10 vs. 7. Gilbert over Brecel was big on paper, but Brecel is a little too random to consider any loss an upset. Zhang Anda looked really uncomfortable when I was watching but maybe that's because he was already behind (to Jak Jones).

In my view if a room wants to be in the running, it needs: Lots of 9-foot pool tables. 10-foot optional. 7-foot small negative. ;) 10-foot heated carom and 12-foot snooker (not golf) tables. (Golf table optional) Reasonable food -- doesn't have to be gourmet but enough to get you through a...

There is a video of a shot like the Navarro shot described above but on a pool table. Down the stairs along a track. Maybe several Rube Goldberg contrivances between. I'm pretty sure there is a video of Mosconi jumping from one table to another.

The rules are not official in the sense that the WPA approves of them. "Official International Rules" in this case means the private rules of the promoter.

A DVD of the 714 is available for purchase. If you had been online you could have seen it live. I saw the 560 live from about the 10th rack. It is still available on the FB page, "The Legends of Pocket Billiards".

It's relatively standard for pool players to have a straight back leg. I think a lot of the difference is tradition. The stance of many snooker players looks twisted to me.

Sometimes the frozen object ball will settle when the cue ball is shot away from it. That does not count as having hit it. You have to shoot (at least a little) into the ball. There was a recent hit question (with video) of a shot in which a ball that was almost in the path of the cue ball...

The contact of the cue ball to cushion happens after the cue ball "contacts" the object ball, so that would be fair. If both balls are frozen to the same cushion, the contact -- if you shoot towards the cushion -- would not count since the cue ball has to not be touching the cushion before it...