Break Stats (a few) -- Matchroom/Predator Championship League Pool 9-Ball, March 2021

AtLarge

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Here are a few aggregate stats from Matchroom's Predator Championship League Pool 9-Ball event played March 22-29, 2021 at Stadium MK in Milton Keynes, England. Albin Ouschan won the event.

This was an 8-day event that worked like this. On Day 1, 7 players all played each other once (round robin), then the top 4 finishers from the round robin played single-elimination (2 semifinal matches and a final match) to determine the day's winner. The winner secured a spot in the Winners' Group on Day 8. The player who finished last of the group of 7 was out of the tournament. The other 5 players moved on to Day 2 and were joined by two new players to make a new group of 7. This process continued for each of the first 7 days. So, in total, the event involved 19 players [7 on Day 1 + (2x6)], with 7 reaching Day 8. The format on Day 8 was the same as on the other days -- a round robin followed by 2 semifinal matches and the final match. All of the matches every day were races to 5.

Two tables were used for the event, and both were being streamed. Pay-per-view streaming of the main table, with commentary, was provided in the USA by DAZN. Streaming of the second table, without commentary, was available on matchroom.live. The main commentators were Michael McMullan and Karl Boyes; several of the players also commentated on one or more matches.

The 7 players who qualified for Day 8 with a win in Days 1-7 are shown here in their order of finish on Day 8:

1. Albin Ouschan (Day 6 winner)​
2. David Alcaide (Day 3 winner)​
3/4. Eklent Kaçi (Day 2 winner)​
3/4. Chris Melling (Day 1 winner)​
5. Naoyuki Oi (Day 5 winner)​
6. Marc Bijsterbosch (Day 7 winner)​
7. Niels Feijen (Day 4 winner)​

Conditions -- the conditions for this event included the following:
- Rasson OX 9-foot table;​
- blue Simonis cloth;​
- Aramith Tournament Black balls with a black-measles cue ball;​
- referee racks using a triangle rack with the 1-ball on the foot spot (2-ball not necessarily in back location);​
- alternate breaks from anywhere behind the head string;​
- no illegal break rule;​
- Days 1 and 2, no shot clock; Days 3-8, a 30-sec. shot clock (60 sec. after the break), with one 30-sec. extension per player per game;​
- foul on all balls;​
- jump cues allowed;​
- lag for the break in each match; and​
- all slop counts.​

The matches each day were played in two sessions, an afternoon (in England) session and an evening session. These stats are from the 49 matches (26% of the event's total of 192 matches) that I watched, which were all of the evening-session matches being streamed in full on DAZN. These 49 matches totaled 358 games. But the stats exclude 5 games from when my stream was down, leaving 353 games for the stats. All 19 players in the event appeared in the matches I tracked, ranging from 1 appearance (Darren Appleton and Jasmin Ouschan) to 14 appearances (Albin Ouschan).

Successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
Day 1 -- 90% (45 of 50)​
Day 2 -- 82% (36 of 44)​
Day 3 -- 89% (42 of 47)​
Day 4 -- 81% (29 of 36)​
Day 5 -- 83% (38 of 46)​
Day 6 -- 87% (33 of 38)​
Day 7 -- 91% (42 of 46)​
Day 8 -- 96% (44 0f 46)​
Total -- 88% (309 of 353)

Breaker won game:
Day 1 -- 70% (35 of 50)​
Day 2 -- 64% (28 of 44)​
Day 3 -- 43% (20 of 47)​
Day 4 -- 61% (22 of 36)​
Day 5 -- 48% (22 of 46)​
Day 6 -- 55% (21 of 38)​
Day 7 -- 65% (30 of 46)​
Day 8 -- 70% (32 of 46)​
Total -- 59% (210 of 353)

Break-and-run games -- on all breaks:
Day 1 -- 52% (26 of 50)​
Day 2 -- 34% (15 of 44)​
Day 3 -- 21% (10 of 47)​
Day 4 -- 31% (11 of 36)​
Day 5 -- 30% (14 of 46)​
Day 6 -- 29% (11 of 38)​
Day 7 -- 37% (17 0f 46)​
Day 8 -- 43% (20 of 46)​
Total -- 35% (124 of 353)

Break-and-run games -- on successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
Day 1 -- 58% (26 of 45)​
Day 2 -- 42% (15 of 36)​
Day 3 -- 24% (10 of 42)​
Day 4 -- 38% (11 of 29)​
Day 5 -- 37% (14 of 38)​
Day 6 -- 33% (11 of 33)​
Day 7 -- 40% (17 of 42)​
Day 8 -- 45% (20 of 44)​
Total -- 40% (124 of 309)
 
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DieselPete

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Piggybacking with some stats about the event in general. I thought about separating the first seven rounds from the "winners' round" but they all generally looked similar, so it's all together.

The group winners typically had five wins, but not always. In order, they had 5, 5, 6, 5, 5, 4, 5, 5 wins.

Eliminated players typically did have one win: 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1

Making the playoff (advancing from the round robin) always was done with 3 wins, but in four of the eight days it had to go to a tie breaker, so 3 wins got someone in and 3 wins left someone out half the time.

Winning the round robin didn't correlate with winning that day very well. Position after the round robin for each days' winners: 4, 2, 1, 2, 4, 2, 4, 4

5-4 sets per day, from the 24 sets played: 6, 4, 7, 1, 12, 5, 7, 7. That's 25.5% of sets.

5-0 sets per day, from the 24 sets played: 1, 1, 3, 5, 1, 5, 2, 1. That's 9.9% of sets.

The competitiveness of each day can be measured by total losses (96 games would be lost in a perfectly competitive day with all 5-4 sets). The total losses per day:
66, 53, 59, 38, 65, 50, 65, 61

Day Four was pretty much a dog, with only 38 games lost, one 5-4 set and five 5-0 sets.

Day five was great, with 65 games lost, twelve 5-4 sets and only one 5-0 set.
 

AtLarge

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My kudos go to commentators Boyes and McMullan for this event, particularly Michael McMullan. I don't know whether it was his own research or material given to him by Matchroom, but I can't remember any pool commentator being as well prepared as McMullan was with information about the players and their past accomplishments. He also provided accurate info, including stats, about the on-going matches, and asked good questions of the players when they were his co-commentators. Good-humored, articulate, and with a pleasant voice -- fine job, Michael McMullan.
 

PoolStats

Pool Stats LLC
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To complement AtLarge's nice stats, we are in the process of compiling a large range of stats of each match of the entire tournament. There are six graphs on each page and one inforgraphic:
  1. Players B&R Cumulative Progress of the match, (line chart)
  2. Shooting Percentage Line Chart Comparison for each player over the match
  3. Shot Difficultly and percentage of made/missed shots ( 1 for each player) (bar charts)
  4. Plus/Minus Progress Over match comparison (Scatter Plot) (bubble size reflects how close a particular game was i.e., small bubbles indicate a tight game, large ones typically run-outs or b&r's)
  5. RDL (Rack Difficulty Level) of each game during the match
  6. A .jpg showing the breakdown of individuals stats for each player over the match
We should have a lot more data by the end of the week. It took us a while to get this all automated.

View here:

http://poolst.at/pclp
 

Dan_B

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great stuff AtLarge,
how would you give the story on the final, how this went down?

1. Albin Ouschan (Day 6 winner)
2. David Alcaide (Day 3 winner)
3/4. Eklent Kaçi (Day 2 winner)
3/4. Chris Melling (Day 1 winner)
5. Naoyuki Oi (Day 5 winner)
6. Marc Bijsterbosch (Day 7 winner)
7. Niels Feijen (Day 4 winner)
 

AtLarge

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great stuff AtLarge,
how would you give the story on the final, how this went down?

1. Albin Ouschan (Day 6 winner)
2. David Alcaide (Day 3 winner)
3/4. Eklent Kaçi (Day 2 winner)
3/4. Chris Melling (Day 1 winner)
5. Naoyuki Oi (Day 5 winner)
6. Marc Bijsterbosch (Day 7 winner)
7. Niels Feijen (Day 4 winner)
Well, Day 8 consisted of 24 matches (just like each of the other 7 days), and I watched just 6 of them. So I cannot speak to the day as a whole. But the Ouschan/Kaci 5-2 Semifinal and the Ouschan/Alcaide 5-1 Final were 2 of the 6 matches I watched. In the semifinal, Kaci just made a few more errors than Ouschan. In the final, both players played pretty well. Alcaide's only win was a B&R in Game 4. Ouschan won his 5 games by:
- running out in Game 1 after Alcaide made a questionable return of Ouschan's push out after the break;​
- jumping in the 3-ball after a safety by Alcaide and then running out Game 2 (the only missed shot of the match was by Ouschan on the 2-ball earlier in Game 2);​
- breaking and running Games 3 and 5;​
- running out Game 6 after Alcaide's dry break.​
 
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