2019 WPA World 9 Ball - Qatar
- Thread starter Joe_Jaguar
- Start date
No B&Rs in the first 10 games, 3 through 16 games, 7 in total (4 for Gorst, 3 for Chang).
The last 14 games, which included all 7 B&Rs, averaged about 2 minutes per game quicker than the first 10 games.
[They had 2 timeouts of roughly 5 min. each, one after the 9th game and one after the 18th game.]
Edit: the B&R count assumes Game 13 was a B&R for Chang. The recording skips a good portion of that game.
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Yeah, I guess the stream was down a couple of times -- the recording skips some shots in Game 13 as well.
After the first timeout in the final match, Ted Lerner (commentating) said that he had spoken with one of the heads of the QBSF during the timeout, and they are going to use a 45-sec. clock next year.
Edit -- oops, sorry gar, just read your post #298.
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You're good. I couldn't remember who he quoted. Thanx
I think John Schmidt took a few minutes less to run 626 than this finals took....
....can you confirm?
I love watching JL Chang play, he reminds me of Buddy, but the hill-hill game with Casper
was ridiculous.....he needs a clock, for sure.
or when the player allows access to the table-Sometimes they will sulk over a shot when they miss-Not often but it has to be covered.
I’m defending the right of the player to take as long as they need or want within any agreed time limit. If the shot clock is 45 seconds and a player is averaging 40 seconds there will still be some people complaining that he is taking too long. If there is no shot clock then players can take as long as they need or want to make a decision. It’s their right and getting frustrated with the players doesn’t help. If there is no shot clock and the player can make better decisions in that environment then they would be a fool to buckle to the pressure of some invisible people on the internet to play faster. This is not a defence of slow play or support for the lack of stop clocks - it’s a defence of the player being able to make the best possible decision in the time that he or she actually has available and play as well as he or she can.
Nothing wrong with shot clocks, with a time limit appropriate for the status of the event. Snooker has a range of times, some as short as 20s. But there is no shot clock in the World Championship, no shot clock coming anytime soon, and no desire to introduce one.
Again, this isn’t a defence of slow play. It’s a defence against needlessly speeding up the game because some fans shout long and loud that they find it boring to watch. The shot clock debate will be ongoing and is a good and relevant debate. It may well be appropriate to have one at the World Championship in future if it’s a professionally run and TV broadcast tournament that still has to fit into a tight TV schedule because it doesn’t have as much time slot wiggle room as other more lucrative sports.
I stick to my original point that the lifeless environment of the streams contributes significantly to the frustration of some fans who would be complaining less if it were a high quality TV production.
Yes 45 is far too long for a typical shot. But a shot clock needs to take into account the fact that not all shots are typical.
So we could have (amongst a range of possibilities):
1) 45s clock with one or two “slow” players averaging 35-40s.
2) 20s shot clock with all players playing fast but some hurried decisions on some layouts and positions that lead to a reduction in the quality of the play.
I’d go for 1 over 2 despite those who shout that their experience of a whole tournament is ruined by some dude playing slow.
No one is complaining about just one player. Gorst just happens to be at the forefront of the discussion because he won and his final match took 4 hours.
Everyone was playing slow.
Because there was no shot clock.
WPA regulations are quite clear:
“ 20. SHOT CLOCK
A shot clock may be requested at any time during a match by a tournament official or either player involved in that match. The tournament director or other appointed official decides whether to use a shot clock or not. Should a shot clock be introduced, both players will be “on the clock” and there will be an official timekeeper for the duration of the match. As a recommendation, players will have 35 seconds per shot with a warning when 10 seconds remain. Each player will be allowed one 25-second extension during each rack. The shot clock will be started when all balls come to rest, including spinning balls. The shot clock will end when the cue tip strikes the cue ball to initiate a stroke or the when player’s time expires from the shot clock. If a player runs out of time, it will be a standard foul. After the opening shot the time cap may be extended but cannot exceed the 60 seconds”
https://wpapool.com/rule-regulations/#Shot-Clock
Did any of the players call the clock on their opponent? It seems that they were quite happy to play at a pace that they felt suited them. A televised tournament with an appropriate (to the status of the tournament) WPA-waived (or preferably a new, improved global pool organisation) time limit could be good for pool. This, dull and lifeless stream from a big room in Qatar with a 2019 $30k prize for the winner can never be good for the game and take it forwards. Shot clocks should be pretty low on any list of priorities for improving the World Championship.
No, my info is from an article or a post on AZ...I didn’t locate it to be sure.
There was a duration mentioned....gotta feeling Bob Jewett or AtLarge will know it.
True.
4 hrs. and 3 min. is what I have read in two places for the length of John's run. That's just under 2.6 balls per minute.
The Gorst/Chang final is also 4 hrs and 3 min. on the recording, but the recording skips several shots in two different games, so it was really a few minutes longer than that. One game ended with a 2/9 combo, so I think they pocketed 210 balls including those on the breaks. If we use 243 minutes, the average balls per minute is a bit under 0.9, or about one-third the pace of the Schmidt run.
To be fair, Gorst overall played much much faster than JL.
I was watching the match on Youtube after the fact, so it was easy to keep skipping ahead 5 seconds over and over again. Even with that shortcut, it was painful watching JL's up/down over and over again.
If it had been JL vs JL it might have taken 8 hours.
I was watching the match on Youtube after the fact, so it was easy to keep skipping ahead 5 seconds over and over again. Even with that shortcut, it was painful watching JL's up/down over and over again.
If it had been JL vs JL it might have taken 8 hours.
Agree, Chang was easily the slower one.
And to be fair in considering the overall pace of play in the Gorst/Chang match, we should count all the shots, not just the balls pocketed. Doing that, the shots per minute was just slightly over 1.0. So that's a (little) more fair comparison to Schmidt's 2.6 shots per minute.
I didn't watch the final, or any match in this year's WC for that matter. I tried to watch the final for 30 minutes, but it was just too damn agonizing. Too slow, no ambiance (I don't know the right word...) cause there is exactly no one there in that immense hall to watch it. As a pool fanatic I am ashamed that this is the World Championships in 9ball, which is supposed to be the main event in the year.
I just skipped to the final rack the next day, saw Gorst throw his stick to the floor as hard he could cause I guess that's what you're supposed to do now.
I just skipped to the final rack the next day, saw Gorst throw his stick to the floor as hard he could cause I guess that's what you're supposed to do now.
The stick throw seemed unnatural - like he had to really try to do that.
Sickening trend