Break Stats -- 2018 US Open 8-Ball Championship, July 2018

Here are some aggregate statistics from the 2018 US Open 8-Ball Championship, played July 21-24 at Griff's Bar & Billiards in Las Vegas. The promoter, CueSports International, provided pay-per-view streaming.

This was a 39-player (less 2 who forfeited), double-elimination event, with all races to 8 except the final match (to 10). The winner was Shane Van Boening, defeating Alex Pagulayan in the final match.

Conditions -- The conditions for this call-shot 8-Ball event included:

The stats are for the 17 matches (224 games) that were streamed. This represented 24% of the total of 71 matches and 26% of the total of 859 games played in the event. The streamed matches are listed here in the order in which they were played.

Saturday, July 21

Sunday, July 22

Monday, July 23

Tuesday, July 24

Overall results

Here's a breakdown of the 224 games (for match winners and losers combined).


Break-and-run games: The 75 break-and-run games represented 33% of all 224 games, 62% of the 121 games won by the breaker, and 53% of the 141 games in which the break was successful (made a ball and didn't foul).

With alternating breaks, B&R "packages" of the normal type are not possible. But we can still look at the breaks of a given player and see how many he ran on his own successive breaks, and we can call these "alternate-break packages." The 75 break-and-run games consisted of 3 alternate-break 3-packs (1 each for Kaçi, Pagulayan, and Van Boening), 13 alternate-break 2-packs, and 40 singles. No one in the streamed matches broke and ran more than 3 games in a row on his own successive breaks.

8-balls on the break: The 8-ball was never made on the break.

Miscellany from the data for the 2018 US Open 8-Ball Championship:
[Unless otherwise stated, this relates only to the 17 streamed matches, not to all the matches in the event.]

• The most balls made on a single break was 5, done once by Van Boening. He missed the last ball of his group and lost that game.

• The average number of balls made on the break was 1.1 (this includes dry and fouled breaks). On successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul), the average was 1.6.

• 70% (157 of 224) of the games ended in one inning – 33% (75) won by the breaker (B&R) and 37% (82) won by the non-breaker. Twenty percent of the games (45 of 224) ended in the second inning of either the breaker or non-breaker, and 10% (22 of 224) went beyond the second inning.

• 50% (113 of 224) of the games were run out by the player who was at the table following the break. These run-outs were:

• The player who made the first ball after the break:

• The loser won an average of 5.2 games in the 16 races to 8. Six of those matches went to hill/hill; one finished at 8-1 (the fewest games). For all 70 races to 8 in the event, the loser won an average of 4.1 games.

• The average elapsed time for the 16 races to 8 was 95 minutes. The average minutes per game for all 17 matches was 7.2. The elapsed time was measured from the lag until the winning ball was made (or conceded), so it includes time for racking and timeouts.

• The race to 8 that was both longest in elapsed time (146 min.) and highest in average minutes per game (9.7 min./game) was Pagulayan d. Hohmann 8-7.

• The match that was shortest in elapsed time (61 min.) was Van Boening d. Hohmann 8-1. The match that was lowest in average minutes per game (5.4 min./game) was Orcollo d. Aranas 8-7.

• Breaking fouls averaged 1 for every 10.7 games, other fouls 1 for every 14.0 games, and missed shots about 1 for every 1.5 games.

• About 11% of the games involved one or more safeties.

jay helfert said:

Did the eight ball count as a win if it was made on the break? One of my pet peeves was when the BCA decided this was no longer a win. Your stats only show how hard it is to make the eight on the break. Definitely should be a win imo.

Click to expand...

This was a CSI event, so they used CSI rules. If an 8-ball is made on a break with no foul, it is breaker's choice to (a) spot the 8-ball and continue shooting or (b) re-break. For an 8-ball made on a fouled break, it is the non-breaker's choice to (a) spot the 8-ball and take BIH anywhere or (b) re-break.

This was the second year that the US Open 8-Ball Championship returned to playing on 9-foot tables instead of 7-footers. Let's compare.

Shown here are stats for the streamed matches for 2015 and 2016 on a 7-footer vs. 2017 and 2018 on a 9-footer. The comparison may also be affected by somewhat tighter pockets in 2017 and 2018 -- 4¼" corners in 2017 and 2018 vs. 4½" corners the prior two years. The other equipment and rules were the same for the 4 years, and the field strength for the streamed matches seems similar each year.

Successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
2015 -- 67% (157 of 233)
2016 -- 76% (149 of 197)
2017 -- 68% (157 of 232)
2018 -- 63% (141 of 224)

Breaker won the game:
2015 -- 64% (148 of 233)
2016 -- 64% (127 of 197)
2017 -- 56% (130 of 232)
2018 -- 54% (121 of 224)

Break-and-run games, on all breaks:
2015 -- 52% (120 of 233)
2016 -- 53% (104 of 197)
2017 -- 41% (96 of 232)
2018 -- 33% (75 of 224)

Break-and-run games, on successful breaks:
2015 -- 76% (120 of 157)
2016 -- 70% (104 of 149)
2017 -- 61% (96 of 157)
2018 -- 53% (75 of 141)

Runouts by the player at the table following the break:
2015 -- 75% (174 of 233)
2016 -- 69% (136 of 197)
2017 -- 62% (144 of 232)
2018 -- 50% (113 of 224)

Games won by the player at the table following the break:
2015 -- 78% (182 of 233)
2016 -- 74% (145 of 197)
2017 -- 71% (165 of 232)
2018 -- 60% (134 of 224)

Games ending in one inning (by B&R or on non-breaker's first visit):
2015 -- 87% (203 of 233)
2016 -- 86% (170 of 197)
2017 -- 78% (180 of 232)
2018 -- 70% (157 of 224)

Approx. % of games involving safeties:
2015 -- 3%
2016 -- 5%
2017 -- 8%
2018 -- 11%

Average number of balls made on all breaks and on successful breaks:
2015 -- 1.2, 1.6
2016 -- 1.4, 1.7
2017 -- 1.2, 1.6
2018 -- 1.1, 1.6

Average number of minutes per game:
2015 -- 6.2 for 233 games (no shot clock)
2016 -- 5.7 for 197 games (no shot clock)
2017 -- 6.0 for 232 games (no shot clock)
2018 -- 7.2 for 224 games (no shot clock)

CreeDo said:

... Do you have stats specifically for the winner, or finalists? Was their percentage in anything noticeably higher than the rest of the field? Was alex's worse to lose 10-3?

Click to expand...

20 different players appeared in the 17 streamed matches -- SVB 5 times, 3 players 3 times, 4 players twice, and 12 players once. With alternating breaks and fairly short races, we don't get much data for each player. But here's SVB vs. everyone else:

Successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
SVB -- 68% (21 of 31)
All others -- 62% (120 of 193)
Total -- 63% (141 of 224)

Breaker won the game:
SVB -- 58% (18 of 31)
All others -- 53% (103 of 193)
Total -- 54% (121 of 224)

Break-and-run games, on all breaks:
SVB -- 45% (14 of 31)
All others -- 32% (61 of 193)
Total -- 33% (75 of 224)

Break-and-run games, on successful breaks:
SVB -- 67% (14 of 21)
All others -- 51% (61 of 120)
Total -- 53% (75 of 141)

Pagulayan appeared 3 times with just 20 breaks -- broke successfully 13 times (65%), won on his break 10 times (50%), broke and ran 5 times (25% of all breaks, 38% of successful breaks).

54% (122 of 224) of the streamed games were won with stripes.

56% of the balls made on the break were stripes.





[:smile:]