playing safe lowers average ball run- ?

evergruven

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
don't know much about straights, but so far I'm enjoying the game-
I've been using this app called "billiards buddy" to keep track of my score-
it seems to work ok and the price was right on it (free).
one thing..I noticed that when I play safe, my average run number decreases.
why is this? is that how stats are kept for pro players?
I personally don't care much about my average runs, but do wonder why one would be "penalized" for playing that way.

as an aside, I slopped a ball in tonight while practicing..I spotted it, but is that a foul?
could be strategic?

cheers-
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
don't know much about straights, but so far I'm enjoying the game-
I've been using this app called "billiards buddy" to keep track of my score-
it seems to work ok and the price was right on it (free).
one thing..I noticed that when I play safe, my average run number decreases.
why is this? is that how stats are kept for pro players?
I personally don't care much about my average runs, but do wonder why one would be "penalized" for playing that way.

as an aside, I slopped a ball in tonight while practicing..I spotted it, but is that a foul?
could be strategic?

cheers-
The standard way of scoring balls per inning (BPI) is to divide the final score by the number of turns the player had at the table. If you look in the record books for 14.1, that is what will be reported.

AtLarge sometimes reports balls per attempted scoring inning, which ignores innings that only had safes. This requires judgement on the part of the scorer.

It is not a foul to pocket an object ball by mistake.
 

DynoDan

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
as an aside, I slopped a ball in tonight while practicing..I spotted it, but is that a foul?
could be strategic?

cheers-[/QUOTE]

In a ‘friendly’ game, few players will bother to call the more obvious shots. If you want to spot a ball, you should call “safety” before pocketing it.
 

RobMan

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
If you are interested and have an IPad, Straight Pool Deluxe is a great scoring app especially if you like to track statistics. To your point, besides the standard BPI calculation, it also calculates a “SPD” Average - which excludes the innings that are solely safeties.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

sjm

Older and Wiser
Silver Member
Beware looking at Balls per Inning in a vacuum. Back in the 1950s, Irving Crane's tended to be around 7 or 8, while Mosconi tended to be at about 15, but Irving played a lot more defense.
 
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