“Less Lucky” Version of 10 Ball?

Ten ball is fine. What the op describes is call shot/ call safe which is the most boring form of pool EVER. Roll are part of the game, deal with it. Personally i like WPA rules with one exception: called early 10b's should be allowed. Adds spice, not a fan of 10b last at all.
Ten ball is 9 ball's developmentally disabled bastard child.
Apologies to 10 ball fans.
 
Agree 100%. What really kills me is that the two most watched/highest paying cue games on the planet, snooker and Heyball, allow flukes/slop/shit/pick ur adjective and no one whines about the luck factor. Even in 1p, supposedly the gold standard of pure skill, you see games won/lost on crazy slop shots. Again, no one bitches about it. But 10b must be held to some higher degree of 'purity'. Missing a ball is not a foul and should not be penalized as such. Thankfully no pro 10b events plays cs/cs.
Take luck away and that's half of my pocketing %!!😭😉
 
Ten ball is fine. What the op describes is call shot/ call safe which is the most boring form of pool EVER. Roll are part of the game, deal with it. Personally i like WPA rules with one exception: called early 10b's should be allowed. Adds spice, not a fan of 10b last at all.
So let me get this straight, you're telling me I made the 10 ball legally and I have to make it AGAIN to win? Do I win 2 games? SUPER STUPID RULE. Variance is GOOD. "Early" does not exist. Did I make the "money ball" or not?
 
Golf has more variance than any game on the planet. I could list examples but they would be hard to follow for non-golfers.

Football is shaped the way it is quite literally to produce variance. The game would not be nearly what it is if the football bounced predictably and was easier to handle.

Then you have games like poker who quite literally would not exist without luck. If there were no luck the same player would win every single event.

Like in Chess where the only variable is the player himself, how well did the player sleep the night before etc. Make pool more like chess and you will absolutely destroy it. Luck/variance gives Hope(albeit false for the most part) to lesser players. That Hope is the lifeblood of the game.
 
Golf has more variance than any game on the planet. I could list examples but they would be hard to follow for non-golfers.

Football is shaped the way it is quite literally to produce variance. The game would not be nearly what it is if the football bounced predictably and was easier to handle.

Then you have games like poker who quite literally would not exist without luck. If there were no luck the same player would win every single event.

Like in Chess where the only variable is the player himself, how well did the player sleep the night before etc. Make pool more like chess and you will absolutely destroy it. Luck/variance gives Hope(albeit false for the most part) to lesser players. That Hope is the lifeblood of the game.


Yes, but the remove luck attitude exists in golf to a huge degree. To some extent this is why people love stroke play golf and boring or penal architecture. Match play with the stymie rule used to be the thing. Probably nobody here has played with stymies, I know I haven’t. Pros want no bad bounces and don’t want their paycheck to come down to playing a hole like 17 at TPC on Sunday. But how much more fun is it to play a match and have to deal with an “ unfair” quirky hole. To some extent both philosophies have their place, but the game is poorer when the no luck view is too strong IMO.

Pool is all match play and has defense. Those are positives.
 
Yes, but the remove luck attitude exists in golf to a huge degree. To some extent this is why people love stroke play golf and boring or penal architecture. Match play with the stymie rule used to be the thing. Probably nobody here has played with stymies, I know I haven’t. Pros want no bad bounces and don’t want their paycheck to come down to playing a hole like 17 at TPC on Sunday. But how much more fun is it to play a match and have to deal with an “ unfair” quirky hole. To some extent both philosophies have their place, but the game is poorer when the no luck view is too strong IMO.

Pool is all match play and has defense. Those are positives.
But it doesn't matter if they want no luck and no bad bounces. There's not a single thing they can do to control it. When you me and 2 other guys are on a par 3 for example it's a different hole for all 4 of us, the wind will be different for all of us. You and I can land our golf ball 6" apart and get wildly different outcomes even if our trajectory and spin rates are essentially the same. It's part of what makes the game great. Simply doesn't matter how much you WANT to remove it, you can't.

As in pool when one guy gets straight in on the 1 and the other guy gets hooked. Never. Gonna. Change. And completely out of your control under normal conditions.
 
Yes, but the remove luck attitude exists in golf to a huge degree. To some extent this is why people love stroke play golf and boring or penal architecture. Match play with the stymie rule used to be the thing. Probably nobody here has played with stymies, I know I haven’t. Pros want no bad bounces and don’t want their paycheck to come down to playing a hole like 17 at TPC on Sunday. But how much more fun is it to play a match and have to deal with an “ unfair” quirky hole. To some extent both philosophies have their place, but the game is poorer when the no luck view is too strong IMO.

Pool is all match play and has defense. Those are positives.
My good golfing buddy and I play stymies sometimes, it adds a lot of fun Strat to the game at times. BRING IT BACK lol. At least for matchplay anyway. No good for stroke play/medal play tournaments.
 
Golf has more variance than any game on the planet. I could list examples but they would be hard to follow for non-golfers.

Football is shaped the way it is quite literally to produce variance. The game would not be nearly what it is if the football bounced predictably and was easier to handle.

Then you have games like poker who quite literally would not exist without luck. If there were no luck the same player would win every single event.

Like in Chess where the only variable is the player himself, how well did the player sleep the night before etc. Make pool more like chess and you will absolutely destroy it. Luck/variance gives Hope(albeit false for the most part) to lesser players. That Hope is the lifeblood of the game.
Idk if you'd destroy it, you'd just turn it into chess. How many people watch chess??😂
 
2-way shots are one of the most important parts of 10b. Why would you try to eliminate them?
They work both directions:
- Try to make the ball and keep the CB under cover if you miss (or just coincidental position on the next ball).
- Playing safe or kicking out of a safe where the intention isn't to make the ball, but if you catch it right it'll go in.
Both of those cases you call the pocket, so is it really luck if it does/doesn't go in?
What if you play safe, miss, and the CB finds cover behind a different ball?

Luck may make the ball go in or get the CB covered, but hitting the ball right gives you the opportunity.

Who gets to decide which is which?
 
My main reasoning for 10b last is to keep the game separate from 9b. If you want TExpress just play 9b. :ROFLMAO:
Never said anything about TE just that 10b last takes a lot of excitement out of the game. You still have to call shots so its nothing like TE pool. Although i do like the TE rules that Derby uses for the Bigfoot. At that level those guys don't shit in many balls so the TE rule really doesn't affect it much.
 
Respectfully, I still do not understand why anyone would have an aversion to calling shots and safes in a competitive game.

If the shot doesn’t go in the pocket you intended, that’s a mistake. You should not benefit from fate or happenstance that the cue ball or object ball falls in a flukey position where your opponent is now dead in the water. Two-way shots aside, it’s total BS when that happens for either player.

If I fluke in the 9-ball to win a game, I don’t feel good about it. Sure, I’ll take the win, but inside we all think to ourselves “wow, that was bullshit.” Regardless of how often that does or doesn’t happen, legally smacking a combo’d 9-ball six rails and it happens to go into a random pocket should NEVER result in a win in a game of skill. That opportunity should not exist.

Competitive games should strive to reduce luck-driven variance wherever possible. We’ll never remove all luck (e.g., there could be a speck of cloth on the table that shifts the CB path by 0.013 degrees and causes you to miss), but we can adjust simple rules to drastically reduce flukes and unintended leaves that result in “wins” - so why wouldn’t we in competitive rotation?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top