2023 World Pool Championship, Kielce, Poland

Jimmorrison

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
From the Minnesota Pool Association website, regarding slow play. They keep track of how long each player's matches take.

Slow Player Statistics for the Current Season
07/01/2022 to 02/03/2023
These are lists by Player Rating of all the players that have played at least 3 matches this season.

Each table is sorted so the slowest player for that rating is at the top, then by the longest match for that average time.

If you are in the top part of the list for your division you really need to start thinking about speeding up your play, (Shot rate). We will be starting to give the players at the top of each rating group a timer that they will be required to use.

Slow play by just a few players slows the whole tournament down and keeps ALL divisions from getting done at a reasonable time.

If your strategy is to bore your opponent to death, this will no longer be allowed, and you need to seriously look at how you think through a table.

Anyway there is a lot of interesting information in these tables, but if you are towards the top of the list you really need to address how you are playing.
The MPA has done this for at least a decade, I don’t know when they started. When you look up players, the first thing you see, is the pace of play rankings.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
The matchups for tomorrow. Three tables in use.

1675464807689.png


Several players left I would not have expected in the last 16.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
Slow play has been a problem since I began officiating tournaments forty years ago. Accu-Stats shot clock solved that problem. At least on the matches held in their arena. MR needs to find a way to have a similar clock on all the tables. The referees could operate it with a remote. Problem solved.

Being a pool referee is not that intensive a job. Certainly not like ref’ing other pro sports. Despite all the walking around behind players we see some refs doing, most of which is not necessary.

A good pool referee can sit on a bar stool type chair and watch the match, only leaving his chair to watch a close hit or possible clothing foul. That’s how I ref’ed for years and never had a problem. They certainly could handle a clock remotely at the same time.

But what do I know. I’m just another guy on a computer now.
 

skogstokig

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
These champions keep showing up from nowhere. Now we have Vietnam in the mix. I saw the last few racks of that match -- very impressive.

exceptional. and i like the style; no cumbersome pre-shot routine,1-2 practice strokes, good straight follow through, very fluid. his stroke reminds me of filler and siming chen.
 

Dead Money

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Yes, it was Marcel Eckardt, the snooker referee from Germany. I like him.

Alex's break had something to do with three-point system in Europe. I don't quite get it. Roy from Norway explained it on Facebook, but it's still Greek to me.
Thanks. I was thinking it may be...


 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
There are tournaments on YT during which the refs have stop watches and simply say "Ten seconds" when the time gets short.
That would be a good start.
That will work. Tried and succeeded already in various tournaments I was involved in. You just need volunteers who are willing to do this job.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
exceptional. and i like the style; no cumbersome pre-shot routine,1-2 practice strokes, good straight follow through, very fluid. his stroke reminds me of filler and siming chen.
Earl Strickland at his peak! He ran racks in one to two minutes max. One, two, shoot. One, two, shoot. All that scoping out the table from every angle was not part of his agenda. Seems he knew the dimensions of the table and where the pockets were located, and didn’t need to double check everything on each shot.

He had a decent career too!
 
Last edited:

iusedtoberich

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
exceptional. and i like the style; no cumbersome pre-shot routine,1-2 practice strokes, good straight follow through, very fluid. his stroke reminds me of filler and siming chen.
Do you know which match this was? DAZN, table 2, or 3? (I have all 3). I'm looking for a fun match to watch in this evening.
 

skogstokig

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Earl Strickland at his peak! He ran racks in one to two minutes max. One, two, shoot. One, two, shoot. All that scoping out the table from every angle was not part of his agenda. Seems he knew the dimensions of the table and where the pockets were located, and didn’t need to double check everything on each shot.

exactly, i was thinking earl too. there is a certain cadence to it.
 

skogstokig

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Do you know which match this was? DAZN, table 2, or 3? (I have all 3). I'm looking for a fun match to watch in this evening.


first match. on paper it may look like shane drew one of the easier ones tomorrow, but the guy is absolutely lethal.
 

evergruven

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
WTH they doing in Albania. We need to send a research team over there to take some notes.

hey james, d'ya mean albania?

in the last 16, I see three poles, three austrians, two taiwanese
a serbian, a syrian, an estonian, a canadian, an american, a nederlander, a spaniard, and a vietnamese

this said, albania is home to top player kaci, amongst others
 

iusedtoberich

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
From the Minnesota Pool Association website, regarding slow play. They keep track of how long each player's matches take.

Slow Player Statistics for the Current Season
07/01/2022 to 02/03/2023
These are lists by Player Rating of all the players that have played at least 3 matches this season.

Each table is sorted so the slowest player for that rating is at the top, then by the longest match for that average time.

If you are in the top part of the list for your division you really need to start thinking about speeding up your play, (Shot rate). We will be starting to give the players at the top of each rating group a timer that they will be required to use.

Slow play by just a few players slows the whole tournament down and keeps ALL divisions from getting done at a reasonable time.

If your strategy is to bore your opponent to death, this will no longer be allowed, and you need to seriously look at how you think through a table.

Anyway there is a lot of interesting information in these tables, but if you are towards the top of the list you really need to address how you are playing.

Wow, this is amazing. Put the slow players on notice with data. Great job. Although I don't know how they did the calculations, it probably does not matter for this discussion. But, you could have a player lose 7-0 every match to fast opponents, and that losing player would have the lowest time of the group, depending on how they are recording and analyzing the data.

Here is their site with the pace of play of the players:
 
Top