"8 ball is real pool."

Pushout said:
...Also used in regard to striking the cue ball with no english.
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Why on earth would someone hit the cueball with an Englishman? That's just rude! Oh ... no English ... so you hit it with a French insult? Sweet.

And yes, TrustyRusty, 1 Pocket takes longer, quite a bit longer actually. I don't mind variations of pool that take time and skill or Snooker and 14.1 wouldn't have been choices 2 and 3. Finding opponents that can match up is much harder here.
 
I, personally, find 8 Ball more challenging than 9 Ball. To the previous poster who stated that a good stroke was not required in 8 Ball...I call bollocks to that! A poor stroke in 8 Ball will cost you the game, and quickly. A poor stroke in any of the games will cost you...it is the single most essential aspect of the game, IMHO.

9 Ball became popular in pool (for road players) for exactly the same reason that Texas Hold 'Em became popular in poker...both games are typically played in a short time frame, which allows for more money to be made in a shorter amount of time. When the road players started to play on the tournament circuit, they brought the game with them...which is why it overtook 14.1 and 1 Pocket in popularity.

8 Ball became popular with the 'everyman' because the basic rules and concept of the game was/is easy to understand from basements to poolhalls. When you start to apply BCA rules to the game, and begin to see the intricacies and strategies...the 'dance' as it were...is when the game takes on a whole different face.

Lisa
 
8-ball with the right conditions is IMO a better game. The right conditions are a 9-foot table with tight cut pockets in the 4' range. No jump cues, alternate break, races to 7 or so and win by 2.

Under those conditions 8-ball gives you far more of a complete game then rotational pool allows. Rotational pool is too much of a shoot-out with too little thinking and zero shot selection. I like a game to be both about shooting skill AND pattern play/thinking.

The IPT was close in some ways, their tournament format of brackets was way too convoluted and they should have simply went with a double knockout format, but the game of 8-ball played by the pro's on nice 9-foots interested me alot more as a spectator then 9 or 10-ball ever did.
 
Aaron_S said:
The best is when a guy is whining about "all the luck" in 9-ball as he runs an 8-ball rack WITHOUT EVER ONCE falling on the ball and pocket he intended to shoot next.
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Might happen on a valley bar box, get a 9-foot with 4' pockets and that guy does not run 3 balls.
 
Ghosst said:
Why on earth would someone hit the cueball with an Englishman? That's just rude! Oh ... no English ... so you hit it with a French insult? Sweet.
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Yeah, that one made me do a double-take, I can tell ya!
 
I think the only game where a weaker player can overcome a stronger player (within reason) is One Pocket. Simply because that game has a lot of unique and special moves in it that aren't immediately apparent even to a creative and innovative thinking player. A highly experienced player has an edge, despite having weaker physical skills. Also, a very experienced one pocket player will be more practiced in a less familiar set of short range specialty shots for the 9 ball player.
 
You can't use runout percentage to prove if it's easier to break and runout in 8-ball or 9-ball.

Well maybe you could but it would be skewed. You would have to count only the games where the breaking player actually tries to pocket a ball without playing safe, and either runs out or misses.

There would be plenty of 8-ball games where the player could run out, but he won't try because it's too risky if he misses.

You also have shots where the player shoots a semi-safe shot where shoots a more difficult shot to pocket the ball, but has a built in safety of some sort.

I guess you could settle it on your own by just running through a thousand racks of each game and just shoot until you miss with no safes.



I wonder what the stats would be if you played 1,000 racks of 9-ball and then 1,000 racks of 10-ball and just shot until you missed. How much lower would your runout percent be in 10-ball?
 
I think every game is different and requires different skills and techniques. No point of arguing on which game is more difficult, because you can always make up a new game that is more difficult. 15 Ball on 3.5 inch pocket. Or a carom game that requires you to hit 4 balls in one shot. Both players are playing the same game that requires the same skills and difficulty.
 
vincentwu817 said:
I think every game is different and requires different skills and techniques. No point of arguing on which game is more difficult, because you can always make up a new game that is more difficult. 15 Ball on 3.5 inch pocket. Or a carom game that requires you to hit 4 balls in one shot. Both players are playing the same game that requires the same skills and difficulty.
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He is a fun little practice drill I do. I call it carom, combo or bank.

Throw all 15 balls out on the table. The only shots you can make are a carom, combo or bank.

Now this is a challenge.

For a point game, you could give points based on the degree of difficulty. Like a carom is a 3, combo points is based on the number of balls in the combo excluding the CB and bank points based on the numbers of rails in the bank and so on.
 
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