8 ball or 9 ball which do you find more difficult?
- Thread starter Nyquil
- Start date
9 ball patterns. 8 ball shape.
Can't agree more...
Invented reason...? Common place when the option and beneficial circumstances present itself.
'A lot' may be stretching it a bit but yes, definitely harder if the desired shot isn't a high % from behind the line.
BIH does make shooting the ball after the foul way easier, and should make the subsequent shape easier as well. However it's also a fitting penalty for a foul. The notion that I should be hampered by the 'behind the line' rules after my opponent screws up, is head scratching. Behind the line around my parts is considered a barbox banger rule akin to bs rules applied to potting allowances of the 8 ball.
Hardly... call pocket is nearly inconsequencial when you start playing north of >625 talent. Sure, fortunate shots do happen but there's no way call pocket is the reasoning behind the supposed extra difficulty.
I took up straight pool as my covid game of practice. While it certainly is a different style of game and takes a bit to gain some decent results. I have to wonder if it's more challenging then one pocket. A game that I've never played. That thought is simply based on chatter from players of both.
1P = Both
I completely agree with your first sentence . admittedly i am not much of a gambler i refuse to gamble playing 9 ball.
The last 2 times i gambled were with players ranked a little higher than me. I was a 5/5 and a 5/6 challenged me to a race to 7 nine ball. I replied i would 8 ball but not 9 ball. Well he really didnt like his odds in 8 ball and i didnt like my odds in 9 ball. So we finally agreed to play a race to seven in all 3 formats. 8..9..and 10 ball in that order with 10 ball being a tie breaker.
Well sure enough i won 8 ball. Surprisingly i won 9 ball. Then he decided we needed to play 10 ball and i asked what for ? He said pride. I won the race also. The thing was i knew i was better at 8 and i thought be would be better at 9 and i really liked my odds at 10 ball. I figured playing 2 formats of call shot would offset his slop in 9 ball.
The next guy was a 6/7 and i was up to a 5/9. Again...he didnt like his chances in 8 ball and i didnt like mine in 9. So we settled on 10 ball. I won 7-2.
The thing is both guys didnt like their chances at 8 ball because they know it's a tough game against me. My thoughts were that both are prone to creating their own luck when they get in a tihht in 9 ball. Call shot 8 and 10 ball eliminated their luck and i knew they could outshoot me but i also knew they couldnt out think me. Btw . bothe were team mates of mine.
Agreed. I have stated on here before that i thought 8 ball was like chess and 9 ball was like checkers.
I too stopped believing in luck. When I accepted that the other person's style of play resulted in more unintended consequences both good and bad it worked wonders for my equilibrium. Having to adjust to a new reality every time I came to the table wasn't a big problem. Getting annoyed at the numbskull that rearranged the furniture almost every shot, that could be a big problem.
Hu
What no one has mentioned is that, in my opinion, using a template for 8-ball can completely change the game. It leads to much better ball spreads on the breaks and makes it a much more offensive game in which runouts are far more likely.
What do you mean by template?
Oh it most certanly does. Slug racks in 8 ball are the worst. While using a template greatly increases the likelyhood of both a successful break and runout. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a certainty. No where near the automatic nature of a rack of 9 ball.
If I had to choose between travelling with a 15 ball template or the one specific to 9 ball. It would be the 15....
Magic, turtle or accu-rack, guaranteeing a perfect rack with all balls frozen, generally leading to a much better ball spread after the break shot.
Difficult is hard to judge between two different games because the aspects of them are completely different but let me tell you something.
I find that in 8ball you can lose to a much lesser skilled player. Also I find that in 8ball luck factor is much larger than 9ball and can cause you to lose to a very lesser skilled player.
People think luck is lucking a ball in, but thats not the main factor in pool, layout luck is much more keen to determine the winner of a match, a guy who is really worst in the game than another guy can beat him in 8ball easier than in 9ball.
You can attest to his in the real world, if you're going to play a guy who's much better than you, give 8ball a try and see how you fair...you'll find that more often you'd beat him in 8ball than 9ball.
I find that in 8ball you can lose to a much lesser skilled player. Also I find that in 8ball luck factor is much larger than 9ball and can cause you to lose to a very lesser skilled player.
People think luck is lucking a ball in, but thats not the main factor in pool, layout luck is much more keen to determine the winner of a match, a guy who is really worst in the game than another guy can beat him in 8ball easier than in 9ball.
You can attest to his in the real world, if you're going to play a guy who's much better than you, give 8ball a try and see how you fair...you'll find that more often you'd beat him in 8ball than 9ball.
You can't pick a pattern in 9 ball aside from where to get on the ball for shape for the next shot. In 8 ball you need to pick a good order to shoot the balls in, there is a lot more planning to be done in 8 ball to have a good run out or playing for a safe in the rack.
I have not seen a template rack make nearly as much difference in 8 ball vs 9 or 10 ball. Yes there is less chance of a cluster of balls in the middle, but that is much less of a chance than making 1-2-3 balls on a 9 ball break with a template. I would say using a template rack may make the 8 ball break maybe 20% more solid vs 9 or 10 ball where it's probably twice as good to have a template vs a hand rack. Meaning you get a better layout at most 20% of the time in 8 ball where you double the chances of making a ball and not getting slug racked in 9 ball with a template rack. It may be even more than double depending on the racker.
While I was practicing for an 8 ball tournament, when I racked with a standard rack for a few days, I was getting excellent results with the break, only times I had issues was when some others were racking for me without as much care, but that is not really a fair comparison since that should be the same racker but different rack designs.
I am not so sure about that. I lose way more matches in 9 ball to lesser players than i do 8 ball. Perhaps its because of the scoring points system in apa 9 ball. They tend to go for broke on hard shots and somethimg falls somewhere and more often than not they are good on their next ball.
I shut out lower levels all the time in 8 ball. Not to say some do not get lucky in 8 ball but no one goes for broke at warp speed in 8 ball like they do 9 ball for fear of making an early 8.
There are many times in 9B where you have to break out clusters and move balls around to runout. Not every time at the table is a cosmo or just get to the correct side of thr ball looking at the 3rd ball. It’s much more complex.
As I stated before there’s a huge overlap and where you are at in your own game often determines which is harder. What only matters is winning. What game do you have the highest win % in. That’s the fame to bet on. I’m not a tourney or league guy. I gamble.
Yes you can have tight position and clusters in 9 ball, but again what you need to do is dictated by the table and where the next ball is. In 8 ball that is a lot less clear and you need to formulate your own way to run out since you have the option to hit 7 different balls (just to make things simpler and ignore anything you may have made on the break), and often will have more than one clear first shot to take.
All we can talk about is in general or more often seen terms not exceptions. 8 ball gets more clusters than 9 ball, in general. 8 ball needs more planning, in general, but when you play the game you have more options due to being able to him more than one legal ball, in general. It's like saying 9 ball is easy because you can make 4 balls on the break and only have to make 5 more, that is an exception not something to plan for or 8 ball is hard because you can make 3 stripes but not have a single open shot at a stripe.
It's not really a matter of one game being "harder" since 9 ball more often requires more position play due to only one legal ball at a time, but 8 ball is harder in a different way. All games are hard or easy in their own way. I mean look at 14.1, any ball, any pocket, but it takes good players to run more than a single rack and really good players to run 50+
8 ball is harder in planning, and 9 ball is harder in playing. It's all in the %, if you plan a good pattern in 8 ball it can make winning the game a lot easier, or even make it possible, if you pick the wrong order to play the balls you can get in trouble a lot easier than in 9 ball due to congestion of the opposing balls on the table and open pockets. 9 ball is more with getting shape on the next ball and pocketing the ball.