I loved the game and in my opinion, it was an equalizer in that yes, the better player still had the advantage, but the weaker player still had a chance and could keep the match close if you understood the game.
We played it here in St. Louis and I qualified for the "National Tournament" two of the three years. First being in Vegas in 2015. We ran two divisions and sent two players to DCC in 2016 and I went again in 2017. I got to talk to Joe a lot about the game and future visions and challenges. When inquiring about this years National Championship, he informed me that they basically lost funding and never got any real support from either the BCA Nationals in Vegas or DCC with the running of the tournament or promotion. In 2015, BCA didn't want to have any 9' tables and the ones for our tournament were in a back room. They did allow one near the stream table, but never got any promotion even when they ran mini's with pros like Archer and such. Last year at Derby, they couldn't get any time to stream the finals until very late I believe on Tuesday evening and we actually started the day before the Banks, so the finalists had to wait several days to finish. Not to mention, unless Joe was in the booth, announcers were always guessing about the game because most have never played. Once you play a few racks, the rules are pretty easy to learn and all serve a purpose.
Another issue, was I think it was tough on and a very thankless job by Joe. I know he put hours and hours into trying to run things behind the scenes strictly for the love of the sport and game. Last year tournament in DCC as mentioned before was a completely paid and funded trip for the winners of local leagues. That was 10 days of hotel and entry into AmRo, Banks, One Pocket, and 9-Ball. If everyone remembers the room fiasco from the Horseshoe, even Joe's allotted rooms were taken away and some of us had to stay down the street and some players were *****ing and complaining, even though it wasn't Joe's fault.
I understand some people don't completely like all the rules, but as I said before, Joe had a specific reason for all the rules and from its inception, has made changes. The reason he developed the game was too improve Americans skill level at all rotation games because he feels the reason the Phillipinos are so good is because they play a lot of 15 ball rotation, so 9 or 10 ball becomes very easy. The reason for balls 11-15 being 2 points and 1-10 being 1 is because it puts more pressure to finish the game by either running out or playing a jam up safety. The reason for no jump cues is to improve both the level of safety play and ability to kick out of it. No slop forces you to kick with a purpose, not just whack at a ball and hope (even though that still happens and is called for).
We were planning to run it again locally and just keep all the money here since there was no National tournament, but basically, I've been to busy to organize it, but feel if I put a little effort into it, we could have 2 divisions easily. Each year, we had more guys asking about it and wanting to play in the next one, but we just didn't do the next one when there wasn't the National Championship prize to shoot for.
Hope to see it make a come back because it is a great game on all levels and anyone that plays it a lot will improve their skill level and ability in any other game they like to play.
Or l, if you take the shot he left for you on that safety (again, he pocketed a ball doing it) then you get the points. There are basically no two-way shots in AmRo. 
