Break Stats -- 2023 International 9-Ball Open, November 2023

[AtLarge]

Here are some aggregate break statistics from the 2023 International 9-Ball Open played October 30 - November 4, 2023 at the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel in Norfolk, VA with pay-per-view streaming by Accu-Stats. Aloysius Yapp won the event, defeating David Alcaide in the final match.

Conditions -- The conditions for this event included:

- Diamond 9-foot table with 4¼" corner pockets on the feature table (not sure about pocket size on the other tables);​

- blue Simonis 860 cloth;​

- Aramith Tournament balls with a red-measles cue ball;​

- Accu-Rack racking template;​

- referee racks with the 9-ball on the foot spot (2-ball not necessarily in back location);​

- alternate breaks from a box -- 9" to each side of the long string;​

- no illegal-break rule, but referees to enforce a forceful-break requirement;​

- on the feature table only, a 30-second shot clock (even after the break) with one automatic extension per player per rack;​

- foul on all balls;​

- jump cues allowed;​

- all slop counts; and​

- lag for the opening break in each match.​

This was a 128-player event, with double elimination down to 16 players (8 on the winners' side and 8 on the one-loss side), and then single elimination to the end. These stats are for all 15 matches (250 games) played in the Last 16 (single-elimination) portion of the event. Seven of these 15 matches were played on the feature table (Matches 1, 5, 9, and 11 below on Friday and matches 13, 14, and 15 on Saturday), and the other 8 matches were played on tables not in the feature arena.

The figures in parentheses are the Accu-Stats Total Performance Averages (TPA), as calculated by Accu-Stats and shown on the stream. TPAs were provided for only the 7 matches on the feature table.

Friday, Nov. 3 (Matches 1-8 in the round of 16 players, Matches 9-12 in the Quarterfinals)

1. Mario He (.908) defeated Joshua Filler (.901) 10-8​

2. Wiktor Zielinski d. Vitaliy Patsura 10-1​

3. Aloysius Yapp d. Lee Vann Corteza 10-6​

4. Fedor Gorst d. Jesus Atencio 10-3​

​

5. David Alcaide (.928) d. Shane Van Boening (.898) 10-6​

6. Naoyuki Oi d. Jayson Shaw 10-8​

7. Alex Pagulayan d. Albin Ouschan 10-9​

8. Gerson Martinez d. Mieszko Fortunski 10-9​

​

9. Yapp (.975) d. Gorst (.949) 10-8​

10. Zielinski d. He 10-6​

11. Martinez (.867) d. Pagulayan (.843) 10-8​

12. Alcaide d. Oi 10-5​

Saturday, Nov. 4

13. Yapp (.895) d. Zielinski (.880) 10-8 (Semifinal)​

14. Alcaide (.904) d. Martinez (.862) 10-5 (Semifinal)​

15. Yapp (.912) d. Alcaide (.867) 13-7 (Final)​

Overall results

Successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):​

Match winners -- 78% (99 of 127)​

Match losers -- 71% (87 of 123)​

Total -- 74% (186 of 250)​

Breaker won the game:​

Match winners -- 73% (93 of 127)​

Match losers -- 52% (64 of 123)​

Total -- 63% (157 of 250)​

Break-and-run games on all breaks:​

Match winners -- 41% (52 of 127)​

Match losers -- 32% (39 of 123)​

Total -- 36% (91 of 250)​

Break-and-run games on successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):​

Match winners -- 53% (52 of 99)​

Match losers -- 45% (39 of 87)​

Total -- 49% (91 of 186)​

Here's a breakdown of the 250 games (for match winners and losers combined).

Breaker made at least one ball and did not foul:​

Breaker won the game: 138 (55% of the 250 games)​

Breaker lost the game: 48 (19%)​

​

Breaker fouled on the break:​

Breaker won the game: 3 (1%)​

Breaker lost the game: 16 (6%)​

​

Breaker broke dry (without fouling):​

Breaker won the game: 16 (6%)​

Breaker lost the game: 29 (12%)​

​

Therefore, whereas the breaker won 63% (157 of 250) of all games,​

He won 74% (138 of 186) of the games in which the break was successful (made at least one ball and did not foul).​

He won 30% (19 of 64) of the games in which the break was unsuccessful (fouled or dry).​

Break-and-run games -- The 91 break-and-run games represented 36% of all 250 games, 58% of the 157 games won by the breaker, and 49% of the 186 games in which the break was successful (made a ball and didn't foul).

With alternating breaks, B&R "packages" of the normal type are not possible. But we can still look at the breaks of a given player and see how many he ran on his own successive breaks, and we can call these "alternate-break packages." The 91 break-and-run games consisted of 5 alternate-break 3-packs (3 by Alcaide, 1 by Pagulayan, and 1 by Martinez), 15 alternate-break 2-packs, and 46 singles.

9-balls on the break -- The 91 B&R games included 4 9-balls on the break (1.6% of all 250 breaks) -- 3 by Yapp and 1 by Martinez.

 

[AtLarge]

Miscellany from the data for the 2023 International 9-Ball Open:
[This relates only to the 15 single-elimination matches, not to all matches in the event.]

• The most balls made on a single break was 3, done 8 times. Five of those 8 games were won by B&R, 2 were won but not by B&R, and just 1 was lost.

• The average number of balls made on the break was 1.1 (this includes dry and fouled breaks). On successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul), the average was 1.4, and the distribution was 63% 1 ball, 33% 2 balls, and 4% 3 balls.

• Number of innings:

60% (150 of 250) of the games ended in one inning – 69 games on the breaker's first inning (B&Rs) and 55 games on the non-breaker's first inning.​

20% (51 of 250) of the games ended on the second inning.​

20% (49 of 250) of the games went beyond the non-breaker's second visit to the table, with the longest game ending on the non-breaker's 6th visit.​

• 49% (122 of 250) of the games were run out by the player who was at the table following the break. These run-outs were:

- By the breaker after successful breaks (B&R games) – 49% (91 of 186)​

- By the non-breaker after fouls on the break – 79% (15 of 19)​

- By the non-breaker after dry breaks – 36% (16 of 45)​

• The player who made the first ball after the break:

- Won the game in that same inning 72% of the time (176 of 245)​

- Won the game in a later inning 10% of the time (25 of 245)​

- Lost the game 18% of the time (44 of 245)​

[Note -- total games used here are 245 rather than 250 to eliminate the 5 games in which no ball was made after the break (4 9s on the break and 1 game lost on 3 consecutive fouls before a ball was pocketed after the break.]​

• For the 14 races to 10 (i.e., excluding the Finals race to 13) the match loser won an average of 6.4 games. Two matches went to hill/hill; the fewest games won in a match was 1.

• The match that was both longest in elapsed time, at about 160 minutes, and highest in average minutes per game, at 8.4, was Pagulayan d. Ouschan 10-9. The elapsed time was measured from the lag until the winning ball was made (or conceded), so it includes time for racking and timeouts.

• The shortest match in elapsed time, at about 60 minutes, was Zielinski d. Patsura 10-1. The match that was lowest in average minutes per game, at 4.3, was Oi d. Shaw 10-8.

• The average elapsed time for the 14 races to 10 was 102 minutes. The average minutes per game were:

6.2 for the 14 races to 10​

6.2 for all 15 matches​

5.7 for the 7 matches played with a shot clock​

6.7 for the 8 matches played without a shot clock​

• Breaking fouls averaged 1 for every 13.2 games, other fouls 1 for every 5.8 games, and missed shots about 1 for every 3.2 games.

• One or more safeties were played in about 35% of all games and in about 55% of games that were not B&Rs.

 

[AtLarge]

2022 vs. 2023

How do the stats compare for this year's International 9-Ball event versus last year's? I'm not aware of any differences in rules or equipment for the two years. For both years, my stats are for all 15 of the matches in the single-elimination stage and none of the earlier matches. Using today's FargoRates, the Last 16 fields had 11 800+ players last year and 12 this year, and the overall average for all 16 players differs by just 0.2 points (813.6 vs. 813.4).

These numbers are for 2022 first, then 2023.

Successful breaks -- 79%, 74%​

Breaker won game -- 56%, 63%​

B&R games on all breaks -- 29%, 36%​

B&R games on successful breaks -- 37%, 49%​

Games ending in 1 inning -- 52%, 60%​

Games going beyond the 2nd inning -- 23%, 20%​

Runouts by the player at the table following the break -- 39%, 49%​

Games won by first player to make a ball after the break -- 82%, 82%​

Games per missed shot (approx.) -- 2.5, 3.2​

Games per foul -- 5.5, 4.0​

Winner of lag won match -- 6 of 15, 9 of 15​

Minutes per game -- 6.8, 6.2​