Break Stats -- 2023 World Pool Championship (9-Ball), February 2023

AtLarge

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Here are some aggregate break statistics from the 2023 World Pool Championship played February 1-5, 2023 at Kielce Exhibition and Conference Center in Kielce, Poland, with pay-per-view streaming in the USA on DAZN. This was a 128-player 9-Ball event, produced by Matchroom Sport, with double elimination down to 64 players (32 on the winners' side and 32 on the one-loss side) and then single-elimination to the end. Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz won the tournament, defeating Mohammad Soufi in the final match.

For the matches I tracked, the commentators were Phil Yates, Michael McMullan, Jeremy Jones, and Karl Boyes. The referees were John Leyman, Marcel Eckardt, Desislava Bozhilova, Ben Taylor-Fuente, and Brendan Moore. The main announcer/interviewer was Rachel Casey.

Conditions -- The conditions for the streamed matches included:
• A Diamond 9-foot table with 4 1/4" corner pockets (I heard no substantiation of this dimension);​
• Simonis 860 shark grey cloth;​
• Aramith Tournament Black balls with a black-measles cue ball;​
• racking template;​
• referee racks with the 9-ball on the foot spot (2-ball not necessarily in back location);​
• winner breaks from a box approximately 8" to either side of the long string;​
• no illegal-break rule, but referees enforce a forceful-break requirement;​
• no shot clock until the last 16 players, then a 30-second shot clock (60 sec. after the break), with one 30-sec. extension per player per rack;​
• foul on all balls;​
• jump cues allowed;​
• all slop counts; and​
• lag for the break in each match.​

These stats are for all 11 matches (206 games) that were played on the main arena's Table 1 during the single-elimination portion of the event (Stage 2, last 64 players). These matches were 17.5% of the total of 63 matches played in Stage 2. All Stage 2 matches were races to 11 except for the final match, which was to 13. These 11 matches are listed here in the order in which they were played.

Friday, February 3
1. Aloysius Yapp defeated Chris Melling 11-8 (Last 64)​
2. Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz d. Oscar Dominguez 11-3 (Last 64)​
3. Shane Van Boening d. Yapp 11-9 (Last 32)​
4. John Morra d. Jayson Shaw 11-10 (Last 32)​

Saturday, Feb. 4
5. Chang Jung-Lin d. Wiktor Zielinski 11-7 (Last 16)​
6. Quoc Hoang Duong d. Van Boening 11-10 (Last 16)​
7. Mohammad Soufi d. Albin Ouschan 11-8 (Quarterfinal)​
8. Sanchez-Ruiz d. Chang 11-4 (Quarterfinal)​

Sunday, Feb. 5
9. Soufi d. Wu Kun-Lin 11-6 (Semifinal)​
10. Sanchez-Ruiz d. Mario He 11-8 (Semifinal)​
11. Sanchez-Ruiz d. Soufi 13-10 (Finals)​

Overall results
Successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
Match winners -- 83% (98 of 118)​
Match losers -- 72% (63 of 88)​
Total -- 78% (161 of 206)
Breaker won the game:
Match winners -- 67% (79 of 118)​
Match losers -- 50% (44 of 88)​
Total -- 60% (123 of 206)
Break-and-run games on all breaks:
Match winners -- 38% (45 of 118)​
Match losers -- 24% (21 of 88)​
Total -- 32% (66 of 206)
Break-and-run games on successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
Match winners -- 46% (45 of 98)​
Match losers -- 33% (21 of 63)​
Total -- 41% (66 of 161)

Here's a breakdown of the 206 games (for match winners and losers combined).

Breaker made at least one ball and did not foul:​
Breaker won the game: 107 (52% of the 206 games)​
Breaker lost the game: 54 (26%)​
Breaker fouled on the break:​
Breaker won the game: 4 (2%)​
Breaker lost the game: 12 (6%)​
Breaker broke dry (without fouling):​
Breaker won the game: 12 (6%)​
Breaker lost the game: 17 (8%)​
Therefore, whereas the breaker won 60% (123 of 206) of all games,​
He/she won 66% (107 of 161) of the games in which the break was successful (made at least one ball and did not foul).​
He/she won 36% (16 of 45) of the games in which the break was unsuccessful (fouled or dry).​

Break-and-run games -- The 66 break-and-run games represented 32% of all 206 games, 54% of the 123 games won by the breaker, and 41% of the 161 games in which the break was successful (made a ball and didn't foul).

The 66 break-and-run games consisted of 2 4-packs (1 each by by Van Boening and Sanchez-Ruiz), 1 3-pack (Sanchez-Ruiz), 12 two-packs, and 31 singles.

9-Balls on the break -- The 66 break-and-run games included 3 9-balls on the break (1.5% of all breaks).
 

AtLarge

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Miscellany from the data for the 2023 World Pool Championship (9-Ball) event:
[This relates only to the 11 streamed matches I watched, not to all matches in the event.]

• The most balls made on a single break was 4, done just once, by Van Boening in a game he won by B&R.

• The average number of balls made on the break was 1.2 (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 66% 1 ball, 27% 2 balls, and 7% 3 or 4 balls.

• Number of innings:
56% (116 of 206) of the games ended in one inning – 66 games on the breaker's first inning (B&Rs) and 50 games on the non-breaker's first inning.​
24% (49 of 206) of the games ended in the second inning.​
20% (41 of 206) of the games went beyond the non-breaker's second visit to the table. The game with the most innings ended on breaker's 7th visit to the table.​

• 41% (84 of 206) 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) – 41% (66 of 161)​
- By the non-breaker after fouls on the break – 63% (10 of 16)​
- By the non-breaker after dry breaks – 28% (8 of 29)​

• The player who made the first ball after the break:
- Won the game in that same inning 67% of the time (135 of 203)​
- Won the game in a later inning 10% of the time (21 of 203)​
- Lost the game 23% of the time (47 of 203)​
[Note -- total games used here are 203 rather than 206 to eliminate the 3 games in which no ball was made after the break.]​

• The loser won an average of 7.3 games in the 10 races to 11 (excludes the final match, a race to 13). Two of the 11 matches went to hill/hill. The most lopsided match was one at 11-3.

• The average elapsed time for the 10 races to 11 was 121 minutes. The average minutes per game for all 206 games was 6.6. The elapsed time was measured from the lag until the winning ball was made (or conceded), so it includes time for racking and commercial breaks. Commercial breaks were significant in these matches, generally occurring after every 3 or 4 games in a match, and lasting about 3 minutes each.

• The match that was longest in elapsed time, at 175 minutes, and highest in average minutes per game, at 9.2, was Yapp d. Melling 11-8. .

• The match that was shortest in elapsed time, at 85 minutes, was Sanchez-Ruiz d. Chang 11-4. The match lowest in average minutes per game, at 5.1, was Duong d. Van Boening 11-10.

• Breaking fouls averaged 1 for every 12.9 games, other fouls 1 for every 6.9 games, and missed shots about 1 for every 2.9 games.

• One or more safeties were played in about 38% of all games and in 56% of games that were not B&Rs.
 
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Bob Jewett

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Thanks again for the stats.

Were all of the breaking fouls scratches? The players seemed to be flirting with the side pockets a lot.

It's interesting to note that even with the restrictive break rules, the "breaker won" percentage (60%) was still higher than when Pat Fleming did his stats in the 1980s on the pro tour (less than 50%). I suppose part of it is that the players listed above are on average much better players than the average player on the pro tour in the 1980s.
 

AtLarge

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... Were all of the breaking fouls scratches? The players seemed to be flirting with the side pockets a lot....
Yes, all 16 breaking fouls were scratches. And 7 of them were by Soufi, including 3 against Wu and 3 against Sanchez-Ruiz. Last year, in the same number of matches from the same rounds, fouls on the break numbered 5. I'll do a comparison of some of the stats this year vs. last year in the next day or two.
... It's interesting to note that even with the restrictive break rules, the "breaker won" percentage (60%) was still higher than when Pat Fleming did his stats in the 1980s on the pro tour (less than 50%). I suppose part of it is that the players listed above are on average much better players than the average player on the pro tour in the 1980s.
And the players in the streamed matches for an event today are on average better than the average player in those events (usually). Today's crop of pros probably has more knowledge about how to break successfully, given that 9-Ball has been around 35 to 40 more years since Pat was doing his newsletters. And racking templates certainly help that. I wonder how high the correlation is between successful break percentages and breaker-won-game percentages. Dr. Dave's tables of break statistics from my break threads now show 78 9-Ball tournaments. Only two of those have breaker-won percentages below 50% -- a Turning Stone event in 2011 and the 2013 Mosconi Cup. That Cup used a triangle rack with the 9-ball on the spot and a foot-wide (about 6" each side) break box. Successful breaks were 33% and the breaking side won 44% of the games.
 

AtLarge

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I'd like to see that stat for the whole tournament - was it recorded anywhere?
Undoubtedly not. But not many 9s on the break occur when a template is used. I added it up for the last 7 9-Ball events I tracked prior to this one and it was1.6% of the breaks in total, with a low of 0.6% and a high of 2.4% for those 7 events.
 

AtLarge

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Here's a comparison of stats for the 2022 and 2023 World Pool Championships, to see what effects this year's changes in rules and equipment made.

The changes were:
2022 -- rack 1-ball on the spot, break from anywhere behind the line, triangle rack for Last 16 (template before that)​
2023 -- rack 9-ball on the spot, break from a box about 8" to each side of center, template rack in all rounds​

The stats are for 11 matches each year -- all of the matches streamed on DAZN from Table 1 for the single-elimination stage of the event. This was 2 matches from each of the rounds of 64, 32, 16, 8, and 4 players, and then the finals. The number of games in these matches was 191 in 2022 and 206 in 2023. For each measure shown below, the 2022 result is given first and then the 2023 result, separated by a comma.

Breaks on which at least one ball was pocketed (includes all wet breaks even if fouled): 95%, 84%

Successful breaks (made at least one ball, and did not foul): 92%, 78%

Fouled breaks: 3%, 8%

Dry breaks (excluding breaks that were both dry and fouled): 5%, 14%

9-balls on the break: 3 each year (about 1½% of the breaks)

Breaker won game: 68%, 60%

Break-and-run games -- on all breaks: 43%, 32%

Break-and-run games -- on successful breaks: 47%, 41%

Average number of balls made on all breaks / successful breaks: 1.8, 1.2 / 1.9, 1.4

Games ending in one inning: 60%, 56%

Games lasting more than 2 innings: 13%, 20%

Run-outs by the player at the table following the break: 49%, 41%

Games won by the player at the table following the break: 74%, 66%

Games won by the player who made the first ball after the break: 84%, 76%

Average number of games won by the loser in races to 11: 6.2, 7.3

Average elapsed time for races to 11 (includes time for racking, timeouts, and commercial breaks): 102 min., 121 min.

Average minutes per game (includes time for racking, timeouts, and commercial breaks): 6.0, 6.6

Number of games per non-breaking foul: 8.0, 6.9

Approx. number of games per missed shot: 3.0, 2.9

Approx. number of games involving one or more safeties: 35%, 38% of all games / 61%, 56% of games that were not B&Rs
 
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AtLarge

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are you sure both years had 4 1/4 pockets? they seemed looser last year
4¼" is certainly what I heard last year. This year I thought they might even go to 4", as in the last couple of Mosconi Cups. I did not hear anyone on the stream this year say what the pocket dimension was. In the long thread on the event I asked whether anyone knew for sure what the size was, and no one responded. The pockets did not look like 4", so I imagine they stuck with last year's 4¼", but I am not sure.
 

dr_dave

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And the players in the streamed matches for an event today are on average better than the average player in those events (usually). Today's crop of pros probably has more knowledge about how to break successfully, given that 9-Ball has been around 35 to 40 more years since Pat was doing his newsletters. And racking templates certainly help that. I wonder how high the correlation is between successful break percentages and breaker-won-game percentages. Dr. Dave's tables of break statistics from my break threads now show 78 9-Ball tournaments. Only two of those have breaker-won percentages below 50% -- a Turning Stone event in 2011 and the 2013 Mosconi Cup. That Cup used a triangle rack with the 9-ball on the spot and a foot-wide (about 6" each side) break box. Successful breaks were 33% and the breaking side won 44% of the games.

For those interested, the stats summary can be found here:

 
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