Break Stats -- 2024 UK Open Pool Championship (9-Ball), May 2024

[mikepage]

[...]

why it produced semifinalists of slightly lower rank may be in the field of aberration or chance but also, these are fairly young players with an upward trajectory. i thought the same thing when people were talking about "that dohr guy" in the DE/early SE - yes, he may have a low fargorate, but there's a reason fargo is more of an american obsession than something asians or europeans cares about..

We can actually check whether a player has been "outrunning" his rating, and for these UK Open players the answer is basically no. It's not the case they're amongst the small elite and we just haven't caught up to it yet. We DO fail to track improvement well when it comes fast [your Walter L who won the recent elite event in Sweden is an example]. Amongst adults, Tyler Styer and Pia Filler are examples. We are working on this issue. Stay tuned.

As for Mr. Dohr [assuming Germany's Niklas Dohr, 742], yes he had some good matches. But we also have 1700 other games for him. 500 of those games are in the last year, where he played Italy Open, Eurotour Treviso, Ardennen Cup in Luxembourg, 5 significant tournaments in and around Dusseldorf Germany and one in Bremen Germany. He performed right around 742 for those.

As you say, the lower-rated semifinalists could easily be chance. But I'd like to add one more speculation to the maybe-it-isn't mix.

I was recently listening to a Michael Lewis podcast (Moneyball, Big Short, Going Infinite, etc), and he said of Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) that Sam was very good at games in the sense that you could put him in unfamiliar environments, give him the rules, and he's quickly figure out good strategies. An example was you put Sam against a chess grand master playing chess and he'd probably lose. But put Sam against that same chess grand master in a new game that starts out as chess and every so often during the game an announcer calls out a rule change, like the knight goes in a 3&1 L shape instead of a 2&1 or the Bishop moves a maximum of 3 spaces diagonally. SBF might win this game. He's not actually better at chess, but he is perhaps enough better at reacting to changes in the environment/rules.

When you notably change the pocket size, everybody must change their game to react--duck rather than go for it, slightly change the two-way-shot calculation, pay more attention to the line of the cueball so you can play shape closer to the next ball. It could be some players are faster at approaching their own optimum strategy with the tight pockets. Maybe if everybody played for 100 hours on the equipment and they replayed the tournament, this effect would go away.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... When you notably change the pocket size, everybody must change their game to react--duck rather than go for it, slightly change the two-way-shot calculation, pay more attention to the line of the cueball so you can play shape closer to the next ball. It could be some players are faster at approaching their own optimum strategy with the tight pockets. Maybe if everybody played for 100 hours on the equipment and they replayed the tournament, this effect would go away.

A possible historical example of this is Mike Eufemia. Back in the straight pool era he was said to have run 200 balls every night at the pool hall were he practiced or at least was odds on favorite, but he seemed to rarely do well in tournaments. One explanation is that his game was adapted perfectly to his home room situation. He had subconsciously learned to play shots that were risky or a bad idea under more "general" conditions, like planning to go off a cushion for exactly the right angle on the next ball which can be ruined if the cushion is slower than expected.

Another example from that era is Babe Cranfield. In the 1970s a friend of mine was in Syracuse and watched Cranfield practice for five nights straight. Cranfield ran over 200 each of those nights. Cranfield had relatively modest success in tournaments.

Both of those players are on the short list of people who have likely run over 600 balls.

 

[Cameron Smith]

On the note about whether some of these low stats are driven by unfamiliarity, I figured I’d look up some comparisons from when they first started with 4” pockets.

The earliest MR 4” pocket event I’m aware of is the World Pool Masters in 2021 and it was interesting comparing between 2021 and 2022. We can’t compare much beyond that because the break box was instituted shortly after. The WPM in these years were 1 ball on the spot and break from anywhere.

Break and Runs All Breaks
2021 - 30% 2022 - 36%

Break and Runs Successful Breaks
2021 - 32% 2022- 40%

The player who made the first ball after the break won in that same inning,
2021 - 55% 2022 - 65%

Obviously there are always other factors at play, but many of the same players were involved in both events and we see an initial hit to the stats. The biggest change is the run out after making the first ball of the game.

So all this is to say that what we saw at the UK is likely not going to be what we see going forward if that pocket size is maintained. Who knows how much it will improve, but I do expect to see it improve. For comparison, in 2018 at the WPM on 4.25” or 4.5” pockets, players were running out after potting the first ball 59% of the time. So the standard was higher in 2022 despite the tougher conditions.

 

[jsp]

We can actually check whether a player has been "outrunning" his rating, and for these UK Open players the answer is basically no. It's not the case they're amongst the small elite and we just haven't caught up to it yet. We DO fail to track improvement well when it comes fast [your Walter L who won the recent elite event in Sweden is an example]. Amongst adults, Tyler Styer and Pia Filler are examples. We are working on this issue. Stay tuned.

As for Mr. Dohr [assuming Germany's Niklas Dohr, 742], yes he had some good matches. But we also have 1700 other games for him. 500 of those games are in the last year, where he played Italy Open, Eurotour Treviso, Ardennen Cup in Luxembourg, 5 significant tournaments in and around Dusseldorf Germany and one in Bremen Germany. He performed right around 742 for those.

As you say, the lower-rated semifinalists could easily be chance. But I'd like to add one more speculation to the maybe-it-isn't mix.

I was recently listening to a Michael Lewis podcast (Moneyball, Big Short, Going Infinite, etc), and he said of Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) that Sam was very good at games in the sense that you could put him in unfamiliar environments, give him the rules, and he's quickly figure out good strategies. An example was you put Sam against a chess grand master playing chess and he'd probably lose. But put Sam against that same chess grand master in a new game that starts out as chess and every so often during the game an announcer calls out a rule change, like the knight goes in a 3&1 L shape instead of a 2&1 or the Bishop moves a maximum of 3 spaces diagonally. SBF might win this game. He's not actually better at chess, but he is perhaps enough better at reacting to changes in the environment/rules.

When you notably change the pocket size, everybody must change their game to react--duck rather than go for it, slightly change the two-way-shot calculation, pay more attention to the line of the cueball so you can play shape closer to the next ball. It could be some players are faster at approaching their own optimum strategy with the tight pockets. Maybe if everybody played for 100 hours on the equipment and they replayed the tournament, this effect would go away.

Great post.

Maybe if everybody played for 100 hours on the equipment and they replayed the tournament, this effect would go away.

I don't think it would take another 100 hours. My guess is that the "cream" has already adapted based on the results of just this one tournament, and they'll be right back at their at the top come next tournament with the same exact conditions.