Looking forward to getting abused after this post, but I feel compelled to share my views.
Speaking as a fan, I think the "option to give the table back" version of nine/ten ball stinks.
In fact for me, the majesty of pool is greatest when players use great imagination to play offense and defense together. For the many one-pocket players on this forum, I’m going to have to say that now that I’ve gone to Derby City the last two years and watched the one-pocket event, I’m starting to appreciate why you all love the game so much, for no game over the glorious green felt entails greater imagination with respect to the simultaneous execution of offense and defense. Watching the great creativity displayed in shot design by the top one pocket players is a true delight to behold. Yes, pool at its highest level is a game of great imagination, at least until recently …..
…… now, there are those who want to litigate much of the imagination out of the game by allowing an incoming player to refuse the position left after an opponent’s missed shot. Some even go as far as suggesting that this removes the luck factor from the game, a statement that is patently false, for all it really does is to eliminate one luck factor by introducing another one ---- the over-penalization of a player whose miss results in an unintended safety (a result that in Texas Express is far less common than a miss entailing a safety that was planned with imaginative shot design.)
This type of 10-ball was tried at Valley Forge, and the offense oriented racks were just as electrifying as they would have been using Texas Express rules. Unfortunately, there were far fewer racks entailing the kind of imagination that, to me, makes rotational pool so fascinating, because the two way shot, which represents the highest pinnacle of imaginative play in our game, could no longer be gainfully employed.
As a paying fan, I think this brand of nine/ten ball stinks on several levels. First of all, every time the game is made less recognizable to its fan base through the use of obscure rules, it adds to the already regrettable (and often bemoaned here on AZB) disconnect between the pro and amateur levels of pool. I sat next to an amateur that sat dumbfounded as a player shot the nine ball foor consectuvie times, as each miss left an undesirable position, asking me to explain what the bleep was going on. Second, robbing the game of so much of its strategic majesty because it is what some of the players want devalues our game.
There is, by the way, a middle ground between "Texas Express" and "option to give back after a miss" and that is allowing a pushout after any miss of a called shot. Though I wouldn't like this as much as Texas Express, I could just about tolerate the game if played this way.
It’s all part of a long and disturbing trend in the game. Players can get by with less billiard knowledge than in the past, because even the “D” players can play jump shots now. Just one example of how we’ve deemphasized one of the skill elements in the game. The jump cue has devalued our game. Equally disturbing is the disallowance of the soft break. If someone can gain control of the table with a soft break, it is not by luck but by skill that they do so, but in this case, the hard break, surely entailing more luck than a soft break, is mandated. Wonder what’s next --- perhaps disallowing soft shots for the entire rack?
Another fan-unfriendly change in increasing use is not counting the ten on the break. Speaking as a fan, I’d say there is almost nothing hat is more exciting than the golden break.
To be honest, if “option to give back the table” becomes the dominant way that rotation games are played in the pool room, I may give up both nine-ball and ten-ball completely. I'd surely play more straight pool, but I’d probably use some of the time freed up to dig deeper into one pocket, which is rightfully celebrated as a game entailing the most imaginative use of offense and defense simultaneously. There is room for one more member at onepocket.org, isn’t there?
I spend thousands of dollars every year to attend pro tournaments. Thankfully, if “option to give back the table ten-ball” gradually becomes the dominant way that the game is played, I will have the option to discontinue attending and purchasing tickets to pro events employing that version of the game.
