"General-public gear" seems pretty clear to me. Breaktime was in 'tournament' mode on Saturday, and when the four competitors that remained, returned on Sunday, needing only two tables, the room switched to a new 'gear' that allowed the general public to come into the room and play some pool as the tournament's last four (potential) matches got underway. The 'room' didn't pull the plug. The three competitors left, at the conclusion of the hot seat match and quarterfinal, at approximately 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to the digitalpool bracket time stamp. As far as ‘honoring the tourney’ goes, I doubt that turning away paying customers would be part of any successful business plan and, of course, there’s no way of predicting whether you’ve inadvertently put assholes on tables near where the tournament matches are being played. One expects common courtesy to prevail, though in this case, it apparently did not. Don’t see the room owner being at fault in this situation. Pretty much the players’ decision, and knowing the three of them (more or less), I doubt seriously that it was related to any demand, implicit or stated, that there be total silence and no other tables in use in their immediate vicinity. Though I have not spoken to any of them about it, I made the assumption that it was a mutual decision based, at least in part, on the level of distraction that they encountered at the table as the final four played the first two of their potential four matches. It might have been a conflicting appointment that required one of them to be elsewhere at a time frame that conflicted with the next two matches, but I got the sense, speaking with the tour director, that it was a mutual decision not to compete under the prevailing conditions at the time of the decision.
