Daz Did it Chinese 8-Ball Champion

Swighey said:
... I'd like to see how much of a difference C8B or A8B pockets really make at the elite level between the top cuesmiths.

I guess we'll never know as the money seems to be behind C8B.
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I don't know if you were following it, but the World Chinese 8-Ball Masters event was held a few weeks ago. It was a 24-player invitational with 12 players from China and 12 from elsewhere. The only snooker players I recognized in the field were Hendry (past his prime) and Melling (sometimes a snooker player). I don't know whether any of the Chinese players in that event had much of a snooker background.

But Appleton was there. First they played a round-robin stage in 4 groups of 6, and then the top 2 from each group formed a modified single-elimination bracket to compete for the title. Appleton did not make that group of 8. Yang Fan won, Zheng Yubo second, Gareth Potts 3rd.

As to C8B vs. A8B, the second post in this thread might be of interest to you: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=386746.

And another thread at that time had some discussion of adapting from one type of 8-Ball to the other: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=386641
 
Swighey said:
No surprise that the snooker players (e.g. Robertson, Selby and Melling) have taken to the game and done well in this tournament. In the UK and Australia they would all have played a fair bit of E8B - and Selby went as far as "World" Champion. The big question though is how well would they do at real ("A8B") 8 ball pool. We've seen, particularly in the early days of the Mosconi Cup, snooker players have a crack at 9 ball pool. They competed well but generally came up short tactically. But they generally don't play rotation games as part of their apprenticeship. Real 8 ball pool, with real pool pockets, allows shots to be made that can't be made on a C8B table (we might like to call this "creativity"). Those shots are an inherent part of real pool. But we still don't know if the snooker players would adjust or not.

Even better than the C8B "World" Championship would be the Chinese sponsors throwing the money into a real 8 ball tourney with similar payouts and inviting the top snooker players. Then maybe Barry Hearn would get involved and we wouldn't have to watch it on a buffering stream.Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is pretty much no sample to indicate how active professional snooker players (with an E8B background) transfer their skills to 8 ball (without playing the game for some time). The final does seem to suggest that Appleton's knowledge of the game gave him an advantage over Selby's snooker fundamentals. Having said that it was a sample of one and it was close and I'd like to see how much of a difference C8B or A8B pockets really make at the elite level between the top cuesmiths.

I guess we'll never know as the money seems to be behind C8B.
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i dont know why you call it "real" 8 ball, but well... the thing behind every 8 ball game are patterns. on the pooltables most of us are playing on, patterns are not that important because you can save yourself with good shotmaking. playing 8 ball on a table with tighter pockets, even on those very small E8B tables, demands better patternplay, so you dont have to come up with the "big" shots.

Overall, those guys should easily be able to play top nutch 8 Ball on an american style table for the most, their defensive play is pretty strong, pattern play is incredible, problem might be details like jumpshots (rare in 8 ball), aggresive rail first shots, maybe banks.
 
Anytime I hear someone say patterns aren't that important and shot making can save you a hear a cash register ring in my head... On a 9ft diamond we have had Darren and the other pros playing 8ball.. Shot making with inferior patterns won't save you on anything but your hotel and food if the event lasts several days....

Chris
 
The Renfro said:
Anytime I hear someone say patterns aren't that important and shot making can save you a hear a cash register ring in my head... On a 9ft diamond we have had Darren and the other pros playing 8ball.. Shot making with inferior patterns won't save you on anything but your hotel and food if the event lasts several days....

Chris
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true, but but on those tight tables being off line means often end of your run. patterns ARE important, thats why im assuming that those players should easily convert to 8 ball with bigger pockets.

sorry if my post wasnt clear :)
 
bender_lu said:
i dont know why you call it "real" 8 ball, but well... the thing behind every 8 ball game are patterns. on the pooltables most of us are playing on, patterns are not that important because you can save yourself with good shotmaking. playing 8 ball on a table with tighter pockets, even on those very small E8B tables, demands better patternplay, so you dont have to come up with the "big" shots.
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I'm not sure if we agree or disagree but I think we are in agreement and it's just semantics. My point is that active professional snooker players, who no longer play the E8B that they played socially as youngsters, don't have the same store of patterns (consciously or subconsciously) that they know how to run and can approximate to in practice. If they switched to the game they would learn them fairly quickly - but when they are dipping into pool tournaments they are at a disadvantage. And yep, small tables demand better pattern play (or what a player down at my level would call "shot selection").

Why do I call it "real" 8 ball? The same reason I wouldn't call six reds or "American" snooker "real" snooker.
 
bender_lu said:
true, but but on those tight tables being off line means often end of your run. patterns ARE important, thats why im assuming that those players should easily convert to 8 ball with bigger pockets.

sorry if my post wasnt clear :)
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OKies that I would agree with.. I am also multitasking trying to get orders printed from 11 days in Louisville while popping into threads here on AZ so you may have been perfectly clear and the fault was mine.....
 
np :thumbup:

really looking forward to play some pool this night and recognize that i suck patternwise :p (played too much 9 ball)

unfortunately, the wonderfull disciplines of 8 ball and straight pool, which are different and still familiar, are so underrated :(
id love to see more of it, and im happy that some videos of the CSI invitational have been uploaded.

wish you all a nice day.
 
uwate said:
The ipt had a much higher entry fee didn't it? It was also a closed system w those phoney baloney qualifiers. Was this Chinese event open to any schmoe who wanted to ante up $100 or was it also invitational ?
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The qualifiers sort of happened towards the end. The original King of the Hill event in Orlando (Efren beat Sigel in the final) was invitational, as I recall, although they seemed to invite pretty much anyone who submitted a convincing resume. Also all HOFers got a free ride and at least $30,000 in prizes IIRC.
 
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