Eliminating Ball in Hand

[BeiberLvr]

I just can't get by having to kick at balls. It just seems that there would be a more strategic and skilled way to play other than one-foul without having to go to two-foul. What you describe above does get rid of BIH and does go a long way to getting rid of the incentive to play safe.

Rules that are good should not only work well for a tournament match, they should also work well for a gambling match.

If I play a safe, you should have to kick at the ball.

But if I miss a shot, and leave you hooked. That's a different story.

The obvious remedy is to play call safe, which is fine by me. But a lot of people seem to think it takes away the two way shot.

 

[FranCrimi]

I don't remember it this way. In the men's division players would make some fantastic shots or at least try. I didn't see much pushing out to play another safe.

I have a very clear memory of a tournament in New London Ct, at Sy and Dolly's place in the early 80's. Men were dropping out because the tournament was running long and they couldn't stay longer than the weekend. Alan Hopkins was the president of whatever the association was at the time.

He said that the next tournament they were playing one foul, ball in hand, and history was made. It was also around that time that more and more events were being broadcast on ESPN, and that format worked for tv tournaments as well.

As an aside, Alan also introduced the red circle cue ball at that event in New London, which, unfortunately, started a trend of mismatched cue balls with sets for decades after. I understand why he did it, because Hyatt had offered the organization sponsorship and sponsors were rare, however, the consequences of that were apparent.

 

[Paul Schofield]

Ball-in-hand used to be a penalty and only a penalty (in push out). In Texas Express, ball-in-hand became a reward, something to be earned.

There just must be something better than both of these. Push out is too slow and TE is a sorry excuse for the sake of speeding things up.

 

[hang-the-9]

I didn't say call-shot, I said call-pocket, big difference. Established strategy is play safe or shoot? Unfair? I said unbalanced, not unfair. Life is unfair.

Between REAL players, call shot and call pocket are the same thing. If someone said either of those to me, I'd assume they meant you need to call the ball and the pocket it's going into. Only when you get to random bar type rules is there a difference when they call every single thing the ball touches on the way to the pocket, including if it hits the point of the pocket or the facing (which is a "bank" LOL).

 

[chefjeff]

Makes the game easier eh?

Obviously you have never seen me with a ball in hand, set up a shot in the side to cheat the pocket a bit to get shape and totally miss.

Got great shape tho.

Boy, am I glad that's never happened to me.

Jeff Livingston

 

[Paul Schofield]

Ball-in-hand used to be a penalty and only a penalty (in push out). In Texas Express, ball-in-hand became a reward, something to be earned.

Furthermore IMO: I think that the reward for a safe is far too much and the punishment for a bad hit is far too much. BIH is too easy to get. It warps the game. TE promotes ducking rather than shooting shots. We do this in the name of "accelerating play?" Ducking slows play too!

I am sure there is something better than this...just don't know what it is.