Stay tuned. I am currently working on a follow-up video that will be even more convincing. I also address all questions that have come up in the AZB, YouTube and Facebook discussions concerning my first video.
FOUL Called on SVB at the UK OPEN
- Thread starter dr_dave
- Start date
Stay tuned. I am currently working on a follow-up video that will be even more convincing. I also address all questions that have come up in the AZB, YouTube and Facebook discussions concerning my first video.
Yes, for the ball to hit the rail and then the ball, the ONLY way it could travel in the direction it did was to carom back into the rail and come back out. If it didn't it should have followed the tangent to the point of contact and/or with running english, traveled at an additional 30 degrees away from the tangent, which would have been even greater than the angle that it DID travel.
There's really no question here that it WASN'T a foul.
However, hindsight is always 20/20. In the moment, it can be difficult to think that clearly. It was a mistake, he needs to learn from it. Him being the ref...
Jaden
He also clearly stated regarding the rule he quoted that he was showing were the general idea of "tie goes to the runner" in pool originated from in 1992. In post 40 he is even more clear that the "tie goes to the runner" should be applied in this situation. I really don't know how much more explicit you need things to be but if that isn't good enough ask him and I'm sure he can spell it out ever more clearly and explicitly in a way that is so unmistakable that even you will have no choice but to finally understand and accept.
Everybody except Queen Elizabeth has weighed in on this thread (including a guy who used to write the rules) and said that if it cannot be conclusively shown to be a foul then a foul is not supposed to be called and yet for some reason here you are still having a problem wanting to accept that. You tell us then, just what is going to be good enough for fengor to get him to accept it? Do we have to go ahead and get Queen Elizabeth to post and let you know too? There isn't anybody else left.
Yes and no. If you mean that people have to accept the referees ruling, even if it is incorrect, then yes that is ultimately true. If you mean that the referee can choose to use a different standard for when they call a foul or not from what is laid out above then that is not true. They are obligated to rule it to not be a foul if they cannot provide compelling evidence that it is a foul, and a "guess" or "gut feeling" or "could be" or "might be" or even "probably was" are not good enough. Also not good enough is "sure looked good to me but I didn't analyze the ball movements afterwards to see what they said and/or I don't have the knowledge to be able to use the ball movements to analyze what actually happened".
And if you mean that the referee has no obligation to try to fully know and understand the rules, and know and fully understand the physics of ball movements and collisions so that they can do their job well, then that is also not true. It is a fully reasonable expectation that referees be educated/experienced enough to be able to do their job well, and to then implement the rules as written or intended.
The problem is that it's hard to know tell-tale signs for this particular position of the balls without doing what Dr. Dave did: a couple hours of shooting the shot and watching the results. The paths of the two balls and the final locations seem very close for all the paths close to the simultaneous hit.
The ref does not have the luxury of experimenting.
I have started a discussion of what to do on "really hard to say" shots in the Rules and Strategies subforum. The rule needs to be clarified.
Here is a suggested clarification or addition to the WPA Regulations. (I'll post it in the Rules and Strategies subforum also).
WPA Referee Guidelines:
- A shot is legal unless there is clear visual evidence of a foul.
- The evidence can be direct, or indirect based on motion of balls.
- If video review is used to resolve an uncertain or questioned call, the initial call has no impact on the final ruling.
- If evidence of a foul is found, the shot is a foul.
- If evidence for a good hit is found, the shot is called good.
- And if it is too close to call, the benefit of the doubt goes to the shooter, and the shot is still called good.
These videos you've made should be incorporated into all ref training programs. Outstanding work.
Last edited:
Do you know of one who already participates in the forums?
Agreed. Along with these that I did with Bob:
These would also be good to review as part of ref training:
Thanks.
I don't. Bert would be the closest thing but it would be based on experience, not reffing, at least I've never heard him say anything about reffing. But Dr Dave's latest video convinces me.
Ty for that dr Dave from the review it clearly just barley glances 3 on the way in wich now makes sense why the rebound line is more equal to the 3 ball as it adjusts the angle of contact. Ty not only for the first video but for your continued diligence. I was struggling with how the cueball could ever come in at an angle and rebound at the angle it released at personally.
I think the wording of these two leaves room for confusion or argument. As to the first one, the ref that incorrectly called Shane's shot would often just feel and say "I had evidence, my eyes, and I think I saw the cue ball hit the rail before the three and with no second rail contact afterward, so since there is evidence of a foul the shot is a foul". That misinterpretation obviously wouldn't be good. I don't like "preponderance of the evidence" as the standard either because he will make the same argument, "looked like a bad hit to my eyes, don't see any evidence saying it was a good hit (or that evidence is less compelling than what I think my eyes saw) so it meets the preponderance threshold". I also don't think the standard should be "compelling evidence" for essentially the same reasons, he will feel what his eyes think they saw was compelling enough for him. The poorer the ref, the more issue that wording would be likely to cause IMO.
As for the second line, I'm not sure "evidence" is the appropriate word here because the ref would just argue "I didn't have any evidence that it was good so I stuck with what it looked like to my eyes and it looked more like a foul to me". The possibility that it could have been a good hit, and evidence for a good hit, are of course two very different things and there will be situations where the ref will feel that the former is true but not the latter (but the rule is using the latter even though the spirit of the rule was intended to be more aligned with the former) and so I like the use of the word "possibility" or the like here more than "evidence".
I think something along the lines of the following single line would best replace both of the above lines: "if a foul cannot be determined conclusively, or if there is some possibility for a good hit to have actually occurred, then the shot cannot be ruled a foul and must be treated as good."
Last edited:
I'm glad the 2nd video was helpful in your understanding.
I like it. You should post this in Bob's thread on the Rules sub-forum so it might actually make a difference.
Done, thanks.
Hope I'm not inadvertently muddying the waters but the shot referenced in this thread is essentially identical in all the relevant respects to the Marlon Manalo shot (where the ref also made the incorrect call) that you discussed at the 10:47 mark in your video below (you explain it in more detail here in this SVB shot thread though including the possibility for the cue ball to be in simultaneous contact with both the rail and object ball):
Seems to be a nearly identical situation.
Well, yes, but, I think if you look in the football chat groups there is quite a lot of discussion every week after each new set of bad calls. In the case of football, the official response was to formalize the video review process.
Beyond that, there is the problem of what to do if the call is really impossible to determine. Do you think a foul should be called if the ref can't be sure a good hit occurred?
This describes a new category of situations referees should be taught to deal with ahead of time.
I look forward to the future decision.
Why a call was made wrong is important too though. If it is due to lack of knowledge of the rules, or lack of knowledge of how the balls react, then that is a problem than needs to be addressed and fixed because the person does not know all the things they need to know in order to be a good ref. So after careful analysis of this situation it seems very clear that it wasn't as simple as just missing something, it seems like it has to be one or the other or both of the above things and so there is indeed something that needs to be fixed with the referee's knowledge and ability.
