If you NEED to speed up one-pocket, do this......
- Thread starter enzo
- Start date
already stated
Three arguments against: First, as I said I think it will speed up the wrong games without affecting the ones that go on forever. I played a several hour game in a tournament not too long ago. The other player was only nipping the cue ball never sending it uptable and although I went uptable with it regularly I also got it back downtable. Every time I brought a ball downtable he would send it back uptable. Finally when we were holding up the rest of the players in a free tournament I went on and took some chances and lost. The game could have went on for ages like it was going in a gambling match with nobody scratching. Had I paid a high entry fee the TD would have to have done something to speed it up too, I wouldn't have taken the chances I did.
I watched Nick Varner and another player play two balls for fifteen or twenty minutes when every shot was fired with purpose too. Never a scratch. Two bangers that will usually play a pretty fast game anyway are the ones likely to scratch. The only way ball in hand on a scratch will speed up a game is the presumption that someone will scratch. That might not happen in several hours play with two good or careful players. As I already said, you are more likely to speed up the games that already go pretty fast while having no effect on the games that are taking a long time making the time differences even more instead of achieving your goal of making match times more consistent.
Since I don't think that ball in hand will accomplish the goal of making the game faster and certainly won't be as consistent as simply using some of the other methods, then it becomes change just for the sake of change. If you want to change a game purely for the sake of change, give it a new name and make a new game. If it is better than what is being played it will catch on just as ten ball has.
When someone wants to change the way things are done the burden of proof is on them to convince others they have a better way not on others to convince them that things should stay the same. Moving balls out of the kitchen is proven to consistently speed up play. Races to lower ball counts are proven to speed up games. Since scratches are not guaranteed to happen in every slow game I think you are going to have a hard time proving that your rule will speed up the games that need to be speeded up.
Something that is guaranteed to happen is far better than ball in hand on a scratch that might not happen.
Hu
Three arguments against: First, as I said I think it will speed up the wrong games without affecting the ones that go on forever. I played a several hour game in a tournament not too long ago. The other player was only nipping the cue ball never sending it uptable and although I went uptable with it regularly I also got it back downtable. Every time I brought a ball downtable he would send it back uptable. Finally when we were holding up the rest of the players in a free tournament I went on and took some chances and lost. The game could have went on for ages like it was going in a gambling match with nobody scratching. Had I paid a high entry fee the TD would have to have done something to speed it up too, I wouldn't have taken the chances I did.
I watched Nick Varner and another player play two balls for fifteen or twenty minutes when every shot was fired with purpose too. Never a scratch. Two bangers that will usually play a pretty fast game anyway are the ones likely to scratch. The only way ball in hand on a scratch will speed up a game is the presumption that someone will scratch. That might not happen in several hours play with two good or careful players. As I already said, you are more likely to speed up the games that already go pretty fast while having no effect on the games that are taking a long time making the time differences even more instead of achieving your goal of making match times more consistent.
Since I don't think that ball in hand will accomplish the goal of making the game faster and certainly won't be as consistent as simply using some of the other methods, then it becomes change just for the sake of change. If you want to change a game purely for the sake of change, give it a new name and make a new game. If it is better than what is being played it will catch on just as ten ball has.
When someone wants to change the way things are done the burden of proof is on them to convince others they have a better way not on others to convince them that things should stay the same. Moving balls out of the kitchen is proven to consistently speed up play. Races to lower ball counts are proven to speed up games. Since scratches are not guaranteed to happen in every slow game I think you are going to have a hard time proving that your rule will speed up the games that need to be speeded up.
Something that is guaranteed to happen is far better than ball in hand on a scratch that might not happen.
Hu
enzo, I'll do my best to answer specifically. I apologize for the giant wall of text I'm about to put out. It's 2:30 AM and I'm too tired and lazy to edit it into a shorter, easier to read post.
· First, I think woody has it right. If a director wants to run a specific local tournament and he's footing the bill in terms of prize money or whatever, then it's within his rights to change rules. It's not unlike someone deciding to make the finals of a double elim. tournament a single match instead of a must-win-twice situation. Instead of saying the TD can go screw himself, we could say that if players don't like this rule change, they can go screw themselves and play in someone else's tournaments. The guy with the wallet makes the rules.
But for general one pocket rules and for major, serious tournaments, you should play by the rules that have been in use forever. These rules may not be standardized (like everything in pool) but they are universally used because they work. There are balanced.
· One clue that they work well is that the same rules have been in effect many years, changing much less often than 9b for example. And I'm a big fan of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. A long game isn't my idea of 'broke' because A: it was probably meant to be that way and B: even forgetting about what the rulemakers intended, players seem to enjoy it that way and feel the game is fair, long or not. If they didn't, it would not be a major tournament or gambling game. Games with unbalanced rules where the winner is random or that favor one player too much (let's say poker pool or cowboy or whatever) do not rise to the top and hit the coveted 'top 5' ranks of major serious pool games. Just by virtue of hanging around for a long time and maintaining (or increasing) in popularity, it's likely that 1P rules are fine and should not be unbalanced with a major change. I can't say for sure this change would 'ruin' the game, but rules are a delicate ecosystem where even a small change can have major consequences on the overall game. If you find a set of rules that works and stands the test of times, it should not be screwed with.
· We already have a few games where you foul = you lose, and there is no reason or major demand to change other pool games to follow this philosophy. I'm not saying it's a bad philosophy, I'm just saying there should be games that allow for a foul, and games that don't. If any one game (out of all the available games) should adhere to the idea that "one foul doesn't necessarily mean you lose guaranteed" then it should be the game that's known for moving, bunting, strategy, and long tactical battles. A rule change that goes against that doesn't make sense for 1 pocket, the same way that playing behind the line in 9b and spotting balls wouldn't make sense for a game that's meant to be fast-paced and "1-mistake-and-you're-done".
· We have living proof in the case of 9b that when you tinker with rules to speed up a game, sometimes you end up with a game that's so drastically different that it's not even fair to call it by the same name. Old school rollout 9b is pretty much lost to us forever because we changed the game entirely to texas express. You could even argue that jump cues rose in popularity specifically because of this rule change. There have been huge consequences (some unintented) that started when someone took the first step down the slippery slope of 'let's tweak this rule to speed things up a bit'. As a result, a great game (rollout 9b) is pretty much dead and gone. It's not that current 9b is bad, but it sucks that our father/grandfather's 9b has been lost.
· There are many plays in 1P that come dangerously close to a scratch, you are constantly parking the CB near the opponent's hole. There's the famous 3 rail kick intentional foul and follow-in scratch intentional foul.
· There are also those little 1 pocket minigames that I find fascinating that would become marginalized a bit with BIH. Think of balls in the kitchen that players maneuver to make bankable, or they'll bunt balls that interfere with the bank, or they'll work a ball into the corner in the hopes someone sinks it and leaves a spot shot. When you get BIH then all of those moves were pretty much meaningless, you're not gonna bank anything and you can just play those balls in the kitchen straight down into your pocket. You're not gonna have to worry about making the spot shot. It's exciting when someone who needs more than is currently available near the foot spot plays wild zigzagging pinpoint position on balls way up near the head rail, and then makes the tough cut. Very often that starts because they had to sink the balls at the bottom of the table with their behind the line shot and then move uphill from there. But if they can start uphill the position play to get to the remaining balls at the other end is not nearly so difficult or interesting. Think of stuff like the ballsy and tricky play of cross-banking the 2nd ball into your hole when 2 balls are spotted. That play's a lot less ballsy when you can set it up from a foot away and leave the opponent stuck if you miss. There's the long thin cuts that are just missable even by experts, where you're firing at shots near the foot rail from the kitchen and you must have nerves to shoot at them knowing you'll sell out if you miss. There's looking for dead ones because you either don't have a shot, or the balls doubled up to form an ugly combo, or you can sink something but there's just no way to play shape (at least not without drilling it and risking a miss). All those little bits and pieces that make 1 pocket fascinating will be decreased in some way, even if they don't go away entirely.
Hope that explains my POV. My opinion is maybe not worth as much as some others as I don't play 1P a ton, but I do watch a lot of it and think it's a beautiful game. And I find that at the highest levels, time is less of an issue... Nick Varner notwithstanding. Look at JS's games vs scott frost just recently. Look at almost any efren match.
· First, I think woody has it right. If a director wants to run a specific local tournament and he's footing the bill in terms of prize money or whatever, then it's within his rights to change rules. It's not unlike someone deciding to make the finals of a double elim. tournament a single match instead of a must-win-twice situation. Instead of saying the TD can go screw himself, we could say that if players don't like this rule change, they can go screw themselves and play in someone else's tournaments. The guy with the wallet makes the rules.
But for general one pocket rules and for major, serious tournaments, you should play by the rules that have been in use forever. These rules may not be standardized (like everything in pool) but they are universally used because they work. There are balanced.
· One clue that they work well is that the same rules have been in effect many years, changing much less often than 9b for example. And I'm a big fan of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. A long game isn't my idea of 'broke' because A: it was probably meant to be that way and B: even forgetting about what the rulemakers intended, players seem to enjoy it that way and feel the game is fair, long or not. If they didn't, it would not be a major tournament or gambling game. Games with unbalanced rules where the winner is random or that favor one player too much (let's say poker pool or cowboy or whatever) do not rise to the top and hit the coveted 'top 5' ranks of major serious pool games. Just by virtue of hanging around for a long time and maintaining (or increasing) in popularity, it's likely that 1P rules are fine and should not be unbalanced with a major change. I can't say for sure this change would 'ruin' the game, but rules are a delicate ecosystem where even a small change can have major consequences on the overall game. If you find a set of rules that works and stands the test of times, it should not be screwed with.
· We already have a few games where you foul = you lose, and there is no reason or major demand to change other pool games to follow this philosophy. I'm not saying it's a bad philosophy, I'm just saying there should be games that allow for a foul, and games that don't. If any one game (out of all the available games) should adhere to the idea that "one foul doesn't necessarily mean you lose guaranteed" then it should be the game that's known for moving, bunting, strategy, and long tactical battles. A rule change that goes against that doesn't make sense for 1 pocket, the same way that playing behind the line in 9b and spotting balls wouldn't make sense for a game that's meant to be fast-paced and "1-mistake-and-you're-done".
· We have living proof in the case of 9b that when you tinker with rules to speed up a game, sometimes you end up with a game that's so drastically different that it's not even fair to call it by the same name. Old school rollout 9b is pretty much lost to us forever because we changed the game entirely to texas express. You could even argue that jump cues rose in popularity specifically because of this rule change. There have been huge consequences (some unintented) that started when someone took the first step down the slippery slope of 'let's tweak this rule to speed things up a bit'. As a result, a great game (rollout 9b) is pretty much dead and gone. It's not that current 9b is bad, but it sucks that our father/grandfather's 9b has been lost.
· There are many plays in 1P that come dangerously close to a scratch, you are constantly parking the CB near the opponent's hole. There's the famous 3 rail kick intentional foul and follow-in scratch intentional foul.
· There are also those little 1 pocket minigames that I find fascinating that would become marginalized a bit with BIH. Think of balls in the kitchen that players maneuver to make bankable, or they'll bunt balls that interfere with the bank, or they'll work a ball into the corner in the hopes someone sinks it and leaves a spot shot. When you get BIH then all of those moves were pretty much meaningless, you're not gonna bank anything and you can just play those balls in the kitchen straight down into your pocket. You're not gonna have to worry about making the spot shot. It's exciting when someone who needs more than is currently available near the foot spot plays wild zigzagging pinpoint position on balls way up near the head rail, and then makes the tough cut. Very often that starts because they had to sink the balls at the bottom of the table with their behind the line shot and then move uphill from there. But if they can start uphill the position play to get to the remaining balls at the other end is not nearly so difficult or interesting. Think of stuff like the ballsy and tricky play of cross-banking the 2nd ball into your hole when 2 balls are spotted. That play's a lot less ballsy when you can set it up from a foot away and leave the opponent stuck if you miss. There's the long thin cuts that are just missable even by experts, where you're firing at shots near the foot rail from the kitchen and you must have nerves to shoot at them knowing you'll sell out if you miss. There's looking for dead ones because you either don't have a shot, or the balls doubled up to form an ugly combo, or you can sink something but there's just no way to play shape (at least not without drilling it and risking a miss). All those little bits and pieces that make 1 pocket fascinating will be decreased in some way, even if they don't go away entirely.
Hope that explains my POV. My opinion is maybe not worth as much as some others as I don't play 1P a ton, but I do watch a lot of it and think it's a beautiful game. And I find that at the highest levels, time is less of an issue... Nick Varner notwithstanding. Look at JS's games vs scott frost just recently. Look at almost any efren match.