Mandatory Push after the break?
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I have a hypthetical question...let's say you have to push after the break. If you hang the 1 ball on the break, what are your options other than hiding the cue and getting that shot back or giving the rack away? Seems like a lose/lose situation to me. I know it aint gonna come up often, but what if it's hill/hill?
And I know we can play 'what if' all day. But I'm thinking a player might be giving away some games that would be his if he didn't have to push after the break.
L8R...Ken
And I know we can play 'what if' all day. But I'm thinking a player might be giving away some games that would be his if he didn't have to push after the break.
L8R...Ken
I suggested mandatory-push-out-after-the-break to some friends privately about three years ago. Then I learned that Accu-Stats had been playing a weekly tournament with that rule for some time, I believe. I think CJ has spoken of mandatory-push-out-after-the-break somewhat positively on this Forum. Mandatory-push-out-after-the-break and one-push-out-on-any-ball would solve two of the biggest problems that right now make nine-ball tedious. The first problem is the drama of the rack. The second problem is that many nine-ball racks are trivial run outs for professional players when they once get the cue ball in hand after a foul. For me, these two factors have made professional nine-ball nearly unwatchable.
Pool sold its soul to Television when it changed to Texas Express long ago. It has turned out that Faust goes to Hell anyway. The shift from one-shot-push-out-on-any-ball in nine-ball to Texas Express was as if the NFL had agreed to have five downs instead of four on each possession in order to keep its TV contract. The scores in the game would be higher, and maybe the audience would be larger, but the audience wouldn’t be watching football.
Contributors to the Forum often say that what is exciting about nine-ball is a player running a six-pack. Six-packs are not interesting. They are impressive. A six-pack is interesting only if you are in the Calcutta.
What IS interesting in pool and billiards is hill-hill. Last weekend I watched a three-cushion billiards match on the Web. The finals came down to two of the greatest players in the world tied at 49-49 going to 50. For four innings these two players were so seized with tension that they could not make points which at 20-20 would have been hangers for them. One player hit a ball so badly that after three replays I still can’t tell how he ever expected that stroke to result in a point. Finally one of the players managed to fluke into the game point. The audience erupted. It was like Reyes making that famous two-rail kick against Earl. This is what makes straight pool so interesting when the players both get within about fifty or sixty balls of the end. Whoever is at the table is the favorite, and the thing that determines the winner at that point is not technique but heart. This elevates the game from an advanced form of tiddlywinks to a sport. The one-shot-push-out-on-any-ball rule and the mandatory-push-out-after-the-break rule would produce more matches that came down to the wire, where the action really is.
Most of the contributors to the Forum, I am guessing, are too old to remember when nine-ball was played under the one-shot-push-out-on-any-ball rule. Most of us have never seen nine-ball played with mandatory-push-out-after-the-break. And yet these contributors are convinced that these changes would ruin the game. They are like people who have never eaten an oyster but are sure they hate bivalve mollusks. Here’s a suggestion. Try playing a set or two with these rules. See how it goes. Ask a tournament promoter to try them. It’s not like getting the name of your girlfriend tattooed in large letters across your chest. You can always go back to Texas Express or the racking game.
PS: Shot clocks should be forbidden in pool. Shot clocks belong in basketball and football. Having a shot clock in pool is like having a shot clock in baseball.
Pool sold its soul to Television when it changed to Texas Express long ago. It has turned out that Faust goes to Hell anyway. The shift from one-shot-push-out-on-any-ball in nine-ball to Texas Express was as if the NFL had agreed to have five downs instead of four on each possession in order to keep its TV contract. The scores in the game would be higher, and maybe the audience would be larger, but the audience wouldn’t be watching football.
Contributors to the Forum often say that what is exciting about nine-ball is a player running a six-pack. Six-packs are not interesting. They are impressive. A six-pack is interesting only if you are in the Calcutta.
What IS interesting in pool and billiards is hill-hill. Last weekend I watched a three-cushion billiards match on the Web. The finals came down to two of the greatest players in the world tied at 49-49 going to 50. For four innings these two players were so seized with tension that they could not make points which at 20-20 would have been hangers for them. One player hit a ball so badly that after three replays I still can’t tell how he ever expected that stroke to result in a point. Finally one of the players managed to fluke into the game point. The audience erupted. It was like Reyes making that famous two-rail kick against Earl. This is what makes straight pool so interesting when the players both get within about fifty or sixty balls of the end. Whoever is at the table is the favorite, and the thing that determines the winner at that point is not technique but heart. This elevates the game from an advanced form of tiddlywinks to a sport. The one-shot-push-out-on-any-ball rule and the mandatory-push-out-after-the-break rule would produce more matches that came down to the wire, where the action really is.
Most of the contributors to the Forum, I am guessing, are too old to remember when nine-ball was played under the one-shot-push-out-on-any-ball rule. Most of us have never seen nine-ball played with mandatory-push-out-after-the-break. And yet these contributors are convinced that these changes would ruin the game. They are like people who have never eaten an oyster but are sure they hate bivalve mollusks. Here’s a suggestion. Try playing a set or two with these rules. See how it goes. Ask a tournament promoter to try them. It’s not like getting the name of your girlfriend tattooed in large letters across your chest. You can always go back to Texas Express or the racking game.
PS: Shot clocks should be forbidden in pool. Shot clocks belong in basketball and football. Having a shot clock in pool is like having a shot clock in baseball.
Make the 1 ball while pushing, you have to push, nothing says you can't make a ball (maybe the made ball should spot?)
you are wrong.
it was 3 rails!
And 2foul/ pushout pool is silly. It has been discussed too much on here already.
it was 3 rails!
And 2foul/ pushout pool is silly. It has been discussed too much on here already.
You can edit posts...and I am not sure your generalization is accurate.
But I am sure it is funny: Most of the contributors to the Forum, I am guessing, are too old to remember when ...teehee.
I met Paul Turner when I was 14 and was friends with him up until the day he left us. With that being said, he was a rack mechanic for sure and showed me one or two of his tricks. You could look at the rack all day and not find anything wrong until you broke and they didn't have much action to them much less make anything. If you have any doubts about this ask people he played, most just scratched their heads and said I cant figure it out!!
It makes sense, and here is the logic.
Think about in general what makes a game--any game--a good game. We could be talking about pool, golf, tennis, wrestling, bowling...whatever.
Take the top 100 "players" in the world, and ask the question, what VARIABLES determine the variance in performance amongst the group. Bear with me here.
In pool, for example, there are a number of at-least-partially independent skills:
A. ballmaking
B. patterns/shot choice
C. kicking
D banking
E racking/breaking
F concentration/focus
G performance under pressure
H safety play
I self awareness
Consider 9-ball on a bar box
If you analyzed 100 B-level players, you would find several of the the above contributing to the variance amongst the players. This means players in general could improve by getting better at any one of the above skills. That's a quality game. 9-ball on a bar box is a quality game for B-level players.
Now if you took the top 100 players in the world playing 9-ball on a bar box, you would find that a particular player getting better at banking or better at ball-making or choosing better patterns makes no real difference. These players have for all intents and purposes all maxed out on these skills for this situation. The variance in performance is nearly all determined by the variance in racking/breaking. And the only real way to move up the ladder is to get better at that.
This is a shame, because racking/breaking is a less rich less subtle skill than many of the others.
Of course because racking/breaking has been so important to the outcome, we see it as an important skill. But it's only an important skill because of the way we've structured the game.
The reality is instituting the simple mandatory push out rule makes the simple game much more sophisticated, and makes the variance at a high level determined by many more of the above skills.
8-ball is another example. At my level, it is an excellent game. But at the top level, you can most of the time just look at the break shot and do pretty well guessing the winner. That's a problem. My solution for 8-ball, which I'd like to try with some top players, is to use shorter races but institute the following rule:
The shooting player right after the break has the choice of choosing the suit or shooting. If he chooses the suit, the other guy starts shooting. If he chooses to shoot, the other guy tells him whether he's stripes or solids.
This is kind of an 8-ball version of the mandatory push-out rule.
Seeing someone take 2-3 minutes to rack and fire in the wired corner ball is not my sense of a good entertainment. Then the same people of course pattern rack so the runouts are extremely similar. Remember Donny Mills playing Shane. When Donny broke he made the same ball every time but once. Then the racks would all look the same. I guess that is OK if that is what you wanted to see. Of course those 2 were gambling they made their own game and I had no stake in it I just mention that as a well known example of someone who mastered the rack and break combo. Donny Mills plays great under those conditions.
I think mandatory push would have made Efren that more dominant back in the day he never had the big break and without doubt he was the best kicker in the game when he first appeared on the scene.
The reason to play must push is it becomes a shooting/playing game.
I grew up playing where if you got hooked you could "push" the cue ball into another area and your opponent had the option of shooting or making you shoot. This was at anytime in the game
The older players preferred this to BIH .
At my level either is fine, I feel like if I have the advantage then I have the advantage either way.
It's all good with me
The older players preferred this to BIH .
At my level either is fine, I feel like if I have the advantage then I have the advantage either way.
It's all good with me
It's too much to police every rack and check for micro gaps. Neutral rackers are great if you can get them. I really only play 14.1 and one pocket, so I'm speaking from neutral ground.
The forced push eliminates the "BS" ritual players go through before the break. It also totally eliminates the luck aspect of the break.
I disagree with the notion that such a rule favors the lesser player. I think it favors the best player and lessens the importance on a single shot's outcome on a game.
I quit playing rotation games because I personally think the rules are goofy. I think balls should be spotted on fouls and I also think 9ball push-out rules were the way to play. TV kinda ruined it.
I think Hopkins said it best when he said pool was the only sport where when you scored, you kept the ball.
The break is disproportionately important in rotation games. Who's the better player... a dude with a 10 for a break and 7 for run out ability or a dude with a 7 break and 10 for run out ability?
I didn't vote because I'm not concerned with the outcome. I'm just saying I totally get both sides and I'm surprised more don't as well.
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I voted "Yes", assuming that we are talking about pro players here.
With your regular pool player it doesn't matter what you do.
Quite frankly if two players (shaw and archer) decide that they wana try this rule then let them be. Why make all the fuss about this ?
I have seen people bit**ing about everything it goes from 3 foul rules, to jump cues, 9 on the break, pattern rack and god knows what ... We need to learn that the game is evolving and the only way to figure out a correct path is by doing some experiments like in this case.
With your regular pool player it doesn't matter what you do.
Quite frankly if two players (shaw and archer) decide that they wana try this rule then let them be. Why make all the fuss about this ?
I have seen people bit**ing about everything it goes from 3 foul rules, to jump cues, 9 on the break, pattern rack and god knows what ... We need to learn that the game is evolving and the only way to figure out a correct path is by doing some experiments like in this case.
I understand both sides of this argument. I think watching either be played at a high level is fun to watch. The biggest down side to this, to me at least, is that you take out some of the pop to the game. It's like watching a 3 par golf, or golf with out drivers. Or B-ball with out dunks, football with out big hits.
With out package potential, and big booming breaks, I think you loose some of the game. I'm not sure what you loose can be made up with a safety battle.
bests,
Justin
With out package potential, and big booming breaks, I think you loose some of the game. I'm not sure what you loose can be made up with a safety battle.
bests,
Justin
No way. You can bet that if a neutral racker were used the playes would be scrutinizing the rack then. Ive seen it. A lot. Why would it be so different if the players were scrutinizing each others?
I like the mandatory push for short races, but for longer races, no push.
I think it makes great sense for weekly bar tourneys where time is a consideration: you want short races so the tourney doesn't last until after closing, but players want at least a chance of winning.
If I did a race to 3 9-ball on a bar table, the time would be perfect, but the chances of someone running the set are too high (not necessarily a 3-pack mind you, but I've seen SL4s break the 9 ball in back to back, then end up with a wired 2-9 combo), but if the races are, say, to 6 or 7, we won't finish until 4 am. By adding the mandatory push, it gives me the chance to run a tourney that ends at a reasonable hour, and still gives every player at least 1 shot per game.
So, I guess I'm voting for simply adding it as yet another way to play 9-ball?
I think it makes great sense for weekly bar tourneys where time is a consideration: you want short races so the tourney doesn't last until after closing, but players want at least a chance of winning.
If I did a race to 3 9-ball on a bar table, the time would be perfect, but the chances of someone running the set are too high (not necessarily a 3-pack mind you, but I've seen SL4s break the 9 ball in back to back, then end up with a wired 2-9 combo), but if the races are, say, to 6 or 7, we won't finish until 4 am. By adding the mandatory push, it gives me the chance to run a tourney that ends at a reasonable hour, and still gives every player at least 1 shot per game.
So, I guess I'm voting for simply adding it as yet another way to play 9-ball?
My same argument for not being able to win a game on the break. This lucky breakshot could certainly ruin a beautiful hill-hill match.
Good point!!!
Maniac (seen it happen too. more than a few times.)