New game: 8-ball Surrender

Hickok

Hickok

Still shootin'
Yesterday at my customary Wednesday afternoon game of pool with an old buddy, I suggested we try a new twist on the game of 8-ball. We both enjoy games of strategy - chess, cards, you name it - and it's not unusual for one of us to come up with something new to try.

8-Ball Surrender:

A. Your favorite rules of 8-ball are fine.
B. Winner of a rack scores 8 points. Except...
C. At any point in the game, you may SURRENDER.
You concede the game for a discount equal to the number
of stripes (solids) your opponent has remaining on the table.

Example:
Your opponent is at the table with FOUR stripes.
You believe he is likely to run out. (70%) (90%) ?
You surrender, taking a FOUR ball discount.
Game over.
Your opponent scores 4 points: 8 minus FOUR ball discount = 4.

We played to 50 points. I lost 52-14 = $38 stuck. The surrender rule didn't seem to corrupt the game of 8-ball itself. We did notice right away however, that you're forced to reveal your opinion of your opponent's game - something I hadn't anticipated.

But neither one of us could get a handle on whether/when surrendering might be advantageous with respect to the running score.

It seems to me that if you're playing a champion who breaks, makes a ball, and is looking at a wide open table, you would do well give up right away while it's still cheap ... no matter who you are.

On the other hand if you're playing a beginner, I can't imagine surrendering ever being correct ... no matter who you are.

I'd like to believe that there's a middle ground where one can save a couple points here and there, but who knows? I'm tempted to offer a wild guess that a Surrender is a 95% sucker move. But I'm going to wait until I hear from jsp and Andrew and others before embarrassing myself publicly.

Dear Abby:
Do you think we should continue to search for Surrender strategies on Wednesdays ... or just get a life?

Hickok
 
Just what we need is another 8 Ball Game to Confuse me like 8 Ball with the 15 & 1 Option. But the game does sound interesting.....
 
Additional Twist to Surrender

How about an additional rule for surrender such as the shooting player has the option to accept your surrender or go for the run out. If he succeeds he gets 11 points (8 for the win + 3 for a bonus). If he fails you get the surrend amount originally offered. Please let me know what you think.
 
Another new game - 6-Ball w/ 10 balls.

Hickok - Try this new game out and let me know what you think of it.
This is played with one 1-ball & one 6-ball. But all the oher balls - 2, 3, 4 &5 have two of each on the table.
More to this than you might think as both 2-balls have to be made to go on to the 3's.

Let me know.

TY & GL, OHB
 
Hurm. Interesting. Definitely throws a whole new dimension of strategy in.

Guda said:
How about an additional rule for surrender such as the shooting player has the option to accept your surrender or go for the run out. If he succeeds he gets 11 points (8 for the win + 3 for a bonus). If he fails you get the surrend amount originally offered. Please let me know what you think.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting twist as well - though slightly flawed. Let's say you break, come up dry - opponent steps up to the table. He's got eight balls to run. You call "surrender!" Your opponent would either have to accept (which means no score, re-rack) or go for the eight-ball run - either he makes it (11 pts to him) or fails (back to the original score, zero). With such a rule, people would call "surrender!" immediately after the break every time, and the game would trickle on based on what balls get sunk on the break.

Perhaps the way around that is to not allow a surrender to be called until the opponent has a minimum # of balls down (say, four, for example). That way, there's always a minimum score you could get if surrender is accepted, and it's less likely to be called in a sneaky-bastige manner. :)

The rule on calling surrender is, you can do it anytime? Or just when the opponent is stepping back up to the table? If anytime, then that leads to other strategies for the guy at the table, trying to delay the surrender offer - i.e. playing to run out but making it LOOK like he's NOT going to run out. Take a shot, make a ball, and leave yourself with a shot, but not a stupid-simple shot - something that a) you know you can make and b) you're betting your opponent thinks you WON'T make. And you'd have to do this practically every shot until you are so close to a run out that your opponent calls surrender just on principle, to save a point or two.

All the above assumes I understand what you guys are doing in the first place, of course. :)

Tricky!
 
For Billiards Drills?

Hickok said:
Yesterday at my customary Wednesday afternoon game of pool with an old buddy, I suggested we try a new twist on the game of 8-ball. We both enjoy games of strategy - chess, cards, you name it - and it's not unusual for one of us to come up with something new to try.
Click to expand...

I'd like to add this to Billiards Drills (see sig), if you'd care to submit it. Or, provide authorization here along with whatever information you'd like credited to you (your name, a link to a site if you have one, etc.). I'll link to this thread as well.
 
OldHasBeen said:
Hickok - Try this new game out and let me know what you think of it.
This is played with one 1-ball & one 6-ball. But all the oher balls - 2, 3, 4 &5 have two of each on the table.
More to this than you might think as both 2-balls have to be made to go on to the 3's.

Let me know.

TY & GL, OHB
Click to expand...

If this your own idea, I'd say you're odds on to take down the 2006 AZ First Place New Game Idea Trophy or 2AZFPNGIT as the nits would spell it.

I do like the sound of it. This could give someone like me a chance to run the table once in a while. Maybe. Interesting... We'll definately give it a try next Wednesday.

BTW

I stumbled into a bar about 20 years ago - it was in or near Florissant I believe. The bartender told me that "this is the bar where Busch League started" (APA now). Was that true, or were they trying to jerk me around? I figure an OldHasBeen who lives in St. Louis ought to know.
 
This sounds like a very fair handicap system for 8-ball. It would take a better player longer to win and give the lesser skilled player more chances to win.

Also I suppose to balance things out even more, you could have a one sided surrender where only the lesser skilled player can surrender but the highly skilled player can not. So whenever the lesser skilled player would win, they would get the full 8 points because the better player could never surrender.

And then I suppose for a less lopsided match, allow the better player to only be able to surrender at a certain point like 2 balls left to shoot or whatever. So the maximum the better player could reduce the lesser players score would be two points per win.
 
iacas said:
I'd like to add this to Billiards Drills (see sig), if you'd care to submit it. Or, provide authorization here along with whatever information you'd like credited to you (your name, a link to a site if you have one, etc.). I'll link to this thread as well.
Click to expand...

I just checked with my attorneys. They've informed me that since Surrender is not legally a 'drill', to represent it as such would be like "wagering on the number of worms in the can". Those bastards never seem to be able to give me a straight answer.

Anyhow, nice web site there! Good luck with it and all...
 
Hickok said:
I just checked with my attorneys. They've informed me that since Surrender is not legally a 'drill', to represent it as such would be like "wagering on the number of worms in the can". Those bastards never seem to be able to give me a straight answer.

Anyhow, nice web site there! Good luck with it and all...
Click to expand...
Well, I may post it anyway. If you want to be identified as more than "Hickock" let me know. :)
 
iacas said:
Well, I may post it anyway. If you want to be identified as more than "Hickock" let me know. :)
Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to be a smart ass there, but I guess it may have come cross that way. My appologies to everyone in the group - except the lawyers, of course.

Yes, by all means do as you please.

Hickok
 
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