Nine ball racking

[L.S. Dennis]

I was watching an Alcaide/Shaw game today from Jeddah and I happened to notice that every time the referee racked the balls the 2 ball was always a wing ball and the 8 ball was always in the back regardless of who was breaking. Does the WNT have a rule for this or is it solely up to the discretion of the referee on how the balls are racked?

 

[straightline]

Patter racking is forbidden by the official 9-ball (not nineball) regulations. And there is a perfect solution for an experiencded referee, if one works at a certain match. One of the refs here at Jeddah does possess this useful knowledge btw, and it was nice to see (and no, it is not Marcel).

I'm curious as to what influence those racks had. Shaw had a concern about maybe the refs magic touch. Shaw nor Alcaide voiced any concern about the ball patterns nor progressions from rack to rack.

 

[Bob Jewett]

If you look at how the balls are breaking, there are so many secondary collisions that the pattern, if any, probably has minimal effect.

I don't think the ref had any bad intent, but that should have been covered in the ref training.

 

[maha]

as long as he is doing it the same for both parties all is fair.

 

[straightline]

If you look at how the balls are breaking, there are so many secondary collisions that the pattern, if any, probably has minimal effect.

I don't think the ref had any bad intent, but that should have been covered in the ref training.

I did notice instances when the low balls landed longitudinally opposite the higher balls. Also a duhpihany that the touch on the break can be as precise as basic shot control