Long post, but something I recently did that I found interesting...
I've been in a slump for several months now, with a few flashes of mediocrity in between but nothing too exciting. Decline in practice, lack of competition, etc. all played a part. I took a break over the holidays, and did some thinking about how to attack my first practice session when I got back, what I did differently before vs now, etc. Happy to report that 3 days running now it looks like "I'm back"! Running out much more often, making far fewer mistakes, and the ones I am making are immediately recognizable and correctable, unlike before when stuff was just happening seemingly randomly.
Anyway, because of my slump, the difficulty of this game was really thrown in my face. Especially when you reach a certain level and have certain expectations, you see how minor drops in focus or execution can impact things severely. For instance, at one point I think I went several practice sessions without a single runout. I would make good shots, even series of shots, but there was always that one mistake that would stop the run, and it could come at any point. Frustrating for sure.
So I started thinking about probabilities of running a rack and how consistency impacts it. Hopefully my math and assumptions are correct...
The probability of running a rack of 9 ball should be equal to the each of the invidiual shot probabilities multiplied together. So assuming ghost-type format, if no balls are made on the break you have 9 shots, so 9 individual probabilities multiplied together to determine the overall likely runout percentage. In my estimation, a top pro would be 90 - 99% on most shots to both make the ball and achieve position on the next ball, assuming they stay in line. If we average that out to 95% for each shot, then they would have a 63% chance of running the rack. Again, this is a ghost-style format with BIH to start, not an expected break and run percentage in competition. This seems reasonable, top players would typically beat the 9 ball ghost in a race to 9 unless the balls were breaking poorly, their chances would be even better because they are making 1 or 2 balls on a lot of the breaks. So don't bet against a top player playing the 9-ball ghost!
If we drop the average down to 90%, which might be a good average for an A player, the runout percentage drops to 39%. Again, pretty reasonable, and again these players would typically do well against the ghost (your percentage would only need to be just over 50% to beat the ghost in a race), especially making balls on the break etc. For a B player, whose average might be in the 75% - 80% range, the overall runout percentage drops dramatically to 7% - 12% making beating the ghost very difficult to achieve.
If the same top player above with an average 95% shot percentage gets out of line once, forcing them to shoot a 75% shot (3 out of 4 chance to make and get position), their runout percentage for that rack drops from 63% down to 50%. If that one shot is even more of a flyer, say 50% (which they almost never shoot these days), it drops to 33%. Having three slightly harder shots in the runout, say in the 75% - 80% category, is equivalent to having just one very hard shot, so it shows the merit in playing safe instead of taking that flyer to try and get out.
I calculated a pretty typical rack for myself and came up with a 27% runout percentage. That seems about right, I beat the ghost in a race to 9 a third to half the time, and when I lose it's usually somewhere between 9-5 and 9-7. Again, factoring making balls on the breaks, differences in how the balls spread (some racks are just easier than others), etc.
It's pretty simple to throw together a spreadsheet and start playing with percentages to see what happens. I wasn't really trying to overanalyze things, more than I already do, but I had the thought and I was able to draw some good conclusions from actually seeing the results on paper. First, the game if fricking hard! But we all know that… Mathematically it really shows how improving your consistency on your weaker shots will improve your run out percentage more than further improving your already strong shots. It shows the value in shotmaking or position drills with the intent to make more and more shots routine and repeatable. Reading the rack and pattern recognition in order to keep each invidual shot percentage as high as possible. It reinforces the value in playing safe when faced with a difficult shot, and shows the foolishness in trying to get out by making one spectacular shot after another. More than anything, it shows the extreme importance of the mental game and the need to stay focused on every shot and not take anything for granted.
Scott
I've been in a slump for several months now, with a few flashes of mediocrity in between but nothing too exciting. Decline in practice, lack of competition, etc. all played a part. I took a break over the holidays, and did some thinking about how to attack my first practice session when I got back, what I did differently before vs now, etc. Happy to report that 3 days running now it looks like "I'm back"! Running out much more often, making far fewer mistakes, and the ones I am making are immediately recognizable and correctable, unlike before when stuff was just happening seemingly randomly.
Anyway, because of my slump, the difficulty of this game was really thrown in my face. Especially when you reach a certain level and have certain expectations, you see how minor drops in focus or execution can impact things severely. For instance, at one point I think I went several practice sessions without a single runout. I would make good shots, even series of shots, but there was always that one mistake that would stop the run, and it could come at any point. Frustrating for sure.
So I started thinking about probabilities of running a rack and how consistency impacts it. Hopefully my math and assumptions are correct...
The probability of running a rack of 9 ball should be equal to the each of the invidiual shot probabilities multiplied together. So assuming ghost-type format, if no balls are made on the break you have 9 shots, so 9 individual probabilities multiplied together to determine the overall likely runout percentage. In my estimation, a top pro would be 90 - 99% on most shots to both make the ball and achieve position on the next ball, assuming they stay in line. If we average that out to 95% for each shot, then they would have a 63% chance of running the rack. Again, this is a ghost-style format with BIH to start, not an expected break and run percentage in competition. This seems reasonable, top players would typically beat the 9 ball ghost in a race to 9 unless the balls were breaking poorly, their chances would be even better because they are making 1 or 2 balls on a lot of the breaks. So don't bet against a top player playing the 9-ball ghost!
If we drop the average down to 90%, which might be a good average for an A player, the runout percentage drops to 39%. Again, pretty reasonable, and again these players would typically do well against the ghost (your percentage would only need to be just over 50% to beat the ghost in a race), especially making balls on the break etc. For a B player, whose average might be in the 75% - 80% range, the overall runout percentage drops dramatically to 7% - 12% making beating the ghost very difficult to achieve.
If the same top player above with an average 95% shot percentage gets out of line once, forcing them to shoot a 75% shot (3 out of 4 chance to make and get position), their runout percentage for that rack drops from 63% down to 50%. If that one shot is even more of a flyer, say 50% (which they almost never shoot these days), it drops to 33%. Having three slightly harder shots in the runout, say in the 75% - 80% category, is equivalent to having just one very hard shot, so it shows the merit in playing safe instead of taking that flyer to try and get out.
I calculated a pretty typical rack for myself and came up with a 27% runout percentage. That seems about right, I beat the ghost in a race to 9 a third to half the time, and when I lose it's usually somewhere between 9-5 and 9-7. Again, factoring making balls on the breaks, differences in how the balls spread (some racks are just easier than others), etc.
It's pretty simple to throw together a spreadsheet and start playing with percentages to see what happens. I wasn't really trying to overanalyze things, more than I already do, but I had the thought and I was able to draw some good conclusions from actually seeing the results on paper. First, the game if fricking hard! But we all know that… Mathematically it really shows how improving your consistency on your weaker shots will improve your run out percentage more than further improving your already strong shots. It shows the value in shotmaking or position drills with the intent to make more and more shots routine and repeatable. Reading the rack and pattern recognition in order to keep each invidual shot percentage as high as possible. It reinforces the value in playing safe when faced with a difficult shot, and shows the foolishness in trying to get out by making one spectacular shot after another. More than anything, it shows the extreme importance of the mental game and the need to stay focused on every shot and not take anything for granted.
Scott
