Shane Has Won World Titles
- Thread starter OLD NO 9
- Start date
Agreed. He will just one of be favorites, not THE favorite, and he will win some of the time, collecting but certainly not mass producing WPA title.
Shane might have a better chance to win world titles if there...
- actually had been a ten ball world championship since 2011, or
- an eight ball world championship since 2012
The fact is, in the past few years, there haven't been very many WPA world titles to win.
Oops..almost forgot that there was also no WPA nine ball championship in 2008 or 2009, nor was there a ten ball event in 2010.
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Good point, sir. The matter of this year's World 8-ball tourney became a matter of some personal embarrassment, but there was a happy ending for me.
The World 8-ball event was on the WPA calendar for the third week of August. When I noticed it, I called the World 14.1 tournament sponsor Michael Fedak to advise him that his event and the World 8-ball championship were booked for the same week and that it would surely mean that many of the world's best players would miss the World 14.1 event.
Michael called World 14.1 event producer Dragon Promotions and the result was that the World 14.1 event was rescheduled for the first week of August.
When the World 8-ball Championships were cancelled, I felt a bit silly, having made so much work for all of them.
The irony here was that the World 14.1 had been originally been scheduled over the same weekend as Darren Appleton's wedding. It's rescheduling permitted him to participate, and he won the event and $13,000 and. far more importantly, I owned him in the Calcutta!
I don't think it's that simple. Mathematically, alternate break doesn't make any difference at all -- it just changes the order that the racks are played, but if each player has the same sequence of wins and losses on their own break, then the same player would win in either format. And the race length at the WPC isn't much shorter than the US Open.
I think the biggest factors are, first, that there are more world-class players at world titles than in the US Open, and second, that Shane is more comfortable in the US, and at the US Open in particular.
You are implicitly assuming that each rack is an independent trial, I would disagree. Pool is one of the few sports where momentum has been statistically demonstrated. Being able to keep a guy in their seat along with the ability to stay at the table and "catch" a gear will have an impact. Therefore, winner break tends to amplify any advantage (over a match) and effectively reduce variance. Having said this, your other two reasons are clearly important factors as well.
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That's true. I am not taking into account momentum or any other psychological factors. I mean strictly mathematically. I am curious as to how momentum has been statistically demonstrated. It certainly feels like momentum is real, but statistical proof is a different thing.
I'm not sure, though, that the existence of momentum favors the better player. Couldn't it just as easily be the weaker player who benefits from the momentum? It seems that momentum would have the statistical effect of shortening the race, meaning more variance rather than less. In other words, in alternating break, the weaker player would have to actually beat the odds, but with winners break, the possibility that the weaker player could catch a gear would be a "short-cut" to winning an upset.
Very well said!
Regarding statistical evidence of momentum in Pool,
Adams, R.M. "Momentum in the Performance of Professional Tournament Pocket Billiards Players." International Journal of Sport Psychology 26 (1995): 580-87
Here is the abstract...
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Studied evidence of positive momentum in the performance of 45 professional pocket billiards players in a 9-ball tournament. Three relationships were examined: (1) The likelihood of winning a match after having won the opportunity to take the opening break shot, (2) the likelihood of winning a match as a function of winning the opening game(s) of the match, and (3) the effect of making all 9 balls in 1 turn at the table without giving the opponent an opportunity to shoot. The existence of a momentum-like phenomenon was supported. Players had a significantly greater likelihood of winning a best-of-21 match after having won the 1st game or the 1st 2 games in the match, and they had a significantly increased probability of winning a game by running all balls after having won the previous game by running all balls. The differences between these findings and previous results obtained for basketball players (T. Gilovich et al, 1985; R. M. Adams, 1992) are discussed. (French, Spanish, German & Italian abstracts) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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And while momentum can benefit either the better or worse player, the reason it tends to help the better player more often is because the better player has a higher unconditional probability of winning.
So while momentum could help either the better or worse player catch a gear, since the better player is more likely to win any particular game, it helps him more often.
Interesting. Thanks for the cite. I still don't see that the existence of momentum necessarily favors the stronger player, depending on what "momentum" actually means statistically, it could go either way. It's true that the stronger player has a better chance of "catching a gear", but since the stronger player also has a better chance of winning in the absence of momentum, this doesn't resolve the question of whether momentum increases or decreases the stronger player's overall odds of winning a match. For example, in one extreme thought experiment, imagine if the momentum was so strong that the player who wins a rack has a 99% chance of winning the next rack. In this case, a race to eleven would be effectively reduced to a race to 1, because the winner of the first rack would catch an unbeatable gear every time.
Obviously, that's an extreme and unrealistic thought experiment. Just saying that it's not clear that the stronger player benefits.
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Absolutely, you can definitely construct models of momentum (such as the one above) that actually confer an advantage to the lesser player. But I think most models that scale probabilities realistically will advantage the better player. In any event, I will give it some more thought.
I don't know which way it would go, but I'm interested in your thoughts. Like you said, models can be constructed either way (and I doubt that the statistical evidence about momentum will be strong enough to distinguish between the kind of momentum that favor stronger players and the kind that favors weaker players). I also suspect that it doesn't make all that much difference, it seems like a second-order kind of effect. Basically, if you have a 55-45 single rack win percentage over me, then I don't think that the momentum effect in a race to 11 would effectively push that to even 56-44 or 54-46. In practice the difference is probably that some players are more "momentum players" and others are more "even keel" players and winner break favors the former over the latter.
I actually prefer winner breaks from just a sporting/aesthetic point of view. I think it's exciting when players string racks, and I like that it's easier to come back.
Regarding the magnitude of the effect, you're almost certainly correct. Its an interesting topic.
hi
Well, Efren Reyes is getting old....
Otherwise we would not talk about other names...
Well, Efren Reyes is getting old....
Otherwise we would not talk about other names...
to be more specific, that's 5th-8th place. or simply "quarter-finalist".
Ok...here is a thought.
Let's first make some assumptions about a hypothetical pool universe. (although somewhat unrealistic, it'll be useful)
A1. There exist n+1 pool players in our hypothetical universe.
A2. All games played between players 1 through n are independent 50/50 coin-flip propositions with the break conferring no advantage to anyone.
A3. However, for the n+1 player (we'll call her Jane), when she breaks, she wins 60% of the time. And, when she does not break, she wins 50% of the time.
With these assumptions, we let the pool season begin. We'll have everyone play everyone a bunch of times, record the statistics, and compile them at the end of our hypothetical pool year.
When we analyze those statistics, we will discover some interesting findings.
F1. In aggregate, it will seem as if the break is to everyone's advantage.
F2. With winner break rules, we will see evidence of momentum. (large for Jane, small for everyone else)
F3. When compared with Alternate Break rules, Winner break will seem to confer a big advantage to the better player (Jane).
The explanation for this is quite simple.
By construction the break confers an advantage to Jane. However, since everyone plays Jane during the season, it will seem as if the break benefits everyone. Why? because when you're breaking, Jane isn't. This by itself is sufficient to generate the findings above.
Furthermore, this model can be generalized by relaxing assumption 2, and we can even have several Janes thrown into our pool universe. However, the basic result will still hold.
If the break is consequential in pool, and a few competitors have a significant advantage in breaking, you will find evidence of a break advantage for everyone, and with winner break rules, both momentum, and what will look like an amplification of skill variation.
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LOL Shane himself has said he has not won world title. He is a nice guy and saying that he has is an embarassment to him.
-1 Idiotic post of the day. Same poppycock. Just like a kid throwing tantrums when he does not have his way :thumbup:
+1
That is scotch doubles so can say he is 50% there. He will get his world title soon if he continues his top notch performance and excellent work ethic
so to round up for the newbies:
SVB has no world title
SVB playing on US soil in a rack your own event with a tough field but nonetheless not a world event is the favourite
SVB playing in a magic rack or ref rack ie world champs or mosconi is record is very average
extra bonus- svb played cocoy in Thailand money match before world champs cocoy wanted to use magic rack shane wanted to use wooden rack, so they flipped for it and svb won therefore used wooden rack.
WHO in there right mind would use wooden rack opposed to magic rack for 10 ball if you were not a rack artist?
SVB has no world title
SVB playing on US soil in a rack your own event with a tough field but nonetheless not a world event is the favourite
SVB playing in a magic rack or ref rack ie world champs or mosconi is record is very average
extra bonus- svb played cocoy in Thailand money match before world champs cocoy wanted to use magic rack shane wanted to use wooden rack, so they flipped for it and svb won therefore used wooden rack.
WHO in there right mind would use wooden rack opposed to magic rack for 10 ball if you were not a rack artist?