"Speedo" One Pocket Tournament?

[Cory in DC]

I'm looking at starting up a monthly blind draw, handicapped, scotch doubles one pocket tournament in DC. My concern is that a race to 1 is too short, and a race to 2 would run too long.

Freddy the Beard has a game he calls Speedo One Pocket. Fortunately, the title refers not to the required attire, but rather a set of rules (click here to see them) designed to prevent an uptable game by spotting balls in certain situations.

Does anyone have much experience playing with these rules? How effective are they at preventing long games? How much do the Speedo rules change the basic nature of the game?

And while I've got your attention, if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on the handicap system I came up with, I'd appreciate hearing them. See the attached pdf file.

Cory

 

[jnav447]

I love Freddy's Speedo rules and tried unsuccessfully to implement 'em with the guys I play with. What you will find, I think, is that the guys that can't run out, who thrive on the "old man's game" style of pushing balls up table and waiting til you run out of patience, will absolutely not have anything to do with changing the basic precepts of 1P. I found the players like me, who like quicker, up-tempo games, loved the Speedo rules, the people who play the "old man's game" flat refused. I haven't given up; in fact, my goal is to drive all the up-table guys into retirement...that style of 1P is boring, unsweatable, and keeps new people from wanting to learn the game. Hopefully, you can present the Speedo rules more coherently and persuasively than I did. IMO you're doing God's work; good luck.

 

[Egg McDogit]

hey Cory, sounds like fun - lemme know if you get it together. Might take some time to explain the rules to everyone...what about a race to 2 playing 6-6 or 5-5 or something like that?

I'm looking at starting up a monthly blind draw, handicapped, scotch doubles one pocket tournament in DC. My concern is that a race to 1 is too short, and a race to 2 would run too long.

Freddy the Beard has a game he calls Speedo One Pocket. Fortunately, the title refers not to the required attire, but rather a set of rules (click here to see them) designed to prevent an uptable game by spotting balls in certain situations.

Does anyone have much experience playing with these rules? How effective are they at preventing long games? How much do the Speedo rules change the basic nature of the game?

And while I've got your attention, if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on the handicap system I came up with, I'd appreciate hearing them. See the attached pdf file.

Cory

 

[Cory in DC]

hey Cory, sounds like fun - lemme know if you get it together. Might take some time to explain the rules to everyone...what about a race to 2 playing 6-6 or 5-5 or something like that?

Good, I hope you and the Russian can make it. Once everything is set, I'll make another post here and perhaps PM the people who I know are in the DC area. As far as your 6-6 and 5-5 idea, if you look at the handicap chart you'll see that in matches where both teams have low total handicaps the races go down to 7-7, 6-6, or 5-5, depending on how low.

 

[1 Pocket Ghost]

I'm looking at starting up a monthly blind draw, handicapped, scotch doubles one pocket tournament in DC. My concern is that a race to 1 is too short, and a race to 2 would run too long.

Freddy the Beard has a game he calls Speedo One Pocket. Fortunately, the title refers not to the required attire, but rather a set of rules (click here to see them) designed to prevent an uptable game by spotting balls in certain situations.

Does anyone have much experience playing with these rules? How effective are they at preventing long games? How much do the Speedo rules change the basic nature of the game?

And while I've got your attention, if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on the handicap system I came up with, I'd appreciate hearing them. See the attached pdf file.

Cory

Cory, At Grady's legends of one pocket tournament 2-1/2 yrs. ago, Grady tried implementing his own similar variation of "speedo one pocket" - I played in it - those rules sucked - everybody hated it.

I've run handicapped one pocket tournaments, and races to 2 don't take all that long....but if you feel the need to, just shorten the races as you said, or use a time clock when needed....read my next post....

 

[Tom In Cincy]

How about a race to 20 balls made. You can handicap accordingly 20-18, 20-14 and so on, depending on your skill levels.

When a rack is completed (15-0 or 8-7) the team that is behind in ball count gets the break.

To make it quicker.. you could have BIH any where for any fouls.... scary huh?

Let us know what you decide and how it turns out...

 

[1 Pocket Ghost]

I love Freddy's Speedo rules and tried unsuccessfully to implement 'em with the guys I play with. What you will find, I think, is that the guys that can't run out, who thrive on the "old man's game" style of pushing balls up table and waiting til you run out of patience, will absolutely not have anything to do with changing the basic precepts of 1P. I found the players like me, who like quicker, up-tempo games, loved the Speedo rules, the people who play the "old man's game" flat refused. I haven't given up; in fact, my goal is to drive all the up-table guys into retirement...that style of 1P is boring, unsweatable, and keeps new people from wanting to learn the game. Hopefully, you can present the Speedo rules more coherently and persuasively than I did. IMO you're doing God's work; good luck.

jnav447, With all due respect, you are dead wrong....The game of one pocket is not broke, and does not need to be fixed.....You say > "that style of 1P is boring"....well then you either don't love, or don't understand the game....You say > "keeps new people from wanting to learn the game"....on the contrary, one pocket is more popular then it 's ever been.

As to your "old man style argument" - that's a tired old, incorrect argument......First of all, I also like to be aggressive when I play, and I like to bank balls, which, as everyone knows is a huge part of one pocket - When the balls go up table, it's not an "old mans game" at that point - along with moving, it's mostly a straight back, 2-rail, and 3-rail Banks game - it favors strong, creative bankers with good eyes, not old men - these "speedo rules" would eliminate half of the banking in one pocket - you think Bugs, or Eddie Taylor, or Gary Spaeth would have liked the "speedo game" - I don't think so.....And second of all, I don't think players like Scott Frost, and Cliff, and Shannon Daulton, and all the up-n-coming young guns have any problems playing aggressively with the original, perfect, time-honored rules.

 

[Cory in DC]

How about a race to 20 balls made. You can handicap accordingly 20-18, 20-14 and so on, depending on your skill levels.

When a rack is completed (15-0 or 8-7) the team that is behind in ball count gets the break.

To make it quicker.. you could have BIH any where for any fouls.... scary huh?

Let us know what you decide and how it turns out...

Now that's a very interesting idea (the ball in hand idea seems too devastating, though). Just carry the score over from one game to the next. It seems like it wouldn't mess with the fundamental nature of the game as much as using Speedo rules.

* I guess balls owed, if any, would carry over?

* Would I need to go more in favor of the weaker team in terms of the handicaps? Would the weaker team have a better shot at winning a race to two getting 10-6 than winning a carryover match at 20-12 balls needed?

* Has anyone ever been in a tournament that worked this way? How was it?

* Also, what about the idea of fouls cancelling out balls owed. I.e., if I foul and you owe a ball, then instead of us both owing 1, we both owe zero? So at most one team would ever owe any balls.

Cory

 

[Tom In Cincy]

* Has anyone ever been in a tournament that worked this way? How was it?
Cory

I ran this format for mini-One Pocket tournaments last year at the Hard Times Summer Jamboree. All the players loved it.

Santos Sambajon won two of his matches 15-0 and Jose Parica one a macth by the same score.
There were 8 players per mini then I started another mini. There were 4 one pocket mini-tournaments before I filled the only 9 ball mini (won by Mike Davis). Lots of players liked the format.

 

[jnav447]

1 Pocket Ghost: You make a pretty good case and I can't necessarily disagree with everything but a couple of points: the Speedo rules don't really take much banking away since the majority of the balls that would be spotted are right in the pocket area (I can't imagine Freddy, of all people, coming up with a rule that would eliminate banking); 1-pocket played by great players is never boring IMO, but if you have a couple of mediocre players and one or both of them are just moving balls uptable instead of even looking for anything creative or offensive, then it becomes an hour or hour and a half game of tedious boredom, for all but the most diehard 1P lovers; I'm certainly not trying to advocate changing the rules of 1P, only responding to a thread inquiry about the feasibility of using the Speedo rules for one local tournement; and, lastly, a lot of what I said in my previous post was borne of frustration at a couple of guys I played with that, I felt, did not try to do anything with the game other than duck (and I was in a learning mode, we weren't really gambling for anything..if you're gambling then I say win at any cost, but this wasn't like that) - I promise you, if you HAD to play 1P with those 2 every day, you'd either kill 'em or take up bumper pool. Anyway, at least we're talking about 1P so it can't be all bad. Peace. Jeff.

 

[1 Pocket Ghost]

1 Pocket Ghost: You make a pretty good case and I can't necessarily disagree with everything but a couple of points: the Speedo rules don't really take much banking away since the majority of the balls that would be spotted are right in the pocket area (I can't imagine Freddy, of all people, coming up with a rule that would eliminate banking); 1-pocket played by great players is never boring IMO, but if you have a couple of mediocre players and one or both of them are just moving balls uptable instead of even looking for anything creative or offensive, then it becomes an hour or hour and a half game of tedious boredom, for all but the most diehard 1P lovers; I'm certainly not trying to advocate changing the rules of 1P, only responding to a thread inquiry about the feasibility of using the Speedo rules for one local tournement; and, lastly, a lot of what I said in my previous post was borne of frustration at a couple of guys I played with that, I felt, did not try to do anything with the game other than duck (and I was in a learning mode, we weren't really gambling for anything..if you're gambling then I say win at any cost, but this wasn't like that) - I promise you, if you HAD to play 1P with those 2 every day, you'd either kill 'em or take up bumper pool. Anyway, at least we're talking about 1P so it can't be all bad. Peace. Jeff.

Hey Jeff, You have my utmost sympathy....the two guys that you play with won't shoot at their hole, and you're not even gambling - that's the nittiest thing I ever heard, and you can tell them I said so...

...if you're at the DCC next year, we can play some, and we'll both fire away at our holes ! Peace, Ghost