Things That Make You Go Hmm !

drsnooker

AzB Silver Member
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Of course referees must not rely on vague memories when written rules are available. Here is the pertinent section for snooker:

5. Playing from In-hand
To play from in-hand, the cue-ball must be contacted by the tip of the cue from a position on or within the lines of the “D”, but it may be played in any direction.
(a) The referee will state, if asked, whether the cue-ball is properly placed (that is, not outside the lines of the “D”).
...
This means that if the cue-ball is exactly on a line of the D, it is deemed to be legally placed. Further, if the cue-ball is exactly on the yellow or green spot, it is placed legally for playing from in-hand.

It seems that the referee training mentioned above was contrary to this part of the rules.
Perhaps, but I was explicitly told that the spots are not part of the D. The D is the lines (and arc). The spots are separate from the D and on club tables the spots may be outside of the D. The rule you quote only talks about the lines, not the spots.
All that said, it is clear from the overhead camera that the cue ball was placed outside of the D and the foul was called correctly. Not sure if it should have been a miss as well....
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
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... The rule you quote only talks about the lines, not the spots. ...
I believe the yellow and green spots are on two lines, a curved one and a straight one. It would make no sense to exclude their intersection.

As for the overhead view, the camera will make any ball look like it is farther away from the center of the view than it actually is. I don't know how much error that introduced to the image we saw, but I wouldn't want to make any conclusion until I understood that better.

Vafaei of course should have asked when he placed the ball close -- there is no good recourse once he has shot.
 
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drsnooker

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Okay I think I finally understand the issue... The intersection IS part of the D. However, the spot is not necessarily at the intersection. A good example was the PanAmerican snooker championships in Montreal earlier this month. The spots were indicated by a sticker placed on the cloth. You do not see that in the pros. But on club tables, owners do this all the time to increase the time between redo-ing the tables.

I agree with your point about TV cameras. And the actual referee has much better than 4K vision and had the absolute best view of the location of the cue ball. But if one wants to disagree with the ref (for some reason) you need to do better than "I don't like the BLANK, therefore it is incorrect". "I reject your reality and substitute my own" was cute when Adam Savage used it, but seems to cause a whole lot of uncivilized discourse these days.
 

drsnooker

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Further analyses of the incident with Hossein, plus some other interesting rule tidbits that don't come up a lot.

 
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Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
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Further analyses of the incident with Hussein, plus some other interesting rule tidbits that don't come up a lot.

Interesting video. I think we still can't be certain about the D foul placement.

In the case of the dropping red at 5:37, pool has a specific waiting time for the shot to end when a ball is hanging on the brink. It is five seconds after the balls (apparently) stop moving. In the case in the video, the time -- if the video timing is accurate -- was 4.6 seconds, so by the pool rule the red should be replaced.
 
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