US open ?

[spartan]

You might be right, I don't really know, but the tables aren't purchased for the event, they are rented, meaning that the bulk of the expense is shipping them, the number of trucks (and fuel) needed to do so, and the amount of room they take up, both in the trucks and on the floor.

I'm not defending the use of 7ft tables, but I do understand that there is a very considerable difference in the cost of using 9ft vs 7ft.

Whats the solution? Higher entry fees? Lower payouts?

Hard place -[CSI] -Rock

Maybe there should be a Airbnb or über equivalent where home rooms nearby can rent out their 9ft tables

I think the root problem is there is no unification of the sport. If the pro's only played one game, which today seems to be 10 ball, there would only be ONE US Open, ONE World Championship, etc.

As it is, there is currently and very recently a US Open for 8 ball, 9 ball, 10 ball, One Pocket, and there is a world championship for 8 ball, 9 ball, 10 ball, and Straight Pool (when there was enough money).

I wonder if we'd be better off playing only one game on the professional tournament level, and combining all the money from the other game into that single game. Just a thought, I certainly don't have the answers But to even consider something like this, the whole sport needs to be unified.

Agree that unification is necessary but not so much in unifying the disciplines but more in unifying associations , players , rules, equipment , tours
The most popular discipline now for pros is still 9b
Last 10 years there was big hype about 10 ball - there were bunch of tourneys like World 10ball, Ultimate 10 ball but hype also died off. Until the World 10 ball was revived by manny this year, there was no World 10 ball for number of years and the big 10 ball tourneys for last few years were All Japan, CSI US open 10 ball 2013 all on 9ft. Bigfoot is an excellent 10ball tourney but it is invitational
:grin:

 

[spktur]

Hey Mark, It's your event, your added money and you're doing the work, call it what ever you damned well please. Enjoy

 

[hang-the-9]

I do not understand all the hate against pro's playing on bar tables, especially with tight pockets. They are two completely different games. I would rather watch the good players handle clusters and play strategy then see break and runs on a 9ft table with more room to work the table.

There is a time and place for that, they have a bar table championship, maybe one more out there is OK. But calling something the US Open, without "bartable" in the name and then for an event that was on 9 footers, that is a bad thing.

I'm against state championships for juniors being on 7 footers, never mind a big pro event.

I think it's a bit telling that even though Mark has posted plenty of times, he is staying out of these threads. There is really nothing much to say about it aside from the fact that just about everyone agrees the change to 7 from 9 was bad and it was done because there is just not a cost benefit to keeping things on 9 footers and have special arrangements made for them.

Some may say the 7 footers are there because that is what the league players play on and they "understand" them, but league players that only see 7 footers don't even know what size table they are on, just that the 9 footers look oddly large to them. I was not there but I'd like to hear about how well attended the pro event was on the 7 footers, I'm thinking there would be no change.