Watching professional pool, do you prefer winner break or alternate break?

Watching professional pool would you prefer winner breaks, or alternate break?

  • Winner breaks

  • Alternate break

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You can play variations. Say, play alt breaks or loser breaks till one player is on the hill. Then switch to winner breaks. If the trailing player makes a comes back and ties the score, the winner now must win by two to determine the match.

If you really want to, you can fashion a set of rules that are really fair as well as enjoyable by the spectator.

I believe no matter how you play a final should be win by two and iliminate hill hill.

Whether you play winner breaks, loser brakes, alternate brakes or however. The flaws in these rules show up when put into practice. That's why most rule books seem so long because you have to fix things so they work in most all circumstances. It can't really be all one way or all the other.

Rules can't be ambiguous if you can't explain why a rule exists and it's not a very good rule.
 
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Before i hated winner breaks... now i prefer it... just because the talent of any player who can run several racks is enough to prove it. However, only at long games, as 11 or 13 minimun to guarantee that both players will have a chance.
 
891014+1 said:
i hated winner breaks... now i prefer it... just because the talent of any player who can run several racks is enough to prove it. However, only at long games, as 11 or 13 minimun to guarantee that both players will have a chance.
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Multiple sets like two out of three or three out of five fix that. The sets can even be short it allows a player who if he gets behind and gets blown out a chance to come back in the next set.
 
I wish I could say that I prefer winner breaks always, but the truth is that the countless rack mechanics have made it inadvisable. As long as a referee is racking the balls, I prefer winner breaks, but the case for alternate breaks is a strong one when the players rack the balls.

Thankfully, in major tournament play, referees are doing most of the racking these days, so we've nearly evolved past the dispiriting era in which rack mechanics enjoyed a significant edge.
 
This discussion reminded me of .... When Efren came to the States he gave the 8 and the breaks to any and all.
 
Winner breaks. I’ve tried to enjoy Alternate break for 15 years but I just can’t. I mean, it’s fine and better than no pool at all. But it’s just boring unless players are trading racks.

But to grow the game I think that winner breaks is critical. Most cue sports that have thrived at any point in history as a spectator sport has had some sort of high run component. Alternating breaks preclude this important element. Unless you count alternating packages, but I never hear anyone talk about those.
 
That’s like asking if toilet paper should hang off the front of the roll or the back.

Winner break is just the way it is and should only be deviated from for specific reasons.

I have a cat who likes to play with the TP roll so I have to leave it backwards when I’m not in the bathroom, it just stays tight when he paws at it. But once I sit down, I flip it so it hangs off the front as intended.

How often does someone run out the set? Very rare. Very exciting when it happens. All tourneys should have the option like in turning stone? - where if someone runs the set the opponent gets the same chance.

In a single short race, or playing on 7’ tables at the pro level I can definitely see an argument for alternate B.

It’s a weird sitch though because sometimes you do get the best and most unlikely comebacks in alternate break. To get down 7-1 you had to give up the table a lot and your opponent can lose a gear and do the same. I just feel like it happens a lot less than coming back with winner break.
 
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