seelesscacti
Member
In the Bonus Ball thread, BigTruck posted this link to a match from a tournament from 1992. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qphuIlYQgk
The game and tournament format as far as I could gather was: Slop 9 ball, loser breaks (except if a 9 ball is made on the break), no safeties/after a miss incoming player can make other player shoot again. There is no race to a set number of games, but rather there are two 20 minute halves. There is a 20 second shot clock on all shots (25 seconds if you are incoming player), time runs unless a timeout is called, and each player has one timeout per each half.
I usually get bored after awhile of watching 9 ball matches (but will watch hours of one pocket), but I thought this was an interesting, exciting, fun format that would almost certainly capture the interest of television viewers more than a standard 9 ball match. But apparently it didn't, because I've never heard or seen anything like this -- because if it worked, tournaments like these would have been on ESPN instead of 7 ball.
I think a lot of traditionalists will think that the rules suck by inhibiting intricate safety play, but I would say that this just becomes a different game. My real question is (and I know some of you may have been at this event) how many tournaments in this format were held and why didn't it work? Were not enough Meucci Shot Clocks sold and it was called off?
What was the reception -- did traditionalists just hate it and videos weren't sold? Did it not attract new people to pool? What did the players think about it? Basically, what exactly was wrong with this tournament format?
The game and tournament format as far as I could gather was: Slop 9 ball, loser breaks (except if a 9 ball is made on the break), no safeties/after a miss incoming player can make other player shoot again. There is no race to a set number of games, but rather there are two 20 minute halves. There is a 20 second shot clock on all shots (25 seconds if you are incoming player), time runs unless a timeout is called, and each player has one timeout per each half.
I usually get bored after awhile of watching 9 ball matches (but will watch hours of one pocket), but I thought this was an interesting, exciting, fun format that would almost certainly capture the interest of television viewers more than a standard 9 ball match. But apparently it didn't, because I've never heard or seen anything like this -- because if it worked, tournaments like these would have been on ESPN instead of 7 ball.
I think a lot of traditionalists will think that the rules suck by inhibiting intricate safety play, but I would say that this just becomes a different game. My real question is (and I know some of you may have been at this event) how many tournaments in this format were held and why didn't it work? Were not enough Meucci Shot Clocks sold and it was called off?
What was the reception -- did traditionalists just hate it and videos weren't sold? Did it not attract new people to pool? What did the players think about it? Basically, what exactly was wrong with this tournament format?